Dirt Showdown (PS3)
The fourth installment in the Dirt series looks to steer things in a newer direction. While the original focused solely on rally and rally-type events, Dirt 2 and 3 brought in more wacky type things. Stunt challenges, race styles that involved more body and paint rubbing. Now, Showdown looks to essentially drop the rally area all together. With a racing series that's been mostly centric to a specific style of racing, what happens when you ignore that for an installment? Let's find out with Dirt Showdown
Gameplay
As a whole, Showdown feels the same as it's previous three installments. Your main area of gameplay is going to be the Showdown Tour, which brings you over 60 different events to compete in over 4 difficulty ranks. The cars you race in will be provided to you, and as you progress further, additional cars may be unlocked for purchase. These cars can be upgraded as well with the money you earn from the events you participate in. You'll typically have about two to three new events available to race in, and you'll need trophies to unlock more races. I believe that any trophy will do (bronze, silver, gold) but I have an OCD when doing racing games and I refuse to continue on without winning the race/event.
The biggest change comes in the types of races you can participate in. Before it was all rally events, across big expansive outdoor areas zipping through woods and small towns. Now, you'll be in a lot of closed off track-types, surrounded by stadium style seating filled with crowds watching what you'll be doing.
So what kind of events do you get instead of rally? You'll get 8-ball, which are figure-8 shaped tracks that bring a high potential of crashing at the crossovers. Trick rush puts you in the only event with no crowd watching, where you'll need to catch air, smash blocks, drift and pull donuts in designated areas to achieve a high score. There's still some standard race events, called race-off's. But, what's completely new are the few demolition style events that Showdown brings to the table. These are Rampage, Knockout, and Hard Target.
Rampage is a straight up demolition derby. Eight drivers pitted against each other for three minutes. You'll be given a score for what type of hit you make against someone, how hard the hit is, with bonus points being awarded for terminal slams (meaning you've destroyed their car and they need to respawn). Knockout is in the same vein, except the arena you're crashing on is a raised platform. You'll earn points in the same way, with the added bonus of getting to knock your opponents off the platform (don't worry, there are ramps to use to jump back up). Hard Target takes Rampage and puts a spin on it. You are the only target on the field, with the other seven drivers going after you. You get one health bar, so if your car gets destroyed that's it. The goal here is to survive the longest (each driver gets a turn at being the target).
Outside of Showdown Tour, the game offers Joyride and Challenges mode, which are each fun in their own rights, and offer an extension to the gameplay. Joyride puts you in one of two locations, where spread out you'll need to find 100 hidden packages, and 150 missions to complete (these totals are combined for the two areas, not separate for each). Challenge mode is a competitive mode between you and your friends, so depending on how many you have that actively play this game, this mode may be null and void for you.
Hits and Misses
When a change this big is made, there's going to be some things that go off well, and others that...don't. So...what misses with Showdown? Honestly, not much. In fact, nothing at all really comes to mind from my playthrough of the game. Every race and event was a whole lot of fun, and provided enough variety to keep things interesting.Each car I unlocked and upgraded offered new and improved ways to best my opponents. Things started off feeling pretty weird, not having any rally events to participate in. Soon enough though, they become a thing of the past.
It will be interesting to see if things of this nature continue in the Dirt franchise. As of now, Dirt Rally and Dirt 4 have been released, and earlier today Dirt Rally 2.0 was announced and slated for a January 2019 release. I personally hope this style keeps up. If not in a full Showdown 2 then at least in a section of events in one of the later games. Who knows, maybe it's already there in Rally or 4 waiting for me to discover it.
Either way, things stand the same. Dirt Showdown took a big chance, completely changing the racing environment on the fourth game in the franchise. Luckily, it worked and it worked well. Whether you look to play this one on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, you should easily be able to find a CIB copy of this one for under $20, surprisingly the price range drops under $15 if you go to GameStop. Like racing games? Don't miss this one, it's a ton of fun.
It will be interesting to see if things of this nature continue in the Dirt franchise. As of now, Dirt Rally and Dirt 4 have been released, and earlier today Dirt Rally 2.0 was announced and slated for a January 2019 release. I personally hope this style keeps up. If not in a full Showdown 2 then at least in a section of events in one of the later games. Who knows, maybe it's already there in Rally or 4 waiting for me to discover it.
Either way, things stand the same. Dirt Showdown took a big chance, completely changing the racing environment on the fourth game in the franchise. Luckily, it worked and it worked well. Whether you look to play this one on Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, you should easily be able to find a CIB copy of this one for under $20, surprisingly the price range drops under $15 if you go to GameStop. Like racing games? Don't miss this one, it's a ton of fun.
