Colin McRae: Dirt review

Let's start with a moan. What percentage of people actually play their 360 on one of those High Definition Television things? It's got to be well under half of you. Now, we know that it's a Microsoft remit that every Xbox 360 game is to be optimized for 720p on pain of death, but you'd like to think developers would actually test their games on a standard def TV before kicking them out of the door and out onto retail shelves.

So there we were, squinting at the (admittedly lovely looking, when presented on the right technology) Career menu screen, unable to read even the most rudimentary options without pressing our faces toward the screen with an intimacy that'd be deemed too raunchy for the cover of Penthouse. The problem extends to the in-race view - they've made the cars just about big enough to see, but the onboard telemetry - absolutely vital stuff when you consider that rally games are built around blind corners - is almost entirely illegible. You do eventually get used to the stingy scale of things, but this does develop the kind of worrying eye strain resilience that'll have us reaching for the Coke-bottle glasses in order to read messages like the giant "Hollywood" sign before we hit thirty.

Enough of that. Because picking holes in Colin McRae: DiRT (let's just call it Dirt) on a technical basis feels like having to point out to the naked Scarlett Johansson who's just strolled into your room that she's got toothpaste on her upper lip.