Colin McRae: DiRT 2

Testy chicanes and dirt surfaces are complemented by zippy tarmac sections between expansive, twisting bends that test both resolve and reflexes. Close to the end of the circuit, a perilously tight corner snaps suddenly into a short straight leading into a ramp which, hit at speed, launches your car up, up and away; then down, down and.... And, either you make it and lurch forward with a victorious surge; or the car angles absurdly and flings you into a clown roll that wrecks your race.

As with the Home Depot Centre jump, the line between success and failure is agonisingly fine: screw up the lead-in corner and you won't build enough speed; come out of it wide and your jump angle will whip you off at a tangent. On the one hand, yes, it's just a jump in a racing game. Big deal. But its dramatic potential is fully realised by the precision afforded by the driving model, and a seasoned awareness that not all jumps are created equal. Block, who knows a thing or two about jumping in cars, closely advised Codemasters on angling this one to create the kind of game-changing moment with which real drivers are painfully familiar.

That's a lot of words on a single in-game jump. But it's a jump which, throughout an afternoon's play, duly causes disproportionate waves of frustration, joy, despair, agony and excitement. Mainly the agony and despair bits in my case, if I'm honest. And this is particularly apparent during the media multiplayer tournament, where no race is settled before the final jump, feeding the hopes of the trailing pack, while breeding doubt in the leader's mind.

Beyond the LA stadium we try, the X Games discipline forms a big chunk of the career mode. Its aim is to tease you with the exploits of the sport's fanciest show ponies, encouraging you to work your way up to challenge rally's new superstars.

So before you even get to race, you're shown a video of Block and Pastrana 'avin' it large in the final of the US X Games. To get there you must battle through the European leg, with a final at the visually stunning Battersea Power Station circuit in sarf London. Succeed and your entourage shifts to Asia, climaxing in a race around downtown Tokyo against the likes of Tanner Foust and Dave Mirra, the forerunner to the grand finale in Los Angeles against the big guns. "It's you trying to get the gold rather than watching those guys on TV," Horsman explains.

More than just the addition of a new discipline and new locations, the X Games has informed the design of the entire front end of the game. As detailed in our E3 preview, the previous menu-based system has been ditched in favour of a coherent and consistent world that is meant to make the player feel more immersed in the game and more "emotionally attached", as Codemasters has it, to the cars themselves.

So wherever you go to race in the world, your trailer comes with you and pitches. And shifting between menus and modes also involves switching between areas in your base camp. Outside is where you select cars; inside is where you choose circuits, styles, check on leaderboards and stats and so on, with updates on the movements of both AI racers and your mates communicated via magazine reports. It may not be the fastest way possible to navigate, but it's slick enough and visually compelling.

Four-player races over system link are great fun. And while we're limited to trying out just a handful of multiplayer races at the event, every mode in the final version will be fully playable online. Codemasters wants to please everyone. Pro Tour Mode is meant to service the hardcore, with game-selected circuits and anti-cheat methods implemented; Jam Session is for lightweight Sunday drivers, where the player hosts and can pick where, when and what to race; and private sessions, Party Play and Team Play are also supported.