This DiRT 2 vid features the hottest cars on the hottest tracks, with real-life and in-game footage mixed together in an inspirational music video format that rally fans just can't resist. Can you tell the difference between the real footage and the game footage? Of course you can. You are a sharp bunch.

DiRT 2 races onto store shelves on September 8th, 10th, and 11th in North America, Europe, and the UK respectively.

September 8th is when the next version of Codemasters' venerable rally racing series hits North America, dishing Dirt 2 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, DS, and PlayStation Portable. Three days later the game hits the UK, perhaps because it goes under the name Colin McRae: Dirt 2, which takes slightly longer to type out. The PC version has been pushed to December in order to implement DirectX 11 features.

Codemasters celebrates the imminent release with a series of new screenshots featuring cars and dirt, which are the two things you'll be seeing the most of while playing.

DirectX 11 already? Most games are still trying to catch up to DirectX 10 support, but Codemasters wants to make sure they deliver the "most realistic, immersive and exhilarating racing experiences in the business", and that means the Games for Windows Live version of Dirt 2 is just going to have to wait a few months. With the console versions still on target for a September release, PC users will have to wait until December before they get a much nicer version of the title, provided they have the hardware to support it, of course.

Why not simply release the game and patch in DX11 support later? Perhaps Codemasters is taking a cue from the previous generation, where PC developers' promised Direct X 10 patches trickled out far later than originally planned, impressing less people in the process.

The game actually doesn't seem to have suffered too much from the transition. Sure, it's nowhere near as detailed as its big brothers on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but it looks like Codemasters has done a pretty reasonable job of keeping the core game play intact while tweaking the graphics so they don't simply seemed like a dumbed-down version of something from a much more powerful console. Good for them!

It's definitely a teaser trailer; I'm just not sure what it is trying to tease. Arguably it's for Colin McRae: Dirt 2, the off-road and rally racing title from Codemasters, but I don't really feel that's what is being teased here. Can't quite put my finger on it. I suppose if I could I'd probably be too busy to write this. All I know for sure is that this is the last place I'd expect to have to use the NSFW tag.

Oh, and feel free to stop the clip when things go black. I think my video conversion software was just as confused as I was.