Game:

DiRT Rally 2.0 (2019)

Duration: 6:27

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This is the final race of the first championship. I score 1st in the final event, but end up 14th in the Championship. For whatever reason, I score very well in some events, but in others, even though I might drive pretty well, I end up placing in the 20s. I don't get it.

Anyway, after playing in New England, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, I can speak a bit more of how I feel about the variety.

I'm not finding the stages very compelling. If I loved the driving more, or I had people who were very interested in these stages, maybe I'd feel differently. But so far, it lacks the theme park feel of Dirt Rally. Even if some stages in that game frustrated me, they still had interesting things to offer. That theme park feel just is not present to nearly as much of a degree in Dirt Rally 2.0's stages.

Perhaps when I try out vehicles with more horsepower, I might feel differently. But currently, I'm not feeling a strong desire to climb through the ladder of difficulty to advance, because I don't feel like there is a lot to offer. I would play a game like this for different reasons - sometimes to get good drive times, sometimes because I like the car I'm practicing with, and sometimes because I enjoy the movement through the visuals and the environment. Dirt Rally was a varied meal of things that went well together which offered me good things in one area when others failed based on my mood, where Dirt Rally 2.0, despite its graphical upgrades and visuals, is much more bland.

Game wise, I didn't like how I would sometimes drive under the canopy of trees and things would be so dark that I could barely see the road - my 'eyes' should have adjusted to the lowered light (things should have brightened, then darkened again when I emerged into the sunlight). There was another stage in Argentina where it was raining and the light dancing off the road and its puddles made it difficult to distinguish the road from the flat ground to each side of it, so a couple of times I had to slow down or correct myself just because I had a hard time distinguishing things. These are not fun things.

Argentina I would say is the most interesting of the stages in Dirt Rally 2.0, but I don't think it beats even Sweden in Dirt Rally, the stage there that I disliked the most - maybe Monaco, I'm not sure. New Zealand is lovely to look at and has the most graceful roads, I think, but again, it lacks that spark. I did like the mix of tarmac and dirt in Australia, but there wasn't enough tarmac. I really wish this game had that theme park feel to the variety. But, I'll keep playing, and hopefully it doesn't grow on me for artificial reasons, and I find more fun somewhere in it. I've already started a new championship with a Peugeot 205 that I bought used and repaired - I thought I drove pretty fast in Spain on the first stage, but still got 29th place in Open tier. So I don't know what's going on there at all.

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