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GRID
Best... Racing Game... Ever!
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I remember having a conversation with my buddy Joel not long back about someone he knew that was actually making a racing game and they were asking if he had any innovative ideas. It made me think about it myself and I remember telling him that I really wish a racing game came out with accurate damage to your vehicle. Not one that JUST had realistic bumps and dents formed in the body, but a game that actually prevented you from throwing yourself into walls or other cars for a quick and easy turn and allowed you to trash your car to the point of not being able to race anymore. GRID isn’t that ideal game I imagined, but it’s the closest thing yet.
This is the first game I've seen that if you slam into a wall, another car, or anything too hard you are going to trash your vehicle. The race is then over. This applies to online races as well if you set your filters right, and man is it ever nice to see the untalented hack racers slam into walls in the first lap and trash their cars. It is done very well, but I would have taken it one step further. If the player crashes their car, or takes any damage at all, then the repair cost should come out of their bank account. Each time the car gets trashed, and subsequently fixed, it should become a little crappier. Maybe this is all happening behind the scenes in GRID because the Ebay purchased cars reflect such things, but as of yet I haven’t seen any statistics screens of how many times I’ve trashed each car.
Still, this is the best racing game ever made as it’s the perfect balance between simulation and arcade. Enough simulation and realistic modeling to feel like you’re playing Gran Turismo, but enough arcade action and driving assists to make the game very exciting as well. It is entirely customizable, as well, allowing the player to turn assists on and off and be rewarded with more experience points as a result, opening up harder events which leads to better sponsors. You can adjust the difficulty on-the-fly as well which also results in more experience points. You can even force a first-person in-car view for even more points. It’s entirely up to the player, race-by-race, how they want to challenge themselves and they will be rewarded handsomely for doing so.
In terms of presentation, graphics and sound, there is no racing game that comes close to this. It is flawless, as a matter of fact. There is no fill in, EVER. Every time someone sees me playing the game they say “Is this a 360 game? On component cables? Wtf?” because there is still this large public perception that the 360 is incapable of pushing 1080p graphics and that it is just simulated, like the Playstation style up scaling. The irony of this is that if you do a box-to-box comparison you are almost always going to find that the PS3 only goes up to 720p and the 360 version of games ALWAYS support 1080p. In fact, I have flipped between a demo of GRID on my PS3 and my bought copy of GRID on my 360 and it is CLEARLY OBVIOUS that the 360 version looks MUCH nicer, and MUCH higher rez. You can get demos for both systems, so if you want to do the comparison yourself go ahead and you’ll see what I’m saying. The 360 is more than capable of pushing 1080p, and in fact appears to be able to do it more often and with better frame rates.
One thing I forgot to mention is the instant replay flashbacks, and that is very cool. Depending on the difficulty you set the race at you will have a certain number of "Flashbacks" available. This allows you to rewind the replay 30 seconds back and hit 'X' to restart from that point. So if you take a corner too fast and trash your car, or if you just think you could have done it better, you have the option a limited number of times per race to take another run at it.
The multiplayer in GRID seems near perfect as well. The voting system seems to suck a little since people always pick the same crap over and over. I would have liked to see some kind of filter that prevents you from picking any race series that has been chosen recently. The lag seems nonexistent to me in this game, though, and I have had some fantastic experiences online. Couple that with an awesome experience based leveling system and you got a winner for sure. |
Graphics
The first time one of my friends sat down and watched me play GRID he said: "Is this a 360 game?" GRID clearly shows off the 360s 1080p capabilities.
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10.0 |
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Sound
Perfect sound all around. With surround sound this game is a dream to experience.
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10.0 |
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Gameplay
The perfect mix of arcade controls and simulation driving. The player can customize the basics of gameplay without it getting overtly complex.
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9.5 |
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Originality
GRID implements a bunch of smart decisions that make it stand well above the rest of the racing games out there.
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9.0 |
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Interface
Codemasters have some serious skill when it comes to designing interfaces, but this game wasn't as nice as DiRT.
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9.5 |
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Fun
I really don't think I'll ever stop playing this game. The online is just so well done and single player challenges always offer up a unique experience.
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10.0 |
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Lasting Appeal
I plan to compete in the online leaderboards on this one for a long time.
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9.0 |
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Overall
I can’t recommend GRID enough if you are a racing fan. It is the perfect mix of arcade and simulation racing, allowing the user to customize their experience at every step, and constantly serves up great action both online and off.
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9.6 |
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