Colin McRae: DiRT 2

A% Super Moderating Hero: Good afternoon, Eurogamer readers! Gavin Raeburn and Adam Askew are with us now and ready to go. Keep those questions coming.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Hello Gavin! Hello Adam! First things first, can you tell our readers a bit about yourselves and why you are so famous, please?

A% Adam and Gavin: Not sure about the fame bit(!), but we've both been working in the Racing Studio at Codemasters for many years and we love making great games.

Q%DDevil%2616% Why is the i in "DiRT" lower case? It's been bugging me for ages.

A% Adam and Gavin: It's a throw back to the old ToCA name, which had (annoyingly) a lower case 'o', but we thought it looked great in our DiRT logo mock ups, so we ran with it.

Q%MaxHughes%68426% What was working with Ken Block, Dave Mirra and Travis Pastrana like? I've seen Ken Block's driving abilities on the EG TV show and YouTube, they are VERY good!

A% Adam and Gavin: Same as all the professional drivers we met - very focused and enthusiastic about what they do and promoting their sport. It's been great having Ken in the studio playing the game, just as it was with Colin, and he's provided valuable info on improving our physics model.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Who was the best at the game?

A% Adam and Gavin: Ken Block by some margin. This gave us a lot of confidence in the game as Ken picked up the wheel and started driving smoothly and putting in amazing times straight away.

A% Super Moderating Hero: What's the response to the demo been like? Have many people downloaded it?

A% Adam and Gavin: I think we're near a million demo downloads so far. Response to the demo has been very good, particularly the new handling model and new presentation. These are two areas that we've worked really hard on.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Is that a million across both platforms?

A% Adam and Gavin: I believe so, though the PS3 demo came out later than the 360 one in the US. I think we'd had 400k downloads on 360 alone within three days.

Q%jeff%3219% Straight forward question really, why 30fps instead of 60fps?

A% Adam and Gavin: It just allows us to do so much more with the quality of the game in all areas. Squeeze the game into 60fps and you have to make a lot of compromises that knock a lot of the life out of the game.

Q%schmung%194029% I played the demo and the point to point race included didn't have any pace notes, which seems like rather a bizzare design decision, considering not only the series roots as a rallying game where they're an integral part of the sport but the fact that you're asking players to go haring down three miles of barely visible track with only a mini-map for help. Is there a co-driver in the full game in these events or was this a deliberate decision?

A% Adam and Gavin: Yes, we have a co-driver in the game for the rally events, but the demo point to point was actually a trailblazer where there is no co-driver. This is the same as in DiRT 1. In DiRT 2 we have the option of two co-drivers to choose from and also the ability to select simple or complex calls.

Q%Bertie%9946% Do any animals run out into the road and can we run them over and break their legs off?

A% Adam and Gavin: We thought of including some bunny rabbits just for this purpose, but good sense prevailed!

Q%Freelancepolice%32029% Are all the voices American or is their the option to pick your co driver's nationality?

A% Adam and Gavin: We have two co-drivers - one Scottish and one American.

A% Super Moderating Hero: There are a fair few readers after an explanation why DiRT 2 appears to pander more towards an American audience. Does it? Can you offer them one?

A% Adam and Gavin: The DiRT series is trying to reflect the contemporary off-road motorsport worldwide. As with everything, this changes with time and our game needs to change with it to remain relevant. That's why no one watches Charlie Chaplin movies any more!

Q%Exorbit%333348% Colin McRae: DiRT was one of my favorite racing games ever! Will DiRT 2 have split-screen for two people? The only game I can play with my brother is Forza, but it is sooooooooo boring.

A% Adam and Gavin: Split-screen is a surprisingly resource intensive thing to do on modern consoles due to the complexity of what we're doing (e.g. intensive streaming from HDD and optical drive) and rather than compromise the single player experience, we've focused our efforts on making the best online experience we can instead.

Q%tomohoppo1%167519% I was wondering about the ranking system. Are the unlockable items like the fluffy dice and things linked to the ranks? and what is the highest rank we can reach? Spill those rally beans!

A% Adam and Gavin: Yes, we have offline and online XP ranking systems which allow you to unlock the various goodies in the game as you play through it. The highest rank is 999, though it would take several lifetimes to get that high!

A% Super Moderating Hero: Can you give us an example of the goodies on offer?

A% Adam and Gavin: Dashboards items, car liveries, extra cars, special events.

Q%Freelancepolice%32029% Are there any Maseratis in the game and if so do they automatically steer towards walls?

A% Adam and Gavin: Most amusing! No Maseratis in DiRT 2 I'm afraid.

Q%superjag86%143712% Any plans for DLC? The more cars and tracks the better!

A% Adam and Gavin: We've got some non car/track DLC coming soon, though we're looking at options for content packs over the coming months.

Q%silentbob%1521% Your decision to delay the PC edition in order to incorporate DX11 features has furrowed some PC gamers' brows. Will the wait be worthwhile and can we expect a PC demo?

A% Adam and Gavin: We'd have loved to have released all SKUs at once, but the opportunity arose to be one of the first games to offer DX11 support and we didn't want to miss out. DiRT 2 will look great on DX11 hardware and will most definitely be worth the wait.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Is it worth supporting DX11, given that the cards that support it are either not on sale or are ludicrously expensive?

A% Adam and Gavin: For us it is a great opportunity to offer the best tech available and to continue to push our Ego engine. You don't need DX11 to run our game. It will just make it look even better than the DX9 version.

Q%streetmagix%166728% What prompted the move from a driving simulator to an arcade racer? Will you ever go back to your old ways?

A% Super Moderating Hero: We don't see DiRT 2 in either of these categories. We've simply tried to create a game that is as accessible as possible and fun to play.

Q%Spekingur%84727% Will you include dangers such as crowds and photographers during rallying sessions, offline and on? (Can we run over them and break their legs off?)

A% Adam and Gavin: Licensing restrictions prevent us from allowing the player to driver over any people in the game, so no, we cannot do this. Injuries and car safety are very sensitive areas for car manufacturers, whatever the realities of motorsport may be.

Q%superjag86%143712% Non car/track DLC?? Can you be a bit more specific? At least give us a clue!

A% Adam and Gavin: Hmmm, our marketing department would have our fingers chopped off if we leaked our DLC info. We like our fingers.

A% Super Moderating Hero: Oh go on - a teensy weensy clue?

A% Adam and Gavin: OuCH! There goes my little finger...

Q%benstarkie%144287% How hard was the decision to keep using Colin McRae's name after his death. And how have you filled the hole he left? What kind of role did he play?

A% Adam and Gavin: We worked with Colin closely for ten years so his death came as a huge shock, especially with it happening on the launch weekend of DiRT 1 on PS3. Colin had been shaping and growing his career in new ways and was instrumental in introducing rally into the X-Games. He loved off-road racing in all its different guises and this made a perfect fit for our game series. The mood in the team for DiRT 2 was very purposeful after Colin's death and we were determined to make a great game that reflected his enthusiastic and forward thinking approach to motorsport and would be a fitting tribute to him.

Q%Amused2Death66%355936% Hi - we know that there are 9 locations in the game. Specifically though we do not know how many rally tracks per location. Is it just one rally track per location.

[And...]

Q%SnoopDop%156442% Is Morocco one of the selectable countries?

A% Adam and Gavin: We've tried to keep a good spread of disciplines in each of the nine locations, though some are more focused on certain disciplines. Most locations will have two rally tracks, and then of course we have trailblazer point to point races as well.

Not sure if the Morocco nationality (flag) is selectable as a country. We try and include as many countries as possible where we know our game will be played in any significant number.

Q%Marfish%29049% Hello,

Have played the demo and it's pretty damn tasty. Has anyone tried it with Logitech GT Pro? And what other peripherals will the game support on PC? Best Regards, Good luck with launch.

A% Adam and Gavin: We've got a list of supported controllers on our website and we've gone to great lengths on DIRT 2 to tune them all to within and inch of their life. Wheel support is particularly good in DiRT 2 for those that own them.

A% Super Moderating Hero: OK! Time for Adam and Gavin to go. But not before answering one final question.Adam and Gavin, would you rather have lasers for eyes or be able to turn invisible, and why?

A% Adam and Gavin: If you mean flesh burning Cyclops-style lasers instead of the annoying pointy things kids use in my local cinema, then give me death and destruction any day!

A% Super Moderating Hero: Thank you very much for your time! Good luck with DiRT 2!

A% Adam and Gavin: Thank you very much!