This total reworking has, from the impressive pre-alpha build we played, dealt ninja blows to every question. DIRT is scary-fast, more gorgeous than the screens imply (soft lighting and shadows, lush reflections, organic landscapes) and nails the thrill of a leaping, drifting, edge-of-control drive better than any arcade racer for years. The design of the bumpy, jumpy, frequently blind-cornered stages we saw (playing out on everything from wet tarmac to desert dust) sparkles as brightly as the car models. It also has painfully beefy door-shedding, chassis-folding, scenery-demolishing crashes to counterpoint the speed.