[*sasha ITALIA*]

Spettaculo

He's getting a bit long in the tooth now, is old Colin, and it's been two years now since the last game bearing his name. He's not even that good at rally driving anymore. And yet, much like the Tony Hawk games, Colin McRae rally titles are pretty much guaranteed to be high quality - even more so when they happen to be coming out for what'll be the world's most powerful games machine.

Take those weird 2D crowds - they've been dumped and replaced with fully animated 3D spectators that react to the way you drive. Expect to see them cheer and holler as you powerslide past them or lose interest in you altogether if you're too slow.

Advertisement:Even the way cars roll and crash has been subjected to a sprinkling of PS3 wonder dust, shying away from the totally over-the-top explosions of metal and rubber seen in games like Burnout. Instead cars will bend, buckle and be torn apart realistically according to what they hit and where, so every accident will be different.

Add in the new race-style Rally RAID events, an adrenaline-soaked alternative to those punishing timed stages, and Colin McRae: DIRT is set to hurtle out of a dark wet forest and into somewhere much more exciting early next year. Look out - CAR!