As a big fan of arcade racing stuff like NFS or Forza I was raped by this game really hard.

Not only I had to learn to drive from scratch but also it forced me to pay full attention to the game. That meant I couldn't watch movies on the background or talk to someone at the same time anymore.

DiRT Rally also made me fall in love with cockpit view. Even though I don't have a racing wheel and had to play with gamepad, it was still much easier to look at the track from inside the car (even controls somehow felt more responsive).

Never ever I was driving so slowly and accurately because damage system in this game is pretty realistic. You can't just hit the tree 10 times and then go to the next stage without any trace of impact. Every component have it's own "health bar" and have to be fixed when needed.

There is pretty cool upgrade system where you simply have to drive a particular amount of Kilometers/Miles in order to unlock a perk for your engineer or make your car lighter. Although sometimes it looks like a grind, if you just keep playing you'll eventually unlock everything you want.

After like 20 hours you start to feel that there is not so much content in this game and every championship just repeats the same tracks and gets longer everytime you get promoted. Spending 6 hours driving with the same bots can easily make you bored. And it is like that with every game mode: rally, rallycross, hillclimb.

After almost 30 hours, here are some tips for new players:
1. Disable assists like ABS and clutch in game preferences. It'll require a bit more control but also make you pass turns faster and prevent you from huge slow down after using handbrake (it also give you more money for disabling assists).
2. Don't reset your car if you fly off and you see the 15 seconds timer. It is always faster to go back on track by yourself wasting only 3-5 seconds rather that getting a massive penalty for reset.
3. If you don't know how to do settings for your car, use pre-made settings from workshop. This helped me a lot when I struggled to get a good time in Sweden location because of the snow. Someone's setup made me pass the stage like 20 seconds faster because the car literally stopped sliding.
4. Learn to understand pacenotes and listen carefully to your fellow co-driver. He can save your life :)

I'm now moving to DiRT Rally 2.0.
God help me.

As a big fan of arcade racing stuff like NFS or Forza I was raped by this game really hard. Not only I had to learn to drive from scratch but also it forced me to pay full attention to the game. That meant I couldn't watch movies on the background or talk to someone at the same time anymore. DiRT Rally also made me fall in love with cockpit view. Even though I don't have a racing wheel and had to play with gamepad, it was still much easier to look at the track from inside the car (even controls somehow felt more responsive). Never ever I was driving so slowly and accurately because damage system in this game is pretty realistic. You can't just hit the tree 10 times and then go to the next stage without any trace of impact. Every component have it's own "health bar" and have to be fixed when needed. There is pretty cool upgrade system where you simply have to drive a particular amount of Kilometers/Miles in order to unlock a perk for your engineer or make your car lighter. Although sometimes it looks like a grind, if you just keep playing you'll eventually unlock everything you want. After like 20 hours you start to feel that there is not so much content in this game and every championship just repeats the same tracks and gets longer everytime you get promoted. Spending 6 hours driving with the same bots can easily make you bored. And it is like that with every game mode: rally, rallycross, hillclimb. After almost 30 hours, here are some tips for new players: 1. Disable assists like ABS and clutch in game preferences. It'll require a bit more control but also make you pass turns faster and prevent you from huge slow down after using handbrake (it also give you more money for disabling assists). 2. Don't reset your car if you fly off and you see the 15 seconds timer. It is always faster to go back on track by yourself wasting only 3-5 seconds rather that getting a massive penalty for reset. 3. If you don't know how to do settings for your car, use pre-made settings from workshop. This helped me a lot when I struggled to get a good time in Sweden location because of the snow. Someone's setup made me pass the stage like 20 seconds faster because the car literally stopped sliding. 4. Learn to understand pacenotes and listen carefully to your fellow co-driver. He can save your life :) I'm now moving to DiRT Rally 2.0. God help me.