 All drivers to your cars... |
| Review Date: July 17, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Strategos, In Space above Planet Earth |
There are racing simulators, and then there are racing GAMES. I read a preview and an interview in two issues of Edge magazine discussing the new direction Codemasters was taking in this game, and by the time I finished the preview I was so exited I knew I had to preorder the game and make the first full-price purchase I've ever made of a 360 game. The reason is simple. As one of the game's creators said, the racing genre has become a collect-a-thon with very little to do with the joy of racing. We've come to invest massive amounts of time into things like Forza and Gran Turismo without actually enjoying the races, just trying to win enough money to buy that next car or rank high enough to unlock that next track. The Race Driver series, like the Colin McRae Rally series, has been trying to gain a foothold in the west for some time. Personally I have no problem with TOCA or Rally (I love every Colin McRae game I've played except, strangely, Dirt), but everyone else seems to need some convincing. Codemasters have been trying to do this for years by throwing all kinds of crazy modes at you in the Race Driver series. With Grid maybe they'll finally get your attention.
The first thing you will probably notice is the graphics engine that powers this game (the same one from Dirt). These are next next NEXT generation graphics. Flags wave in the breeze, crowds cheer and jump up and down, and huge clouds of smoke shoot from your tires when you spin your tires. At the starting line, there is a fog of exhaust from the idling cars. But when you start racing, you realize that everything is also faster than greased lightning, giving you that sense of speed previously only seen in the movies.
When I first played the demo, the impression I got was that the developers watched The Fast and the Furious, Gone in 60 Seconds, and bunch more like them, and said "We need our game to look, move, and feel like THAT." Just before the race starts the camera does a lightning-fast zoom to the cars from an overhead view. On the replays, the camera shakes and rattles like it's a helicopter shot tracking your car, and your car is itself has the shake and blur of an object rocketing along at incredible speed. Nothing like the Sunday driver replays we've all become accustomed to. The sense of speed is really fantastic, and the game's controls will at first take some getting used to, because the cars are far more controllable than you are probably used to (resulting in a lot of spin-outs and wall-slams because you aren't expecting to turn so sharp). What this translates to is that when you get used the feel of this game it's a non-stop thrill ride as your car flies around corners and takes off from a stop like something out of a forth of July blockbuster.
And let's not forget about the car deformation and physics engine. While I don't think it's possible to land upside down, I have wedged my car on top of wals, flipped end over end, spun my car 360 degrees in the air, and smashed my car till all that remained of the front was the engine (and I can't count the times I've seen my wheels fly off). Yes, this game has damage, and it's way better than the damage in any other game I know of. It's not realistic, but it is TOUGH. If you have a head-on collision at top speed, that's it. Your car is wrecked. Fortunately the new Rewind feature makes it possible to stop time and rewind to before the crash (ala Prince of Persia's innovative time-control system). Is it a cheap gimmick? No. It's a really cool feature and an absolute lifesaver. But of course, it also demishes your score, can only be used a certain number of times, and in higher difficulty settings and record score making can't be used at all. Think of it like the ideal line in Forza. It may be cheating, but it's a game, not real life. And there's no point in playing a game if you can't have fun. And a whole lot of fun Grid is.
The A.I. in the game is also quite good, and not just because cars keep slamming into you and trying to force you off the road (in a couple of races one or two of the leaders kept trying to block the road to keep me from passing and when I got ahead harassed me continually from behind). The other drivers will actually fight each other, spin out, and crash all on their own. This makes everything enormously exciting because it stops feeling like you're racing a computer that never makes mistakes and instead feels like you're racing a wild pack of drivers jockeying for position (thankfully more Speed Racer and Nascar). Realism freaks will cry foul, but people like me who are TIRED of realism getting in the way of having fun will love the atmosphere of the races, where you feel rivalry and desperation in every race, and know that you could go from last to first or vice versa at any time (making every race feel like one of the greastest you've ever seen on TV, because crazy comebacks and smash-ups at the finish line do ocassionally happen in real-life).
While most racing games stick with one mode, Grid has you doing all kind of crazy races, from destruction derby to drift challenges, to one-on-one mountain racing. You'll drive Formula 3, Super cars, and muscle cars. You'll drive everywhere from Long Beach to Le Mans. While I wish there were more tracks (I loved the destruction derby and wish there were a few more of my favorite European tracks), the limited car selection doesn't bother me at all, because all the cars are fast and fun and very usable. Similarly I'm GLAD there's no car tweaking and tuning because in the end it just distracts from RACING. Leave that adjustment stuff to my mechanic, thank you very much.
The sound in this game is roaring, from tire screeches to the turbine-engine whine of your formula 3 at high rpms. The crashes and crunches come perfectly and the music is upbeat and heart-racing. There's also a manager and Crew Chief who talk to you through the game offering advice, and even address you by name (when you create your profile, you select what they should call you from a list).
The only real snag I've hit so far is the unbalanced difficultly in the events. I can pretty much always hit a podium finished in the United States races, but the European track courses are REALLY hard, as is getting anything other than last place in Le Mans 24 hour (which in a really cool move is 24 minutes long). If playing on Easy meant I could always get at least 10th place I would have no complaints.
There you have it. This is the game everyone's been waiting for. There's fast and furious racing action with the best replays in history. Glorious graphics at lightning speed, roaring sound with good music (for the first time in a racing game since I can remember), cool commentary as you race that addresses you by name (how cool is that!?), awesome physics and A.I. that results in cars trying to push you off the road and crazy smash-up crashes, and fun, fun, FUN racing events with lots of variety. If you love racing games you need to buy this one.
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GRID - What GT5 Prologue should have been.
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| Review Date: June 24, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Chris Longhurst, Salt Lake City, Utah United States |
My review of GT5 Prologue elsewhere on Amazon reveals how disappointed I was with that preview to the full game. Things are a lot different this time around though. I downloaded the demo for Grid from the PS3 store first of all. 983Mb, so it took a while, but once it was installed and I was able to start playing - wow. The next day I went out and traded GT5 Prologue at my local games store and bought the full version of Grid. Why? Because Grid is exciting to play.
How can this be? It doesn't run at 60Hz. It doesn't run in 1080p (it's a 720p game). The graphics aren't as clean. The physics isn't as accurate. Surely GT5 Prologue ought to be head and shoulders above Grid?
In the computer graphics world, there's a concept called The Uncanny Valley - it's when CGI becomes so real that humans no longer accept it as being real any more. GT 5 Prologue has crossed the Uncanny Valley. Grid hasn't and it's so much better for it. The graphics are grubbier, dirtier and rougher - more like the real world. That's not to say they're worse. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact the detail on the cars and tracks in Grid is every bit as complex as that in GT 5 Prologue. Pause a replay or look around the cars in the garage - the detail goes as far as manufacturer logos on the wheel rims and brake calipers.
The single big-ticket item for me though is that Grid has solved the two biggest problems with GT 5 Prologue. Grid has car damage, and it's AI for the other drivers is stunning. First the car damage - it's incremental. Starting with scratched paint, bent wings and cracked windows. Keep up the reckless driving and bumpers will work loose and windows will pop out. Keep going and you can bend just about every part of the car. It all affects the car handling too - not extremely, but it is noticable. Steering can pull to one side or the other, acceleration can be dulled, brakes can lose their efficiency. Cracked radiators, bent air intakes - all affect the performance of your car. It's more arcade than simulation, but frankly it's so much better for it. Best of all, like Forza and other racers, when something drops off a car, it's persistent - it stays on the track creating a hazard for competitors behind. Same goes for tyre walls - whack into one of those and the tyres will fly all over the place, scattering into the crowd and track. Oh - and the crowd - 3D people that cheer and chant, and if you smack the wall right next to them, jump back. A nice touch.
On to the AI front, a breath of fresh air from the awful GT 5 Prologue disaster. Drivers jostle for position all over the track. They will get aggressive with you if you get aggressive with them. They make mistakes, often spinning out or crashing into each other or trackside objects. Fabulous. Love it.
You can whip up a paint job for your team from some basic choices of patterns and colours. It's got nowhere near the amount of tunability and customisation that some racers do but really - do you need it? There's plenty of variety in Grid to give you a custom look to your team. On top of that, the more you race, the more sponsors become available to you, so you can stuff sponsor stickers all over your ride to make more money when you race.
Other graphics touches are nice - the tyre smoke effects, dirt and sparks from the odd hard landing or excursion into the grass. Realtime reflections and shadows from everything. It's all gravy but it's all brilliant.
There are a raft of racing events to choose from - Pro Stock, Touring Cars, Destruction Derby, Open-wheel, Drift, Pro Togue - the list goes on. There's a large choice of tracks and a reasonable good choice of cars to choose from. Most tracks have a couple of different versions with forward and reverse options coming up later in the game.
The in-race music is patchy - it only seems to exist in a couple of races and I'm not sure why. Nobody in the Codemasters support forums seems to know why either but it's not a biggie. When racing there are plenty of ambient sound effects going on around you, even if the engine sounds are all a bit samey.
The replay facility is exciting to watch but it is a little limited. You can only focus on your car and you can't rotate the camera around, and there's no save facility. There are 5 or 6 predetermined camera choices including TV-style coverage which is nice, and the ability to slow the action down to ultra-slow-motion is really a nice addition. Grid also comes with a flashback feature. If you cock something up in a race, you can watch an instant replay and then choose the point in the replay from which you want a do-over. You'd think that would make it easy to win the races but in reality it doesn't. You only get between 2 to 6 chances in a race depending on your difficulty level. Each time you use one, you lose potential cash and reputation from your end-of-race winnings. The more cash you have, the more cars you can buy. The more reputation you earn, the more you can demand for racing for other teams. Yes - you have your own team, but you can also race for others as a sort of 'gun for hire'. Once you've progressed far enough you can also hire a second driver to drive a second car for you, doubling the chances of making money. As you work your way through the game your reputation level also unlocks more licence classes to race in - 10 in all, split 3 ways between US-, Euro- and Japanese-Racing once you've won your way through the basic licence.
Grid's online mode is also a lot better than GT 5 Prologue's too. It's intuitive and easy to use, and doesn't seem to really care about how your internet connection is set up. There is not a lot of noticable lag which makes for a nice, smooth racing environment. You can opt to join an existing lobby on the internet, or set up one of your own and wait for others to come to you. If you set up your own lobby, you can set a couple of different options, like damage levels and whether or not the race employs 'catch up' to keep the racers closer together. The only thing that marrs the online play is that you'll inevitably get one or two idiots who, once they've realised they're not at the front, will turn around and race the wrong way around to try to crash into everyone else. But I guess that's the motor racing equivalent of the 5 year old Korean kid who knows every glitch in first person shooters and appears to be able to snipe you from across the map.
Most importantly though, Grid is exciting to play. Properly exciting - enough to annoy you when you lose a race and make you want to run it over again to try to improve your ranking. It has plenty of eye-candy, plenty of replayability and plenty of variety. And that is why, for the time being, Grid trumps GT 5 Prologue in every category. Sure GT5P is a "preview" or "expensive demo" but if Polyphony don't learn from what Codemasters have done with Grid, the full version of GT5 will falter and ultimately fail. Grid doesn't fail - it wins comprehensively. Download the demo and I bet you'll end up buying the full game.
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Semi-realistic action racing game
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| Review Date: September 2, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Chad Babineaux, |
If you don't like action racing games because they are so un-realistic, and get frustrated with simulation racing games because of the tuning and practice needed to compete; GRID is the perfect game for you.
Likes:
- All cars handle differently
- The graphics are amazing (the replay looks like real TV)
- You can see damage to your car
- You don't have to be a car expert to tune your car to get the best time for each track. (no tuning)
Could improve:
- The other cars will quickly catch up to you or wait for you if you get ahead of the pack or fall behind it (so un-realistic).
- It takes major crashing to affect the performance of the car. You can go from last place into the inside of a curve and brake late, then crash your way into at least mid pack.
- You can easily go from 1st to last place by spinning out in a curve on the last lap. All cars like to stay grouped together and run 2 wide.
- Force feedback could be better in the turns
If the other cars were spread out more (first 3 issues), it would be the perfect racing game for me. |
I put GRID up against ANY other racing game that I've played
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| Review Date: July 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Raymond Martin, Houston, TX USA |
I love racing games but am not a huge fan of the realistic-type racing games (Gran Turismo, Forza, etc.). I read a lot of reviews of GRID before buying it and wasn't sure whether I would care for it or not. I am a big fan of the Burnout series. I am not a huge fan of the Need for Speed series because I am not really into cars that use spoilers as decoration and use blown-out mufflers to make them sound louder.
That being said, GRID is probably the best racing game I have ever played. I like the fact that you build your own racing team including designing your own "branding" for that team but you don't get bogged down with choosing decals and other countless inane customization options. The cars in GRID are actual cars (Corvette, Lamborghini, Aston-Martin, etc) as opposed to the Burnout cars that may be modelled after real cars but have silly names.
The racing in GRID is NOT realistic like Gran Turismo but it's more realistic than Burnout. You start the race with one car and if you bang up that car during a race, it can affect the performance of that car. You have several (usually 5) opportunities during a race to cue the instant replay and re-start just before you crashed so you don't have to completely avoid crashes altogether but you can't just bounce off of walls and other cars for the entire race like you can in Burnout, for example. Unlike the latest Burnout offering (Burnout Paradise), you CAN restart any race at any time. There are drifting events and head-to-head races as well as endurance events like the "24 hours at Le Mans" race.
As you progress with your racing team, you can add drivers to your team so that you have multiple entries in the same race. The tracks vary depending on whether you race in Europe, U.S. or Japan but you don't get bored racing the same track over and over again because they change the tracks for different races. Sometimes, you race in the opposite direction on a particular track and sometimes they add sections to a particular track. So, you don't get bored racing the same tracks all the time.
I found a lot of conflicting reviews before buying this game and was still not sure what I was going to get when I played it. That's why I have posted this review. Hopefully, it will clear up any confusion there might be about what kind of racing game GRID is for those of you who may be on-the-fence about purchasing it. |
Another Racing Blockbuster From CodeMasters!
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| Review Date: June 11, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Nicholas Shoemaker, North Carolina USA |
Very few games have come along on the next gen systems, that have caught my attention for more than an hour or two at a time. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Heavenly Sword, and Dirt, were the latest to hold my attention. Then, along comes this unknown racking blockbuster known as GRID! From the moment GRID made it in to my PS3, I was hooked. The next seven hours were a blur!
Now don't get me wrong, I am not a fan boy of either racing genre over the other (arcade or simulation). I love all racing games from Mario Kart to Ridge Racer to Forza Motorsport to Gran Turismo to Dirt, and back again. Each style has its niches that appeal to me, and GRID has combined them perfectly. I will just say that CodeMasters has done it again. You start the game with a beat up Mustang Boss, a garage with no tools, and no money. You will race for other teams to earn money to open your garage and fix your car. Once you have your car, the fun begins!
The cars, the tracks, the visual effects, the eye candy, it is all just stunning! There is nothing better than sitting in your old Ford Mustang Boss, hitting the gas and watching the rear end of your car drop and shift due to the pure power of the car. The racing is intense, and the AI is the best that I have yet to see. This is not the typical "I can never beat these guys because they run that perfect line and never wreck," kind of game. You will realize out of the gate that these guys are out for blood...yours and each others. The AI does it all, from forgetting to break and slamming in to walls in the corners, to tapping your bumper to spin you out, to side bumping you off of the track for a spin out. But remember, the are doing all of this to each other as well. For my time playing, it was not uncommon to be in fourth or third, and seeing the cars in front of me turn in to a billow of smoke and car parts as they were bumping for position on the next turn. The AI's driving intensity makes this game a 110% better from the start.
As for the damage to the cars, this is were a little arcade presence comes in. There are subtle little things that you can get away with like bumping things all throughout the race, but never doing enough damage to effect your cars performance. But trust me, if you slam into a wall at 100+ mph, your car is toast and you have three options, (1) restart the race, (2) retire and lose reputation points, or (3) rewind to just before your accident and try again. I will touch on the rewind ability in a few. Now that takes care of the extremes for damage (light and heavy), but what about the moderate? For anyone that has played Forza Motorsport, you will notice the moderate damage effects right away. If you hit a wall or another car at a decent speed, on the front right side of your car, you will notice that when you take your hand off the wheel, that the car will pull to the right. This makes for some interest when you are on lap 9 of 10, just hit the car in front of you to take over first place, but your car now pulls to the right or left for the entire last lap. Now, back to the rewind ability...during a race, when you are in 1st place and coming in the last turn and slam in to the wall for some reason, you now have the ability to "rewind" the race to just a few seconds before your wreck, and try that nasty corner again.
The one down side to this game (for me at least) is the inability to modify your car. There are limited mod capabilities, but I enjoy the Forza Motorsport abilities, where you can mod everything from the ground and up. I like changing the rims, changing the body kits and hoods, tinting the windows, and giving the car a custom paint job, then going in and completely redesigning your engines. I believe this would have been a great addition to the game. Maybe in the future CodeMasters, maybe.
All in all, this is a great racer. By far, one of the best racers that I have seen in a VERY, VERY long time. And it is definitely, hands down, the #1 racer currently available on the next gen systems. If you are a fan of racing games, the is a must buy! |
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