Haven't done much else but scratched the surface of this game so far. My summer vacation started this week, and I've been spending about 5-6h/day in this.Tried one event in the new hillclimb mode out, and it went terribly. The sense of speed is AMAZING, but the handling is so different to the regular rally mode. So much that I've actually been afraid to dig in more as I've finally started to get in 3:rd to first place in the rally stages.

Patchnotes:

Month three of DiRT Rally and our next big update is now live. Version v.0.5 – more commonly known as the Tarmac Terrors update – has now been added to DiRT Rally; it’s fast paced, technical and is going to require all your focus. Here’s the full run down of what you can expect in this month’s update.

New:

• 12 new rally stages based at Baumholder in Germany
• Owners Club Online Events – A second DiRT Daily where you compete in your own car
• A second weekly event where we’ll be experimenting and throwing new challenges at you
• 5 new rally cars featuring new Group B RWD & Kit Car Classes
• Opel Kadett GT/E 16v
• Opel Manta 400
• Lancia 037 Evo 2
• Seat Ibiza Kitcar
• Peugeot 306 Maxi
• New calibration and options screens in “Advanced Wheel Settings” (added in v.0.4.5)

Fixes:

Alongside all of our new features we’ve been hard at work tracking cleaning those annoying bugs of the front of the bumper, here’s the full list of what we’ve fixed in this latest version:

• Error 41 – Fixed instances of the game not booting when there is less than 2GB of free space on C:\ drive. This was one of the causes of the dreaded error 41.
• Achievement – “Going up in the world” will now pop if you had previously purchased a Hillclimb car but not received the achievement.
• Stability – Driving the Peugeot 405 T16 would sometimes cause stability issues, we’ve fixed those now.
• Graphics – Quite a few changes for users running Nvidia SLI. That weird black and orange screen bug is fixed and we’ve solved the graphical corruption when using SLI and anti-aliasing on high/ultra graphical presets.
• Graphics – Made the lighting on the sunset routes of Pikes Peak look less… Well… You know.
• Audio – The engine audio level in cockpit view can now be properly controlled by the slider.
• Gameplay – The reset button should appear sooner during those awkward moments when you beach your car at the side of the road. Though we advise not beaching your car.
• Gameplay – Sometimes you could rev the engine so hard on the Audi Sport Quattro the “Recover vehicle” prompt would pop up, it won’t do that anymore.
• Gameplay – We’ve planted some trees and shrubs in areas of Greece and Wales where we spotted that some of you were taking shortcuts. Taking some cuts in rally is cool but these cuts were definitely not cool.
• Gameplay – Fixed a loophole which would let you continually repair your car in Online Hillclimb events.
• Gameplay – Online Hillclimb events will now factor in slower times from Run 2 and they won’t overwrite faster times from Run 1.
• Message box – Stopped the Promotion message box from incorrectly displaying when you have completed the Masters Championship and finished in the top 3 positions.
• Save – Your advanced set ups should now save as expected
• Oculus – Sometimes the background on the main menu would vanish, we’ve fixed that now.
• Online Events – You’ll now be disqualified if you don’t start moving within a minute
• Leagues – Made the text on the league screens easier to read on lower resolutions.
• Audio – Pre-update your co-driver may have become a little disinterested if you left the centre of the track from time to time, we’ve spoken to him about his attitude.
• Audio – Ever had two sets of music play over a replay? That’s not a remix version and it should stop happening from now on.
• Controller Fix – Fixed an issue which meant players couldn’t change the stage conditions when using the Microsoft Sidewinder Wheel.

Gosh darn it I want to pick this up.

Excellent, I put about 30 hours into the first round of content, played a bit of the hill climb, and took a break. Looking forward to jumping back in and seeing the new track.

I've also only competed in 2 Giantbomb league seasons - I need to step it up!

This has been my first early access experience and so far it's been really great.

The new Germany stages are ridiculously fun. They're so fast but at the same time quite challenging. There's a couple really tricky turns in them that you have to be prepared for or else you'll basically total your car (my first go at the stages I did all the sprint stages in a custom event. By the time I hit my first repair, I only had around 5% radiator left because of one high speed crash)

Haven't tried the kit cars yet but the new RWD Group B cars are intense. The Lancia is basically a Stratos on steroids. It's sooooo fast. I was spinning out like crazy in it at first.

I'm glad they fixed the cockpit view audio control stuff. There's a couple cars where before they were so loud it was difficult to hear the co-driver.

Also, I'm pretty sure they stealth updated a couple of the co-driver's notes. A few turns that used to be classified as hairpins are now acute and vice-versa. They still haven't reclassified that damn turn in the Greece that is supposedly a half-length 4 (it's one with a sharp right followed by a more shallow left with a tree in a big drop between the two turns) but is actually way sharper (I did find a way to get by at least, you just go slightly left of the tree and then ramp up back onto the road). I've only hit that turn twice ever, and it was in slower cars. In Group B cars I've basically always flown off, which can be quite frustrating if I manage to keep the rest of the rally clean. It's the only turn I consistently mess up anymore. They need a caution or something because it's way sharper than the other 4s on that stage.

I got the error 41 after I downloaded the update, it was fixed by validating local files.

I have only been able to run few stages in Germany but I'm loving it so far