Friday 18 November 2011

GRID Review


I've been playing GRID for about 2 weeks now after purchasing it in the Midweek Madness offer on Steam. An absolute bargain if you ask me at only £2.74 at the time. I've seen the game a few times in the Codemasters racing pack on Steam and considered it at full price, but I don't think i would have regretted paying full price for it.

Given that the game is now just over 3 years old, and the price tag, I thought the game would come with slightly underwhelming or out-dated graphics, but that was not the case. Playing mostly on my machine at work (with a Xeon W3550, some 12GB of RAM and a GTX 460 SE) the graphics have been one of the stand out achievements of the game. The tracks and surrounding environments look great. Car models are detailed and include high level of damage modelling, which goes way beyond what I've seen in either console's flagship racing titles.

There are not a massive choice of tracks to race on, at only 15, but the selection that Codemasters made was exceptional. Time and time again I've played the same tracks on other racing games such as Gran Turismo and Forza, but I was delighted to see such tracks as Donnington Park, and been a big F1 fan, it was also exciting to finally race around Istanbul Park and Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. (OK, yes, this is now DLC for GT5, but it is paid for, and it costs more than I paid for the full GRID game!!!) The track selection also has a few city courses which nicely mixed up the race environments.


One thing that has kind of bugged me is that you often find yourself racing in a different car each race, so it is quite hard to learn how best to drive a specific car. This is a side effect of the fact that the game offers several race types and tries to keep you interested in them all as you progress through the career.


+ Looks brilliant
+ Great tracks to race on
- No weather effects
- Lack of consistency between races


All in all, one of the best racing games I've played and will remember it for some time.

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