At 9.00am (GMT) on Friday, 14th September Colin McRae DiRT, the latest instalment of Codemaster's extremely popular off road racing series, went on sale in the UK. At 4.10pm (GMT) on Saturday, 15th September 2007 Colin McRae was tragically killed in a helicopter accident in southern England. During his career, McRae had twice reached the pinnacle of his sport by capturing the World Rally Championship title and while the release of a new videogame is an extremely trivial matter in comparison to recent events, with DiRT, McRae's friends at Codemasters have produced a game of such high quality that it's more than a fitting tribute to the great man himself.

Previous Colin McRae games have focused almost exclusively on rallying, leaving Codemasters' other driving series, TOCA, to pick up nearly every other form of racing from touring cars to monkeys on motorbikes (possibly not actually a playable option). For this latest release however, rather than simply taking their old motor and adding some new parts, the developers have started from the ground up and created a new machine that includes a number of noticeable changes to the very ethos of the series.

Before you even drop the handbrake and burn the clutch for the first time, you'll be run over by the new menu screens. Previous Colin McRae titles were never shabby in this area, but Codemasters have taken the whole front end of the game and sent it further into the next generation than when Star Trek stuck Captain Picard at the helm. All the menus hang in a vast three-dimensional space and the screen glides from one to the next, often following a smart, animated arrow that appears from nowhere. The red and white colour scheme plus the minimalist looks used give everything the feel of one of those expensive, ultra modern designer kitchens. There's even a presenter whose voiceover accurately guides you through every move you make, which is very helpful, as there are certainly a lot of options to get stuck into.

Moving away from the front end and into the game itself, there have been a lot of other changes too. Up until now Colin McRae games have been all about the brand of motor sport that made the Scot so famous. DiRT changes this by introducing a number of other driving varieties to mix things up. Joining the standard rallying fare are Crossover - where you race head-to-head with another car on a short, split circuit; Rallycross - with its courses that combine on and off-road elements; Rally Raid - where you compete head-to-head on long off-road circuits; CORR - where you race vehicles such as buggies and trucks against multiple opponents on dirt tracks; and finally Hill Climb - which is a time trial contest that does exactly what it says on the tin.

The inclusion of these new racing types definitely dilutes the rallying experience, but also adds some variety. Each style has its own single races and championships, which complement the game's career mode. This main option is huge, requiring you to compete in sixty-six different events as you try to climb to the top of the off-road racing world, where successes along the way are rewarded with cash that you can use to purchase new cars and liveries. There's a nice, smooth gradient to the challenge throughout, with the early events not hard enough to put you off and the later ones requiring a combination of exact route knowledge, reflexes that come from muscle memory and some seriously professional style driving skills.

DiRT also gives you the opportunity to tailor the challenge to your personal preferences even further with its five difficulty settings, which control the levels of mechanical damage, technical damage and computer AI. On the lowest level, Rookie, you can almost treat your vehicle like a bumper car, as there's basically no chance of writing it off and you don't need to worry that much about your opponents, as they all seem to be members of the over-seventies sensible driving club of Chipping Norton. Of course, as the difficulty level increases, things get a lot more challenging, meaning that the experience can be tailored for the casual and hardcore gamer alike.

In another big move, rather than simply giving the visuals of previous games a bit of a turbo charge for their first appearance on the new generation of consoles, Codemasters have instead fitted DiRT with a brand new engine (literally) - it's called the Neon engine and it makes DiRT one of the best looking driving games ever to appear on any home machine. Over the course of its various races, the game sends you hurtling down tracks that appear no wider than a family size shopping trolley, in locations all over the world. Thanks to the skill with which the Neon engine has been designed and implemented, each venue has its own distinct personality and a lot of the reason for this is down to the impressive lighting effects that the engine creates. Whilst at first sight the fading sun in a Californian canyon may appear more beautiful than the mist of the Welsh marshes, Neon makes every setting a memorable experience, as well as a technical achievement.

As nice as the surroundings are, the real standout visuals are reserved for the cars themselves. Down to the last wheel nut, each one is so meticulously detailed that, at times, they seem to stand out from the backgrounds in a way that some are sure to like and others may feel looks slightly strange. There are also six different camera angles from which you can enjoy the action and whether your normal preference is for a third person behind the car, or a first person on the bonnet view, everyone needs to try out the helmet cam option at least once. As its name suggests, this view positions you right in the driver's seat, allowing you to enjoy not only the most realistic driving experience, but also the car interiors. These are so accurate that they include everything apart from your co-driver's empty crisp packets and that pen you left on the dashboard that has now been bent by the heat of the sun streaming through the windscreen.

The vehicles don't just look pretty when they're standing still however - they also manage to look great when you slap them around. In dry conditions their shinny metallic finishes are soon dulled by the dust that they seem to magnetically attract and, in the wet, flecks of mud that are thrown up from the ground stick and hold to the chassis. Although these may be small touches, they go a long way towards indicating how deep the developers have gone in making the game look authentic - and this level of detail is something that has been carried over to the damage models too! Even if you had no other information, it would often be quite easy to judge how well you have done in an event simply by studying the condition of your car at the end of it. Paint can be scratched, body panels dented or crumpled and lights smashed. A trip off course at speed that results in you connecting with a tree that suddenly finds itself doubling as your emergency brake leads to the very front of your car being bent back so far that you could almost take a bark rubbing whilst still sitting in the driver's seat. For the PS3 version of the game, Codemasters also seem to have taken the time since the Xbox 360 release to nip down to the local twenty-four hour garage and pick up some more expensive lubricant for their Neon engine. The result is that the PS3 version doesn't seem to suffer from many of the spluttering frame rate issues that Microsoft's console did.

Another important tweak that Codemasters have made for DiRT is to the driving experience. Previous Colin McRae games in the series were never straight rally simulators, but they were certainly much closer to the real sport than titles like Sega Rally. In what seems like a change of direction, DiRT has moved more towards the middle of the arcade/simulation scales. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the series and seems to be in line with the addition of the different driving modes, as part of an effort to try and make the title appealing to more racing game fans. Whilst this change may not find endear itself with the hardcore supporters of the series, a number of other racing games over the last few years have introduced rally sections as a new feature, so it's no surprise to see Codemasters mixing things up a bit by going the other way.

As much as DIRT makes a big deal of its higher number of racing types, one criticism that could be levelled at the game is that these still don't increase the playing diversity much, as none are really that far removed from standard rallying. It's a nice surprise that when you start to play the game you will find that each of the disciplines provides its own pleasingly different experience. The rally events are still great challenges of concentration, requiring more throttle and brake control than any other racing style. By contrast, the CORR races, for example, are much more bog-standard off-road circuit fare, although in a game that concentrates so much on single vehicle racing, it's nice to have competitors that you can actually see.

As well as the differences between the types of races, the various vehicles you get to drive also add further range. The most obvious contrasts are, unsurprisingly, between the classes of available machines. Buggies are light and nippy, rally cars heavier and faster and there are even opportunities to drive big rigs, which are sluggish both in terms of controls and speed. As well as these large differences there are also smaller, but noticeable ones that are just as important, such as those between the individual rally cars. These differences can be enhanced or reduced thanks to the vehicle set up options that allow you to tinker with things such as suspension, dampening and transmission.

With all of these advances and impressive features, it's a real disappointment that DiRT goes into reverse when you take it online. If you were hoping for nip and tuck racing featuring multiple cars on tight courses then you're going to be sadly disappointed, as the only driving options available are Rally and Hill Climb. While these have you competing on the same course at the same time as up to one hundred other players, you never get to see anyone else, just updates of their times throughout the race. The lobby system could also do with some more options, as while all of the cars and tracks from the game are available for selection, the way the setup is decided by a vote can often be frustrating.

Online issues aside, Colin McRae: DiRT is a fantastic driving game in so many ways. Its presentation and visuals are outstanding, even for the PS3 and - most importantly - it's a real thrill ride from start to finish, and still will be many months after you first start playing. Codemasters have obviously lost none of their talent for making great off-road racing titles and in years to come DiRT will help even more people realise that, as with the man himself, anything with Colin McRae's name on it is a mark of superior quality.

Reviewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).