Codemasters have created an immersive and entertaining driving experience which is polished, and more importantly fun.
Straight from the off Grid shows you that it is a game not to be underestimated, with an announcer that asks and then pronounces your name correctly to spanning a camera round your prospective garage. It is a refreshing alternative to a genre that is fast becoming stale and all the more too predictable, especially when sustaining the multiple publishers willing to enter into the fray. Thankfully Codemasters have not wasted their time or their efforts and have created the best racing game of this generation, an attempt which is not only vast in the disciplines featured within it, but also more importantly making the racing fun.
Racing within Grid is a world affair with circuit disciplines in Europe, city racing within USA and drift racing in Japan. Races and events are split further within these territory's often boiling down to different car types, and circuits but are a valid effort to mix up the racing. Each territory offer cars that handle differently on tracks that have a distinctive feel and style of their, none so much as drift racing. Which as I'm bringing it up, it completely different to anything Need for Speed or Ridge Racer has offered up before. Drifting, or as Grid dubs it J-Racing, attributes points to how the driver takes a corner, taking into account the position, angle, and speed of the car. Bonus points are offered for how close the car is to the flag of the corner which sits nicely on the apex to give a hefty bonus, this points can be chained together to earn multipliers. On the higher difficulties it is not unusual for the top AI drivers to earn over million points over a lap, so precision driving is needed at all times. Despite the fact that this discipline can be extremely infuriating at times it is ultimately awarding, especially when your driving head to head competitions.
In Europe the racing is all circuit based with cars often being exotic and tailor made for such pursuits, with touring, GP, and single seater 'formula one' esque cars. Once again this is a region which is entirely different to Japan with the emphasis on prototype, designed to race, cars. Where Grid really separates itself from the field is the inclusion of some truly inspired track choices with Spa-Francorchamps, Donnington, and Istanbul, there is many more but these choices alone make Grid worth purchasing. Not only are their iconic, but these tracks have been increasingly marginalised by other racing titles and to see them in HD glory is without a doubt something to experience, which brings us to the coup de grace of Grid, the Le-Mans 24 hour. Placed at the end of every season, your team or driver can elect to drive in this exhibition race which is split into several different classes and lasts 24 hours with the timer perpetually counting down. The timer An authentic representation of this race may seem ambitious in what is an but the developers have achieved something special the faithful recreation of this long and challenging track, but unfortunately the experience is let down by some questionable day to night transitions, and overall feeling of questionable execution. The timer gets through the 24 hours way to quickly and instead of feeling like you have achieved something monumental when finishing the race in a good position, you just feel like you do any other race, it lacks the end of season glamour which an event like this should represent.
Racing in America is split into much more congested city streets with as many racers placed upon them on a much smaller surface area, replicating the Days of Thunder 'rubbin is racing' ethic. No discipline sums up this mantra more than the destruction derby's racers can enter, which are one of the highlights of this title. Unfortunately only having 1 track for this discipline and 2 different layouts is a bit of shame, but downloadable content would easily solve this problem. There are of course other events, but they often muscle cars on the previously mentioned restricted circuits and while entertaining, this area offers the least amount of variety. This does represent a missed opportunity because having a racing game set in America, yet not including oval racing seems like an oversight. One that could easily be remedied by having a few tracks thrown in, they are just glorified circles so surely it wouldn't need too many man hours texturing. It does seem odd to complain about a lack of turning left all the time with Nascar 08 released only this last week, and it may highlight Codemaster's overall goal with this title, namely fun.
Racing games often fail or succeed on one simply, yet hard to accomplish attribute, handling. Its all in the handling, which within Grid always feels just the right side of bone breakingly fast, yet still controllable in the right hands. It feels right and conquerable yet challenging, especially with the later cars which can be bought with your earnings. Unlike many other racing titles, GRID always feel right on the edge, with a sense of speed being the biggest accomplishment of this game which remains fun and entertaining. This is especially the case when the slightest twitch of the car can push your lovely car into a very stern concrete wall, which can utterly decimate your car. This is another area which Grid shines with a spectacular yet, albeit it, unrealistic damage model. Parts will fall off your car and litter the track on impact, if not the will make your speed devil look shattered and tarnished while occasionally diminishing your acceleration or making your car always steer to the left or right, depending on the impact.
There is also the team dynamic, where you are in charge of buying cars, deciding what events to drive, hire team mates, and decide on your teams colour scheme. It my sound a bit shallow, but these aspects provide a nice alternative to just racing competitors in different disciplines all the time, a segway to the action if you will. Also Introduced in Grid is also an inspired Flashback option, which offers drivers a chance to turn back time when they make a mistake in the race. This may seem like a sacrilegious inclusion to some traditional racers, but as soon as you seen a previously written off car slowly rewind to the point before your calamitous actions, you will be hard pressed not to smile. An innovation which is not only simple but carried off in such great execution is obviously the result of many hours work within the developers basement and is a nice inclusion.
Overall Grid is a considerable achievement and may spur on other developers to innovate the driving experience instead of merely adding a graphical upgrade. There is some puzzling ommisions such as a complete lack of rain conditions, inability to choose A.I drivers in the replay system and some occasional commentary quirks from your team boss, but these are other small kinks in the bodywork of an otherwise impressive game. Grid does look beautiful but at the same time offers a new Flashback system, which crash happy gamers such as myself will miss in other titles. Codemasters have created an immersive and entertaining driving experience which is polished and faithfully dramatises motor racing to portray its true nature. It is in this regard that Grid is unmatched on any platform.