[Mechanical R]

Downloadable content is something fans have wanted for Codemasters games for a long time. Grid just about managed to deliver some cars at the last minute, but Dirt 1 and 2 fans were left in the lurch with bringing some more life into their favourite of games. Dirt 3 however is set to change this, it’s been announced that on a fortnightly basis content will be released for the Rally/Off road game. So let’s start with what to expect from the Power and Glory pack. First car up is the Ford Focus, designed on the ST model, this Rallycross only gives you an easy middle man to get into the Rally spirit, its fast and easy to handle making it an easy choice for newcomers when you're not quite ready to take on the more older series available. Its quite bulky so you can hold your ground when the race gets a little rowdy since lets face it. Rallycross gets a little collision friendly.



Second in the pack is the Gymkhana specific Scion tC. The Scion is a surprisingly good stunt car for its size, meaning if you're finding those tight drift challenges a little too hard to clear in the larger vehicles like the Impreza and the Fiesta proves too much of a handful, then the Scion might be just what you need. Its easy to drive, packs a punch with the power and doesn’t half look bad power sliding its way through Battersea or Monaco.



Car number three is a little out of the blue. You'd never expect to find yourself taking the long winding roads of Finland in an American muscle car now would you? The Chevrolet Camaro SSX makes its debut appearance in Dirt 3 and what’s probably even more surprising, is that it actually handles really well and not in the traditional 'wrap itself around the nearest tree' type of muscle behaviour. Regardless, the car looks awesome hurtling through the roads, even if it looks a little strange to see such a vehicle almost flutter across the gravel with ease. Sadly the SSX is Trailblazer events only.



The fourth vehicle is the BMW M3 Rally; finally some more iconic 80's rally cars for us to take to the roads in. The BMW's long body makes it tricky to set into a drift but its saving grace is its speed and agility to get around the track earning itself a popular choice amongst the crowd.



So, onto the final car. Group B vehicle the Lancia Delta S4, another icon of the series. The lightweight and nimble vehicle requires a focused and skilled driver to ensure coming out of the end of the race in one piece. But why is this particular vehicle causing a little unrest within the community? Well, eagle eyed viewers may have noticed back when Codemasters revealed the Group B cars in a special trailer a month or so before launch, the Delta S4 made an appearance alongside the Quattro and MG. Upon release, the game featured only three Group B vehicles. The trailer, showed five.



Now without getting into a rant about developers who actively choose to hold back content to allow them to sell it later on as downloadable content. It’s incredibly hard not to look at it, in comparison with the rather small amount of content in which the game itself, selling for £40 comes with and not be a little cheesed off. It begs us to call the question as to whether future DLC will actually have anything that shouldn’t have really been in the game in the first place.

Dirt 3 is ripe for pickings with the amount of content that could be potentially added. Gamers are already crying out for new Gymkhana free roam areas like Battersea Powerstation and more campaign features like more seasons to race in and even just knocking the Driver rep count up from 30, especially since its so incredibly easy to level up.

Each car comes with five liveries, 4 from each will be liveries already in the game and one for each car will be unique to the car.

The Power and Glory pack also comes with two achievements. The 50 gamer points are incredibly easy to earn, with driving all of the cars from the pack and winning a dirt event with a custom set-up. Whilst these are unsatisfyingly easy, having a look in the custom settings area for your car may unlock the gear head in you and can in some cases encourage you trying out your own set up and experimenting to suit your driving style.

Another talking point with this pack is the price. At 480 Microsoft points (around £4), this pack is quite steeply priced for content which is just essentially five cars. Some may see no issue with the price and see it as a way of supporting the developer to ensure they can continue to make more, which I partly agree with. However for future DLC we can only hope they try not to raid our banks too hard or at least give us a little bit more for our money. If not. Codies won’t be making many friends fast.

So where is it all headed? Next week sees the Monte Carlo pack released to let us take on some original Rally stages, but we can only wait to see what else is to come. And at what price? 5 Click here to view the article