There have likely been better ideas in the history of the human race than this. You're strapped tightly into a Lancia Stratos, some 325BHP being channelled through its rear axle, and ahead of you lay a thin gravel road that winds through thick Finnish forest. As another sharp rise in the road sends you flying, pine leaves and birch branches tickling the airborne undercarriage, you start to question the sanity of it all.
What's never in doubt, though, is that this is as exhilarating as driving gets. When it all goes well, anyway. Dirt Rally, Codemasters' continuation of a series that can be traced back all the way to 1998's Colin McRae Rally, is quite possibly the studio's first ever full-on simulation after almost two decades in the driving genre: a game where it's important to understand how to dip the weight balance forwards in a front wheel drive in order to get purchase when entering a gravelled corner, or to attune your right foot to the turbo lag found in an raw Group B monster. More significantly, Dirt Rally's a simulation of the true make-up of many motorsports; the excitement doesn't come easy, and it's balanced out by equal measures of fist-pounding frustration.
Dirt Rally can be a savagely difficult game, its months in Early Access earning it the reputation of the Dark Souls of driving games. The full and final release is no more forgiving. The safety net of a rewind button, popularised in the driving genre by Codemasters' own Grid way back in 2008 and a genre staple ever since, is no longer there. For the uninitiated it's a cruel omission, but one completely necessary to the authenticity Dirt Rally is striving for. Mistakes will be punished, and often heavily. You will see seconds slip by as your attention drifts and you overshoot a hairpin; you'll see a whole hour of progress tumbling down a mountainside should you be too brave in the latter stages of a delicately balanced championship.
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