It’s the Friday update you’ve all come to know and love. That’s right – it’s time for this week’s DiRT Rally Road Book.
Things are stepping up at Codies HQ as the console launch approaches in just over three weeks’ time. We’ll tell you more once we can, but rumours are, we’ll be having sort of large scale event to celebrate DiRT Rally finally hitting consoles! It feels like we’ve been waiting for ages to let Xbox One and PS4 players at it – but now there’s only weeks to go, there’s a huge buzz around the office. Especially because…
We got nominated for a BAFTA!
The British Academy of Film and Television Awards (who also cover games, of course) have nominated us for the Best Sports Game of 2016!
.@dirtgame, @EASPORTSFIFA, @FootballManager, @ForzaMotorsport & @officialpes & @RocketLeague #BAFTAGames pic.twitter.com/Wvcn79EOg2
— BAFTA Games (@BAFTAGames) 10 March 2016
The announcement came yesterday, much to the delight of everyone at Codemasters HQ. We’re absolutely honoured to be nominated in the category alongside some of our most excellent and well-loved peers, and we’d like to congratulate the other nominees for making it into the category too. The awards ceremony itself is the 7th April – so there will be plenty of finger-crossing from now until then. For now, we’re just going enjoy calling ourselves the ‘BAFTA-nominated DiRT Rally’…
BAFTA-nominated DiRT Rally. It has a lovely ring to it, don’t you think? pic.twitter.com/wSbLp3bsND — DiRT (@dirtgame) 10 March 2016
DiRT Rally phone wallpapers
To get you all in the mood for more DiRT Rally, we’ve got more beautiful goodies for you! Kev – our friendly neighbourhood Web Designer – has put together some gorgeous mobile-optimised wallpapers, which you can view and download here. Here’s just a sample of one of the wallpapers on offer…
Don’t forget, if you digitally pre-order on PS4 you’ll also get an epic DiRT Rally theme – plus we’ve already shared our Xbox One backgrounds with you over on Facebook.
The difficult corners of DiRT Rally
PC players and console fans alike can all benefit from this WONDERFUL guide to some of the most difficult corners of DiRT Rally. Our awesome community member @HalfMacSpanner has taken screenshots of the worst/sneaky/difficult/downright nasty corners in the game, which will be super helpful for anyone approaching the stages with a fresh set of eyes.
You can always join the conversation over on the Reddit thread too. Are there any corners not on the list that have caught you out, or does this compilation pretty much nail it?
International press fun
Chief Games Designer Paul Coleman has been extraordinarily busy over these past few weeks, promoting the game all over Europe and the world! He’s been in the US this week spreading the good word of DiRT Rally, and next week him and @Hatward will be in Wales to show some press around the game too.
We’re also seeing more stories and interviews come out from his time with the European press – so if you’re up to speed with your Spanish, this interview with GAME is one of our favourites so far.
PS4 Community Hub
Things are getting nicely warmed up on our console community hubs, especially over on PS4! 69 players (whey!) are now in the DiRTy Gossip Community, so come join us over there. I’ll be posting some screenshots and the like to get you excited for the 1080p glory powersliding onto your consoles soon. And of course, you’re always welcome to add us – you’ll find us on the PSN under dirtrallygame.
Big DiRTy bundle on Steam
Finally, we’ve also got an amazing sale over on Steam. We’ve got the Codemasters DiRT Collection up for grabs, where you can get DiRT Rally, DiRT Showdown, DiRT 3 Complete and Colin McRae Rally at a whopping 45% off. To put that amazing offer into perspective, the entire Steam bundle currently costs less than what it would cost you to buy DiRT Rally boxed. It’s an absolutely awesome offer – we can’t guarantee how long it’ll be running for either, so check it out if you get the chance!
Hangin’ with Hatward
Happy Friday DiRTy people! Busy week in the studio…looking forward to console launch…still working on the PC build…blah blah blah. Honestly I bore myself sometimes. Let’s get down to it shall we?
Ever since we launched Winter Wonderland last year, we’ve had reports of tyres being a little too precious. Some of you wrote this off as being realistic, while many more of you were frustrated and convinced that it would be more realistic if tyres were more robust. Well, we’ve crunched the numbers are we’re putting ourselves in the latter camp. Tyres are currently popping much more than we’d like, so as of v1.1 (on PC) and for launch on consoles, tyres will be able to take much more of a pounding. To give you a little bit of insight into how this system works, there are two values at play that control the chance of tyre problems. One covers a puncture, one covers a burst. If you take enough damage in one hit to cross the puncture threshold, your tyre will go flat. If you take even more damage in one hit (actually, at least double the damage), you’ll get a burst and be down to your rims. We’ve upped both of these thresholds now, so it will take much bigger hits to get a puncture or burst tyre. It’s an elegantly simple system, but these new values should make your experience on stage a much more satisfying (and authentic!) one.
Remember last week, when Keith posted in the PS4 Gossip Thread about planning his custom built racing frame? Well, he’s pulled his metaphorical finger out and started work on his masterpiece. Building a custom frame isn’t unprecedented, but Keith has gone to incredible lengths to get his just right. He’s a member of the GT86 Drivers Club, but by day he spends his time scanning cars and producing 3D models. This put him in the perfect position to replicate the feeling of being behind the wheel of his own car:
“I used a 3D scanning system (laser line scanner) and our software (PolyWorks) to scan the interior of my GT86, followed by scanning of the Logitech G29 peripherals.
Once I had finished scanning, I then manually aligned, by eye, the scans of the G29 parts to their relative positions within my car. Once roughly aligned, I could then use PolyWorks to measure the mating faces and fixture holes so I could then export that information out into a CAD package called Solidworks. From there, I could then design the frame around these key locations using primarily 30x30mm aluminium extrusions.”
How cool is that?! If you’re working on your own custom build, or if you just want to share your home setup with us, feel free to get at us in the usual places.
That’s about it from me – catch up with you all next week.
<3 Hatward
Screenshot of the week
Did you know that we don’t just give you cars in DiRT Rally, but planes too? Sure, you can’t fly on them – but they make pretty impressive obstacles as you’re throwing your vehicle through the tight tarmac corners of Germany. Check out Zero-X’s beautiful black-and-white shot of the Sierra side-by-side with the Panavia Tornado.
Video of the week
Here’s a cracking top 10 run from Youtuber Gian in Monte Carlo – it gets a little hairy at times, but it’s great to see the Peugeot 306 on the limit.
That’s all from us in this edition of the Road Book! See you next week. :)
