Codemasters' Dirt franchise made a name for itself by not only offering a realistic rally experience, but also by adopting more extreme events like buggy racing, rallycross or special stunt competitions.

+Great racing mechanics; +Impressive graphics; +Lots of variety

-Annoying announcers; -Tough-to-master Gymkhana

For a few years now, motorsport based games have been the favourite of quite a few gamers. A few years ago CodeMasters released Colin McRae rally and the popularity of the game style quickly grew.

Highly reputable game developer, Great game play, New additions to the series ie; Gymkhana, Fantastic graphics engine, Superior sound, Must buy game, Games For Windows Live can cause some installation / loading issues, Handling can take a little bit of getting used to

I don't ask for much from my racing games. All I really want is a great sense of speed, great cars and a few awesome jumps thrown in for good measure. When it comes to DiRT 3 , the latest installment in Codemaster's long running off road racing series; Check, Check and Check.

First Impressions My reaction is There are few studios out there who can put together games as good as Dirt 3 from Codemasters. The latest installment in the franchise is packed with goodies and jaw-dropping visuals, and packs plenty of punch in both offline and online modes.

CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.2GHz GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB RAM: 4GB DDR3 OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Statistically, while you may not have worked hard this week, you probably have worked, so treat yourself. This weekend, you can snap up savings on the Men of War and Assassin's Creed series, F1 2011, Dirt 3, Shogun 2: Total War, and heaps more.

Do NOT buy this version. The game no longer supports Games For Windows Live. You will not be able to save any progress. Also you must use the disc to play the game. There is no option for a full installation. I ended buying the Steam version which was a much better choice.

As a huge fan of racing games, Dirt 2 is one of my favorites!! With different types of vehicles and tracks, it is actually rather difficult to play back to back races that are the same. If you like rally based video games, they don't get much better than Dirt 2!!

The DiRT games have a heritage stretching back to the old Colin McRae games, with DiRT 3, Codemasters have brought together everything they learnt from the Colin McRae games and the first two DiRT titles to bring the ultimate rally game.

Another year and another Dirt title hits the shelves. Following on the footsteps of the highly popular Dirt 2, Dirt 3 takes the players back to the mud with it's rally inspired gameplay.

Multiplayer

Can get a bit monotonous