Dirt Track Racing 2
Reviewed by Andy Small

Introduction

  Coming home from college my mother calls me on the cell and says “Your game came today.”  This is a game I have been waiting for quite some time to play.  Being sim racing addict I figured this would be another disappointment, but I did not want to wait to find out!   Most of my sim racing knowledge hails from NASCAR sims so racing around on dirt is a bit new to me.

  When I arrive home and open up the box (a very nice scene on it), I throw the manual to the side, (I don’t read those things).  The CD is popped into the drive and that puppy stars to install.  The install process is very straight forward and easy.

System Specs used for this review:

P3-800
Asus TUCL-2 Mobo
256 Megs of RAM
30 Gig Sony Hard Drive
64 Meg ATI Radeon 7200 with latest drivers
Sound Blaster Live Sound Card
Windows XP Pro

Now lets get on to the fun stuff.

GUI (Graphical User Interface)

  Seems a lot of time was spent with the GUI to give the user a feel for what to do.  Some games I have played seem harder to navigate than Microsoft’s website.  In DTR 2 you can run through the menus with ease.  The navigation seems like the wizards that Windows would use, very straight forward.  You know what you are getting into, and you can always go back when you make a “boo boo”.

Sound

  The sound is far more improved than the original DTR!  You can hear the car backfire, and bouncing off the walls may hurt your ears if you have a surround sound system as I do.  From the sound you will get the impression your strapped in that computer chair with your head under a helmet.

Graphics

  This is one aspect of the original DTR that I felt was lacking,  however they have found a sweet spot for visuals in DTR 2.  You do not need a super computer to run this one either.  It easily ran 70 FPS in full traffic with my face full of dirt on my mid range system (see specs above).

Getting suited up:

Single Race Mode

  The first thing I decide to try was the single race mode in this game. Basically you’re put in a car for however many laps you have setup.  You are given no laps to familiarize yourself with the track, and your starting position is given at random.  Being a Papyrus racing sim nut, I am disappointed that the level you can take a papy game to, DTR2 lacks.  “To each their own”, right???

Career Mode

  This is by far the hardest and most fun thing I’ve ever done in offline sim racing.  You start of with 1,500 bucks to create a race team.  You must buy a car (a late model) and begin racing to keep your butt in the seat.  You will have to take care of this ride like it is way to get to work each day.  If not, you won’t make any money.   I found my self sitting up at nights stressing over how to get money to fix my motor!  I have yet to make it to anything other than the cheapest late model.  I don’t think I ever will.  You have to be a darn good racer, and have a lot of patience to get past that level.

  PROS:
1. Improved Graphics, you should not need to upgrade to get good FPS
2. Improved Sound
3. Improved Game play
4. Really cool “Dirt in your face feature”
5. Career mode

  Cons:
1. Lack of “Test Session”
2. No Qualifying in Single race

Conclusion

   DTR 2 picked up right where the original DTR ends, and gives you  the immersion the king of all Sims, NASCAR 2002 does.  However, you will not need to upgrade your mid range system to buy it.  Most serious sim racers will find this game a hoot. I think when I am burnt out on NASCAR 2002 I will be able to fire up DTR2 and have fun with it.  That is, until I am refreshed enough to go into N2K2 with a new outlook.  This sim also gives the novice the chance to start up a new sim and have some fun, which is something I believe NASCAR 2002 lacks!

Go out and buy this game and learn how to go sideways on DIRT!