Day 4: Hengist wakes up.

Last night I tried some ranked games. I normally stay away from these games on most titles, as the competition is a tadge too serious for my tastes (that's Hengist code for saying that I'm crap, lol). However, the ranked games of DiRT are cool. The true skill matching system seems to work pretty well. I took a Subaru Impreza on the Canberra rally track in Australia. I was trailing in second place, for about half the stage, but the lead guy must have hit a tree or something, because I edged in front, remained there for the rest of the race and finally came in first with the best time. I can't remember ever winning a ranked match on Live before, with any title. Perhaps the annominity of the event physiologically helped me to victory, who knows? I do know that I've now got the confidence to try another ranked match in DiRT, it was a lot of fun.

I'm just waiting for Revvin and some more SimHQers to buy this title. When I play DiRT it feels like I'm playing a Man's motorsport title (please excuse the implied sexism). Imagine that you're approaching a crest at near 100mph, and you take to the air in a 18 foot high jump, only to land 100 feet, further down the backside of the hill. You've then got 0.5 seconds to battle the wheel and keep the damn car from rolling, before hitting the brakes, whilst crunching those gears down, redlining the engine rev's and making it scream out loud in protest. The wheel shakes, you grip even harder. The tyres screech, the gravel and chippings rattle off your car, invading your concentration. Above all this noise, you suddenly hear your Nav' call out, "Left - 2. Narrows - 1"... GULP!!! Well all I can say is that the pucker factor is pretty high. It's not a motorsport title for the meek, it's a Man's game (or even a butch ladies game, lol).