Who knew back in 1998 that a relatively obscure driver (Colin McRae) in a relatively obscure sport here in the United States (Rally racing) would spawn a video game series that would last for at least seven iterations and well over a decade?

DiRT 2 (known as Colin McRae: DiRT 2 outside of the U.S.) is the latest in Codemasters’ series of video games that began back on the original Playstation platform more than 10 years ago.  It was just released on September 9th and is available for the PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, MS Windows (in December) and the Xbox 360. (Check out the a demo video here.)

I picked up my Xbox 360 copy yesterday and can’t speak for what minimal graphic or frame rate differences may exist between the 360 version and the PS3 version, but I will assume they are minor and will leave those discussions for those who like to argue about such things.

The game itself represents the first version in its series to be produced entirely after the passing of its namesake, Colin McRae, in a 2007 helicopter crash—and it shows. Not in a bad way mind you, it’s just you can tell a new generation has taken the series over and is putting their signature all over it.

Gone is the “pyramid” menu interface that displayed the simpler, more numerous events at the bottom, whittled down to a few penultimate races at the top of the pyramid as you progressed through your “career.”

Instead you are placed (graphically) inside a beat-up travel trailer that holds a map of all the potential races, a place to look at all your stats, the multiplayer wall where you access the network to take on racers across the globe, etc.

Stepping outside the trailer (again, graphically) you enter a “contingency” area where you can look at your vehicles (purchase new ones), get news from the DiRT 2 online community and change the audio and control options.

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Beyond the menu interface and once in the game itself, long time fans of the series will see a difference as well.  In addition to Travis Pastrana, who lent his voice and personality to the prior iteration of the game, you now have fellow Rally America and factory Subaru drivers Ken Block and Dave Mirra (plus Tanner Foust and Mohammed Ben Sulayem) now chattering in your ear.

Now nearly fully “Americanized” and with little pretense given to emulating WRC events as in the origin of the series, DiRT 2 gameplay will be quite familiar to prior players, as the layout of the vehicle controls is still the same, the camera angles available are similar, and so is the automatic replay after every race.

One gripe I have early on is the apparent reduction to the number of vehicles available to drive in the game and the odd inclusion of others (a Nissan 350Z rally car or the Hummer HX concept vehicle … really?).  I, for one, enjoyed driving a big rig up Pike’s Peak or taking an old AWD Celica through the English countryside.

The tradeoff, however, is better graphics, sound, and gameplay.  It is tradeoff I have no problem making.

While the original DiRT still puts other off-road game graphics (yes, I’m looking at you Baja: Edge of Control) to shame, the new graphic engine for DiRT 2 is a step way, way up.  No longer are the sides or bottoms of vehicles nearly blacked out as a way to keep the complexities of the graphic requirements down as in the first DiRT.  DiRT 2 keeps the vehicles fully visible from nose to tail—especially good looking on the brightly lit stages.

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Control of the vehicles is also spot on.  Each car or truck responds as its rating would indicate—a Dodge Power Wagon tracks straight and true but is dead dog slow, whereas a Toyota FJ Cruiser is a bit faster but also a bit twitchier when rounding corners at speed.  Vehicle control never crosses over to being frustrating and retains the right level of “video game-ness” to keep the game fun for everyone without being childish.

One major gameplay change is the addition of a “flashback” option.  Basically if you make a major mistake, you can instantly go to the replay of the stage, rewind it to just before your mistake and restart the stage from that point, eliminating the need to start the stage from scratch.  Personally, I like to restart the stage from scratch in an attempt to run the stage clean or nearly clean from beginning to end, though I can certainly see the advantage in this option on the particularly longer events.

Lastly, I again want to mention the “Americanization” of the series.

Out is WRC style.  In is the X-Games. The music, the courses, the menus, the cars/trucks … all of it marks a move toward a game tailored more toward an American audience.  This brings along a bunch of cool things—Robby Gordon’s Hummer for one, more Baja courses for another, and I just feel it deserves an extra mention for “old school” fans of the series to whom this change might be a shock.

Wrapping it all up, DiRT 2 is simply the best off-road video game ever.

It balances the dual taskmasters of fun and technique perfectly.  You want a game that has giant turbo jumps and arcade-like handling, then go buy something like Fuel.  If you want something as close as possible to a driving simulation then Gran Turismo is probably your bag.

But if you want a pure, no joke, incredible looking, great playing off-road video game, then DiRT 2 is really the ONLY choice.