It’s said that while a circuit driver sees the same corner a 1000 times, a rally driver sees 1000 corners just once. This is why co-drivers are so important in rallying; you can’t attack a stage unless you know what’s around the next bend.

Pro rally driver Molly Taylor.

One of the strongest components of Dirt Rally a real-world navigator can dynamically inject , but they certainly feel more authentic than anything else in the genre. Maybe it’s because they were recorded in real-time in a special motion seat at Codemasters, reacting to the various forces as the cars careen through the virtual stages. Or perhaps it’s because Paul Coleman, chief game designer at Codemasters, has experience as an amateur rally co-driver.Either way, I’ve never ridden in the navigator seat in a real rally car before. But that’s about to change. In an isolated, off-road racing facility carved out of the bush two hours west of Sydney I’ve just been folded into the co-driver’s chair beside professional Australian rally driver and 2015 Peter Brock Medal winner Molly Taylor.Taylor, two-time British Ladies Champion and winner of the inaugural European Rally Championship Ladies Trophy, returned from Europe to compete in last year’s Australian Rally Championship where she and co-driver Bill Hayes finished runners-up. Taylor, daughter of four-time Australian Rally Champion co-driver Coral Taylor, made history as the first woman to win a round of the series from behind the wheel and finished on the podium at every other event.This year she’ll be behind the wheel of a brand new Subaru WRX STI NR4, spearheading Subaru’s return the Australian rally scene after a 10+ year hiatus. Right now she’s piloting something somewhat older – a slightly-battered second generation Impreza that spends the bulk of its time lugging beginners around a short, dusty rally school track – but it still feels plenty quick in the hands of Taylor, who in 2013 was rated the fastest female rally driver in the world.We carve around the track, seemingly at speeds which spit directly in the face of physics. How a car can slow down so quickly and hold onto corners so tightly on such a loose surface is beyond me but the all-wheel drive Subaru annihilates it, scooting through the course like a startled rabbit with a relaxed Taylor flinging it about with composed ease.After almost 20 years of Codemasters rally games it’s fascinating to feel and experience the thrill of the real thing. What’s almost as impressive, however, is the confirmation of just how close Dirt Rally really gets to capturing the spirit of real-life rally racing.

Dirt Rally chief game designer Paul Coleman.

“ I want as many people to experience Dirt Rally as possible.

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“ We set out from the beginning of the console development to make sure that the game was as close as possible to the PC version and I truly believe that we have achieved that.

“I have always been pretty confident that the console crowd were keen for a more challenging rally experience based on the direct feedback I was getting on my Twitter feed,” says Codemasters’ Paul Coleman, chief game designer on Dirt Rally. Coleman was pleased with the positive reaction to confirmation Codemasters would be porting the extremely well-received Dirt Rally to current generation consoles.“With the PS4 and Xbox One I think there has been a much bigger appetite for games that ask more of you as a player,” he says. “In fact the ‘for the players’ message that Sony lead with really resonates with the fact that people who have gone out and bought these consoles are much more committed gamers than some of those that bought consoles in the previous generation.”“The response to us announcing that we are coming out on console has been really positive and hopefully that will translate into sales because I want as many people to experience Dirt Rally as possible.” the best racing game Codemasters has produced in at least a decade . Coming to consoles, however, was not a sure thing – even though Coleman was clear from Dirt Rally’s days in Steam Early Access that packaging up the game for consoles was something they wanted to look at doing “It definitely wasn’t a sure thing from the beginning,” explains Coleman. “If it was we wouldn’t have done Early Access and we would have just gone with a simultaneous cross platform release.”“We really needed to know if there was an appetite for this type of game as it was a pretty big departure from what we had been doing with the Dirt franchise up until this point. I think the decision to go to console was actually made around June-July and it was based on the hugely positive feedback that our fans had been giving us.”The best news for console owners is that Dirt Rally has made the leap from PC to console with no major concessions. Indeed, in my brief time to date with the PS4 version of Dirt Rally the most glaring difference I noticed is that the buttons have different shapes on them.“The keys thing we have aimed for is 60 fps. I can confirm that we’ve definitely achieved that and on PS4 that is a solid 1080p, on Xbox One it’s mostly 1080p but we do occasionally switch if we absolutely have to but I’m really happy to say that that is on really rare occasions.”Dirt Rally will be the first Codemasters rally game released on the current generation of consoles, which comes with challenges (“That and getting our heads around some of the new certification requirements were probably the trickiest parts,” says Coleman) but the benefits of having a polished PC version all wrapped up are significant.“I’d say the best thing about it has been the fact that we had a really good target with our PC version so we weren’t shooting in the dark when it came to the level of quality and gameplay that we were aiming for on console and that has been a massive help,” says Coleman.In fact, despite the fact a cutting-edge PC obviously eclipses what’s possible on a console like the PS4 or Xbox One, there are definitely positives about honing a game for static hardware like consoles.“Yeah, the main thing is that we know exactly what hardware everyone around the world has when we are developing for console,” explains Coleman. “In fact the test kit that I have on my desk is pretty much identical in performance to the retail kit that anyone has at home. That means that we can be very confident that the experience we are playing is exactly what people will be playing at home.”“On PC you can have two identical rigs with identical software installs and the game will be doing something weird on one machine. That is hugely frustrating when it comes to narrowing down issues and fixing them.”Coleman confirms the team has spent a great deal of time with the PC and console versions side by side “making absolutely sure that the fidelity of the handling was the same across all platforms”, and that there are some cool additions, “especially on the Xbox One where you get the motors in the triggers that allow us to give you more feedback for wheel spin and brake lock ups.”