Any Dirt 5 fans in here? I really shouldn't pick up another game with the backlog I have, but I've always enjoyed the series, especially Dirt 3. The Gymkhana stuff was a blast back then and I'm all for more rally cross as opposed to just straight rally.

Amazon has it on sale for $40 today. Just curious what the consensus was.

I bought Dirt 5 because I wanted a game to play with my Xbox Series X. I played it and liked it okay, but it's just kind of an alright arcade racer (much more arcadey than prior entries into the series.) It has a lot of races, and the weather effects are spectacular, but it also has a weird career mode story that is very boring and not well implemented, and at least on Xbox the sound mixing is terrible, requiring a lot of tinkering to be able to hear the music at all (it has an okay soundtrack) and resulting in a muted mix if you get that working.

It has some neat create a track stuff and messing around with user created tracks is fun.

It also has like 300+ career events so there's a lot of game there (plus online) but it's all very...adequate.

I'd say that if you want a decent arcade racer with good weather effects then it fits the bill, but keep in mind it's more arcadey than prior entries in the series and it just feels inessential. It's one of those games you pick up and there's nothing wrong with it per se (except the sound mixing) and it's fun and good, but not memorable. It's "another one of those."

Overall I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10 and say to wait for a deeper sale (which should be coming) unless you're really hankering for an arcade racer right now. I don't regret my purchase and it's a good game, it's well made and it gives the experience it promises on the box with some good track design and, as I said, some really great weather effects that kind of blew me away. I probably put 10-15 hours into it and will dip back in from time to time when I just want something relaxing and simple to play.

Oh, and the car buying and progression systems are really opaque and bad too. That doesn't matter so much, but if you like racing games to have well implemented and good car variety...this does not. There are a fair number of vehicles in the game, but many classes of cars have a clear 'best' vehicle to use for the races. It does have some fun visual customization options though.

@bigsocrates: that was an awesome response!

Thank you very much. As you suggested, maybe a deeper discount is worth the wait, especially once I'm able to pick up something next gen in 2021.

I enjoyed Dirt 4 and the Rally games, but not nearly as much as 3. I really liked the style and feeling in that game more than others. I'm surprised 5 went with such a bigger emphasis on arcade handling. Don't get me wrong, I like arcade racers (where's my damn Jet Moto remake sony!?)but I feel like the Dirt series always did a nice job straddling between full blown arcade and sim.

@mightyduck: I'd say that it makes a pretty good next gen purchase because a lot of the best parts about it are those weather effects, which I'd imagine are not as impressive on the older hardware.

I think they went arcade because the racing market has changed and I don't know how much room there is for "simcade" racers right now. It feels like you have more serious sims, and then you have arcade racers and the only big 'tweener' series right now are Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, which are both subsidized by the console makers.

It's definitely not Jet Moto levels of arcade but it's less simmy even than something like Forza Horizon 4.

I think the Quick Look Alex did was pretty good in showing what the game is like, and Alex's views on the game seemed to mirror my own. He was sort of like "welp, here it is, and it's fun and there's nothing wrong with it per se, but it's just...kind of another one of these games."

Realizing Dirt 5 was actually developed by the Motorstorm and Onrush studio made the arcadiness seen as an onlooker make sense to me. Haven't played it but it looks a lot like those games and stuff like the Sega Rally games.

I found Dirt 4 really enjoyable with the mix of events and customizable setups also because I hit a brick wall in Dirt Rally due to the auto-difficulty and fixed progression as far as I recall. I haven't tried Dirt Rally 2 but it's in my backlog.

I'm kind of curios about the 4-player splitscreen because that's kind of unique in 2020 but it hasn't been covered much, though not helped of course by COVID-19.

Dirt 5 is a good racer for launch but I wouldn’t say it was worth $40 dollars, the story mode isn’t really there, it’s just a list of racers to do in a set order so I felt like they over sold that aspect of it.

I 100% the game and really enjoyed my time with it but when it was all said and done it just felt like a tick box exercise. Not overly hard and didn’t have all the types of racing that was available in Dirt 4 or Dirt 3.

I would wait for it to go on sale for a little cheaper if possible or wait until after your backlog, you will enjoy your time with it but it won’t be a game you remember for much longer after you have completed it.

@bigsocrates:I need to rewatch the Dirt 5 quick look for sure. While I can appreciate the intricacies of something arcady like OnRush, it definitely didn't stick with me like other Dirt games, which has me a little apprehensive now about jumping into Dirt 5, since it's former devs, correct? Might give it a go once I've snagged a next gen console.

@thesquarepear: Thank you for the feedback. I really enjoyed Dirt 4, just wish there was more rally cross events. I did appreciate the real take they used when it came to rally cross set ups with the joker lap, etc.

@ste89: I think that settles it. I'll hold off until a deeper sale and maybe once I've gotten on board with a next gen console in order to really benefit from the better graphical looks, etc. Thank you for the feedback!

I was able to buy Dirt 5 for 35 euros and was happy with my purchase at that price. It's a competent arcade racer that feels a little thin on content and lacking depth.

The graphics are mostly impressive on the Series X but in parts the game can look quite flat. I played through the single player mode in only a few days which was honestly quite a nice relief in the middle of a lot of playing longer open world games.

I would definitely recommend picking the game up for under 30 euros or so and for anyone more inclined towards racing games 30-40 euros is a decent price bracket.