Microsoft will be starting out the new year with a pretty good offering of Games with Gold games- some pretty big, good games will be on offer for people subscribed to Xbox Live Gold, and if you are an Xbox One owner, you should have no shortage of some impressive titles to play.

On the Xbox One front, the star of the month promises to be Killer Instinct- Killer Instinct Season 1 Ultra, the $40 priced package that includes all the characters and stages from the first season of the popular Xbox One exclusive fighting game, will be available to all Xbox One owners for free. The other game will be Zheroes.

On the Xbox 360 front (games which will also be made available to Xbox One owners, since all Xbox 360 Games with Gold games are backwards compatible on the Xbox One), subscribers can get the excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution to prepare themselves for the launch of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided later in the year, and DiRT Showdown, which should similarly get them pumped for the upcoming DiRT Rally.

So yeah, that’s a good offering this month. Your move, Sony.

Sometimes you don’t want to obey the rules of the road. Sometimes, you couldn’t care less about lap times or racing lines. It’s time like this when you need DiRT: Showdown! This frantic, devastating arcade racer from developers Codemasters is the perfect title for multiplayer party gaming, vehicular destruction and no-holds-barred racing.

Better still, we’ve teamed up with one of the world’s largest online action sports clothing stores, FreestyleXtreme so you can be in with a chance of experiencing the wanton destruction for yourselves!

To be in with a chance of winning a copy of DiRT: Showdown for PS3 or 360, A Ken Block/DC Shoes baseball cap and a DiRT: Showdown sticker, simply answer the following question:

DiRT: Showdown is a spin-off from a franchise originally known as?

a)      Race Driver: GRID

b)      Colin McRae Rally

c)       Ken Block Racing

Post your answer in the comments below by midday on Friday 29 June to be in with a chance of winning. UK residents only.

From humble beginnings in 1998 as the fully-licensed and official game of the World Rally Championships, the Colin McRae series has come a very long way. With DiRT 2 the last title to feature his name and DiRT 3 still possessing his ‘influence’ and ‘ethos’, apparently, DiRT Showdown is perfect microcosm for this new era in Codemasters’ proud racing history, the first child of the Codemasters Racing label. That said, a game where the primary objective is wanton destruction wouldn’t exactly be a befitting tribute to a man who tragically died in a helicopter crash along with his 5 year-old son and several close family friends.

Pining after Mister McRae aside, Showdown does feel like the logical progression for the series, and as sad as it is to say this, a thoroughbred rally game just wouldn’t cut it anymore. In an age of Monster Khaos, with a K, and True LAD, one cannot be simply worrying about what sort of suspension setup would be more appropriate in the gravel-laden New Zealand countryside, we’d rather be causing severe spinal damage to fictional Europeans in Vauxhall Corsas.

DiRT Showdown is just about the most bombastic racer going, even the menu falls out of the sky like a concrete donkey, with the entire game covered in a thick film of crisp, bright colours. It’s okay to take a leaf from the Big Book of Burnout, but the decaying, termite-ridden branches of this tortured metaphor? I doubt there’s a single person alive to fondly recollects the parts in Burnout 3 where DJ Stryker was speaking, using the word ‘radical’ like a ordinary people use cutlery, like Criterion watched Bill and Ted and thought ‘Yes! This is the sort of person we want playing our game’. At least they had the decency to let the player disable him, the best I can do with the criminally irritating Christian Stevenson is send him to half-volume, which is almost worse. You can’t hear exactly what he’s saying but you know he’s still there, making laboured attempts at witty observation making Stryker, and to a lesser extent Atomika, sound like David bloody Attenborough.

Embittered muttering aside, impact between vehicles pack a satisfying amount of punch, but you’re often feels like they have something to be desired. The ‘Crashback’ replay function, which pops up for particularly brutal encounters, seems needless when very crashes very rarely seem to carry the sort of spectacle that’d warrant repeated slow-motion recollection, lacking the finesse of Burnout: Paradise. In that sense it almost feels like the FIFA Street of the series, whilst taking a different direction to the core franchise it still seems to be based on essentially the same game engine a games gone by with only a few tweaks for good measure.

That said, for everything Showdown does worse than Burnout, it manages to so something better. It is truly a joy to drive in Showdown. Cornering is weighted just enough for drifts to feel both challenging and rewarding, without being too ‘realistic’. Yes, it’s clearly an arcade title but that doesn’t mean that cars have to feel like they’re made of paper and dreams. Heavy, bulky cars feel as such and your opponents with think twice about a head on showdown. Likewise, the feathery but nippy gain a significant enough speed advantage for them to be in consideration, but so much as a gentle prod will see you spinning wildly into oblivion.

Game modes have a welcome degree of variation, and whilst Showdown isn’t exclusively a smashy-smashy affair, the better game modes are the ones with the most carnage. 8-ball is a tidy mixture of racing and chaos, unbridled Banger Racing on an often-intersecting circuit. You will be frequently side-swiped into last place, unfairly punished for something almost entirely out of control but rather than feeling like a burden, it adds a marvellous degree of unpredictability and you’ll give as well as you’ll get. One of the few non-destructo gametypes is Hoonigan, sounding like Jools Holland at new year, it plays like a Super Special stage as done by Boy Racers. Competing head-to-head, you’re tasked with getting to the finish line as quickly as possible, performing specific ‘tricks on the way’, ranging from drifting and donuts, to crazy jumps.

Like every Modern Game going, online play requires a VIP pass, £6.29 for the scoundrels who dare to buy second-hand, but Showdown also bucks the trend of Modern Gaming, Showdown features my old friend split-screen multiplayer. Far too few games, racing titles especially, seem to be entirely devoid of any local fun so it’s hugely refreshing to be able to play with real people, in the same room, at the same time. Okay, it’s only two-player, plus up to 6 AI, but at least it’s there.

DiRT Showdown is clearly no longer under the pretences of simulation and rightly so, previous DiRT games seemed to skirt a fine line between arcade and realism and whilst it worked pretty well, it’s pleasing to see Codemasters have made up their mind. However, Showdown loses more than a few marks for letting me exile Christian Stevenson to the land of wind and ghosts. It’ll be interesting to see what path DiRT 4 take and wether it follows in Showdown’s footsteps or reverts back to type. It’s certainly a solid entry into the series but doesn’t quite feel finely-tuned enough to be a… smash-hit. I’m so sorry.

This game was reviewed on the Playstation 3.

The DiRT Showdown launch video showcases the maximum-impact racing, bone-rattling destruction game modes, freestyle Hoonigan events and multiplayer party games set to take centre stage on DiRT Showdown’s World tour of motorised mayhem. From Miami to LA and San Francisco to Yokohama, the trailer features drivers taking down their rivals, boosting to overtake, hitting jumps and performing stunts as they go for the win across DiRT Showdown’s wide range of game modes.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

DiRT Showdown releases later this month for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Stay tuned for more info.

Dirt Showdown demo is now available on Steam. It weighs in at 2.8 GB and contains a single-player race called 8-ball. If you sign up to RaceNet, which is a clone of EA’s Autolog, you will get $20,000 in-game credits.

The game will be released on May 24th on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Stay tuned to our review soon.

Race, crash and hoon your way through a world tour of motorised mayhem in DiRT Showdown! Crowd atmosphere, social gameplay and accessibility are all ramped up in this turbo- injected shot of driving delirium.

Smash down the accelerator and earn the adulation of frenzied crowds at hyper-energised events at iconic locations.

Played the demo? Leave us your feedback in the comments section below.

Dirt Showdown demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and weighs in at 1.16 GB. So, if you want to check out how the game is, now is your chance to do so.

The demo is only available to Xbox Live Gold members and it will be up on US PSN today. EU PSN members have to wait till tomorrow to get their hands on the game.

Welcome to the DiRT Showdown demo! Experience full-impact confrontational racing in the 8 Ball event in San Francisco.

Boost and barge your way to the finish but watch out for your opponents on the brutal cross-overs. Challenge a friend to play online and unlock the multiplayer Rampage event to satisfy your appetite for destruction in a chaotic demolition derby!

Here’s the link for the demo, so check it out.

Also check out the trailer for the demo below:

To mark the news, Codemasters has released the ‘Ultimate Hoonigan’ gameplay video featuring the spectacular tricks and stunts players can perform in DiRT Showdown’s Hoonigan game modes. T

Codemasters also announced that the playable demo of DiRT Showdown is due to launch worldwide from May 1st. The demo will feature a solo and multiplayer event and will be available from Xbox Live Marketplace, PlayStation Network and Steam on PC.

Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.

DiRT Showdown’s range of racing events challenge players to negotiate jumps, pinch-points, tyre-walls, barrels, and more in frenzied races where no holds are barred. Racing events include Domination, where players must set the fastest time through sectors on the track, Eliminator, where last place drops out of the race on a time out, and Race Off in which players must do whatever it takes to get over the line first.

DiRT Showdown features split-screen multiplayer, eight-player online racing, on and off-line quick-fire party games and YouTube integration all come as standard.

DiRT Showdown will deliver a new world of competitive and combative racing as players boost, trick and smash their way to ‘Showdown’ finals on a chaotic tour of motorised mayhem.