GRID

THE GOOD:

• A very realistic car game for the Xbox 360. There aren't many for this console.
  
• Some of the crashes are pretty extreme, and cause a lot of damage to your vehicle.
  
• Enemy cars are just as aggressive as real drivers, so that also adds to the realism.
  
• 24 Hours of Le Mans is a very popular real-life track and a very difficult event to participate in on the game.
  
• A solid career mode with money from sponsors and money for winning events.
  
• Creating your own car colour and design is a great feature to be added. You can have your cars looking however you would like them.
  
• A wide variety of different event styles like, drift events, stock car racing events and pro touge events. So you won't just find yourself racing the same repetitive races.
  
• If you're a racing fan, it's likely that you will recognise a few of the tracks in the game. Most of the racing tracks are real life tracks, and could help you understand the corners of them more.
  
• The flashback mode is a great feature - it allows you to go back about 10 seconds before you have wrecked your car, or have messed up somehow.
  
• The difficulty levels are quite realistic too, and are really tough as you raise the difficulty.
  
• In career mode, you get yourself a team-mate. So if your team-mate wins a race, he earns you a lot of money. Depending on his contract, he will take a certain percentage of the ransom.
  
• Your pit crew will speak to you throughout each race, which is quite realistic.

THE BAD:

• The AI are annoying at times and you will find them crashing into you a lot, and spinning you out.
  
• It's the same with online players, only it's more expected from these guys. Whenever I've played a car game online, it's always been the same and you will always come across people just trying to wreck the races.

SUMMARY:
When I purchased this game, it was between this and a shooter. I hadn't got many racing games, but I was interested in buying a shooter more so that a racing game. The game caught my eye when I seen it because I played the demo on the PS3, and it was rather enjoyable. Looking at the back of the cover, I decided to make my mind up and purchase GRID. It was a good choice for me as I got a lot of gameplay out of it, and it turns out the other game I was looking to get was terrible!

GAMEPLAY
GRID itself is a very realistic car game. It's definitely the most realistic racer for the Xbox 360. I was disappointed with the lack of good racers on this next generation console, because there was quite a few on the PS2 that I enjoyed a lot. But luckily GRID didn't disappoint me. When racing against 10+ cars in a tight circuit track, it does get very competitive. The AI are pretty tough on any difficulty, and can tend to use their own dirty tactics to get in front of your car - which you'd probably expect to be realistic so it's good. What I think is another great feature about the gameplay is, if you've spun out or crashed and are trailing behind the pack, you will find others making errors and spinning out themselves. Whenever I've played a racing game, I haven't really come across many games where the AI actually make mistakes of their own. The start of each race is very like a real race - everybody eager to get to pole position. The first corner is always very difficult, and you must be careful or you will find yourself instantly wrecking your vehicle this early in the race.

If you've had experience with previous racing games, you may have noticed that if you are at the back of the grid, it's easy to work your way to the top by passing out cars. But it's not so much the same in GRID. It's a very competitive game, and enemy cars won't just let you stroll on past them. They will all fight for their position, and try and work their way to the front just like you! One thing about the game that really catches my eye is indeed the competition. I must say, I love it since the majority of car games I've played weren't really difficult by any means.

GRAPHICS
Looking at the cars in this game, they really did a great job on the graphics. There is a wide variety of cars to choose from in different events, and every car looks really good - except the stock cars, but they never look good! I'd like to show you an image of a car from gameplay for you to compare for yourself:

As you can see yourself, they got the graphics spot on! The three Audis above are probably three of the better cars in the game. Well, the car in the middle is certainly one of the fastest in the game - if not, the fastest!

Another thing that's certainly worth mentioning when you speak about the graphics is, the amazing crashing scenes. A lot of the crashes you will see, will have real-life car damage. And depending on how badly you've crashed, you will wreck your car, or just do damage to a certain feature of your vehicle. I think a video would do you some justice, if you really want to see some crashes and gameplay from Race Driver: GRID:



Some of the crashes there are really severe, and absolutely total each car. Obviously the game isn't just about crashing and wrecking your vehicle (except in stock cars), but it's always a nice feature to have to add to the realism.

PLOT
The story mode is very interesting on this game. It's fun to go through as well. You start off in an average looking pit, with a decent pit crew. Your not racing for your own team just yet, but racing for others to earn little bits of money to start off your own car brand. After a good few races with other teams, in different events, you start off as your own team. Unlike the rest of the teams you will race against at the beginning, you will be a team of one just for the moment! You don't get the option of purchasing a co-driver until about 1/4 into the story mode, which is a bit unfortunate. But still really good considering it's not so late on. When you've got your co-driver on board, he will update you what position he is on the GRID (whether he is behind you, or in front of you and also first and last). As you progress through your story mode by winning each event that you come across, you will find yourself racing your rival team - Ravenwest. Two of the Ravenwest racers are Nathan McKane (a driver that features in previous Race Driver games) and Rick Scott. Definitely two of the best enemy drivers on the game. Unfortunately you can't get either for your team, and these races will be highly competitive for you, no matter the difficulty. There is a wide selection of drivers for you to become partners with - some good, some bad. You will know who'll be good from the earnings % of each driver. The higher the earnings %, the better the driver ordinarily.

ONLINE
The online is always a nice feature to any good game, and GRID isn't hugely different. Once you avoid the people who just go out of their way to wreck your car/fun, it's great online. There are people who like to take the game seriously, but the majority of them just want to mess about. It's up to you what you want to do really. My only advice is to not take it seriously online, because you will be disappointed with the lack of seriousness online. You can race in any events, just like the story mode. It's like a poll at the beginning when you get all of the online drivers in to race. People will choose what events they want to race in and whichever gets the most votes, that will be the event you race in. Certainly the fairest idea, but can be disappointing too when people pick an event you really aren't up for racing in. There is a rank system in GRID just like Gears of War 2. Probably a bad example as they are completely different games, but there is a handful of ranks to go through. It can help you stay interested in the game when you try and climb each rank, and it's a lot tougher than the story mode. You'll only really get rewarded when you win a race against opponents online, and it's never easy to win!

AUDIO
There isn't much music in this game to be honest. One song that's worth mentioning is the No One Knows remix by Unkle. It's in the start up video for the game, and it sounds really good. But there is no music throughout gameplay racing.

Menu music:

No One Knows (remix) - Unkle, along with gameplay:

CONTROLS
If you've played some racing games before on a next generation console (Xbox 360 or PS3), you shouldn't have any trouble getting use to the buttons on this. The acceleration is the RT button, just like on any other car game for the 360, so you won't have any trouble getting use to it. If you're used to playing the PS2 and using the X button to accelerate, then it might come off as a bit difficult to you at first. But nothing a little bit of getting use to can't solve.

REPETITION & LASTING VALUE
The game can become repetitive after a while. Once you've completed the story mode, you will find yourself doing the same races over and over. Upping your difficulty level will help you from finding this repetitive and boring. One thing that will certainly keep you interested in the game is the 24 Hour of Le Mans race that shows up in career once a year (it doesn't take that long to go through a year on GRID). It's always an interesting and competitive race to participate in, no matter what car class you use. The online mode is something that will also keep you interested as you are racing against different people all of the time. The last time I checked, the game was pretty busy online too. I'm sure if you ask anybody else who has played the game, they will tell you that the game has got good lasting value. Being one of the better racers on the 360 (if not, the best), it's always gonna last more than other racers.

TYING INTO A SERIES

quote Codemasters article


There are some developers who have so much experience within a genre that when they launch a new title, the industry takes note. For Codemasters that genre is racing, and the huge acclaim given to its recent Race Driver GRID back in May shows that the UK studio is at the top of its game.

Eight-year Codies veteran and producer of all Race Drivers to date is Clive Moody, who recently spoke with us about his passion for racing, the development of GRID, and what we could see in the future.

"I'm a big racing fan, I love all elements of the sport, and that's why for me it was great to get all styles of racing into one package. For us it is a big new thing, a new franchise and we wanted to move a little bit away from our TOCA roots which have always been grounded very much in the touring car angle"

Perhaps the biggest reason for GRID's success was the teams decision to go back to the drawing board of the racing genre. "Our whole philosophy is that it's about the racing. That's what's we're all about," explains Moody. "When we first set out to make the game we took a long, hard look at what was happening in the world of racing games at that time, and what we saw was a lot of games doing modding, a lot of games about creating your car and putting pretty patterns on the side of it. None of them appeared to be focusing on the core, which is fast, exciting, aggressive racing. We decided that was what we wanted to do and wanted to try and distil that into your 5 to 6 minute experience and get back to what racing is all about."

In our view, and of the view of the series' massive fan base, it's an approach that paid off. But where is the racing genre heading next? "It's a big question and there's quite a lot of diversity coming in, especially if you look at games like Burnout and Test Drive - they've brought the whole open environment angle to it, and they have their place. Games like GRID also have their place in terms of traditional racing, but it's full on, it's exciting. I think it's all about exaggerating the experience to some extent, certainly something we tried to do with GRID - it's almost hyper real.

"The EGO engine is evolving all the time - it's was in development for over two years before the launch of GRID. I think we've taken a real step up from what you saw in DiRT, even with just a year between the two titles. There are always going to be new features and improvements that we can make. We've had 50 to 60 engineers working on EGO over its two years, so if we can continue at that rate, the sky is almost the limit. I'm of the opinion that it is absolutely the finest racing game engine in the world today, and I think that if you look at the visuals in GRID it'll be hard for anyone to argue."

Meanwhile, TV features in games like PGR seem to be conspicuous by their absence in GRID. We at Kikizo think that seeing winners actually racing each other would be a great thing for the competitive community. That's the thing with tournaments: even if you can't get into the lobbies with the top players, you can still watch them play, and watch your friends play. Replays can be so entertaining that we sometimes spend as much time watching as we do playing. Could this aspect come into GRID next?

"There's a dozen things we can do online, we've got literally pages and pages of great ideas of how we can do that. Certainly with a game like GRID you've got the team aspect in there; we haven't got the team aspect online in this version, but looking ahead that's something which would be a really cool thing for the game - to have race teams that are literally online, racing against each other.

"My personal goal for that if we've got it would be to get their ghost laps and make them uploadable, so the world could upload that lap and it would be a challenge. They could see how they did it and have a go. I think that will be cool - if only to see how much better they are than me!"

So, these could be some hints about what's on the way in GRID 2, or at the very least, in downloadable content form. Whichever it is, we're certain that more is in development on the GRID front - we've seen it! When we briefly spotted the easily recognisable, all-new Mitsubishi Evo in wireframe form on the one Codies staffer's computer, their PC screens were promptly switched off.

And coy as Moody tries to be about the series' future, we're also betting Formula One cars might be joining the GRID line-up as well. He wouldn't officially commit to it, but sometimes, developers just offer that knowing smile. Source.

Judging by that, I don't think this will be the last time you will see a Race Driver game, which is nice. I'd definitely be interested in getting a second GRID game. Hoping for Formula One cars in this, it should be excellent.

GLITCHES/BUGS
I have come across some minor glitches in offline mode. There are times when you crash that you will find yourself spinning in the air quite a lot! It doesn't come across very often, but I have seen it a handful of times from the long amount of time that I have played GRID. I suppose looking on the bright side, it will help you get the achievement you need to roll your car 20 times! Besides this minor glitch, I haven't come across any other and I have played this game for hours on end.

SUMMARY
GRID is an excellent next generation car game. I was a fan of previous Race Driver games, but GRID is much better than the previous. A lot more realistic than any other car game that I have played on the Xbox. Looking at the pictures and videos above, you will see for yourself how realistic it looks. But of course, it always looks more realistic when you play the game for yourself. The story mode is very good, and competes with the likes of Gran Turismo in my book. Whenever I get a new racer, I always have to compare it to the best - Gran Turismo. Comparing the two, I don't see a huge difference between the two. There is a wider variety of cars and tracks on Gran Turismo, but the gameplay is just as good on GRID, plus it's more realistic as you can't wreck your vehicle in Gran Turismo like you can wreck your vehicle in GRID.

RECOMMENDING IT
I would definitely recommend this game to any Xbox 360 players who enjoy a racing game and haven't come across a good one yet. The demo is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace as far as I know, so it would be good to at least give that a shot before deciding on whether you should purchase this game or not. But I'd definitely recommend this game, as it's very realistic and competitive from a gamer's point of view.