Codemaster’s latest racing title is ready to overload your senses with the sound of engines roaring and the smell of rubber melting.Codemasters' Race Driver series has long put the emphasis on making the driver, not the cars, the stars of the show. Grid is the spiritual successor to this series, and though it still offers you the chance to travel the world as a racing driver, the emphasis is firmly back on the racing itself. Taking in a wide range of international venues and racing disciplines, Grid's career mode puts you in the shoes of a top racing driver.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot SUPER SKILLS
Race Driver: GRID will take players to beautifully realised and dramatic race locations over three continents to compete in an unprecedented variety of racing events. Packed with the most powerful race cars – new and classic, circuit and drift – players will compete to conquer the most prestigious official race tracks and championships and then go beyond to compete in challenging city-based competitions, through to road events and urban street races.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot rally race
The single player career is presented to us as “Grid World” in which you start out as a rookie driver trying to make it to the top of the racing ladder. Forward momentum is what Grid is all about. Once you create your character and give him or her a name and country of origin,Grid includes a list of nicknames you can choose instead. Want your crew to call you "Dumptruck"? the poor sap gets dumped directly on the track for a virgin race. There's no tutorial. You don't flip through a menu of cars and tracks. It's into a Dodge Viper and up to 100 mph. Finish that race and you're officially a freelance driver, hiring yourself out to the highest bidder in an effort to raise €60,000 toward a car of your own.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot euro race
After you’ve experienced some success as a hired hand for whichever teams are willing to take you on,A few races later, you have the resources to create your own team, name it, brand it and choose your official colors and design, which will be applied to every car you acquire throughout the game. If you've grown accustomed to the detailed livery creation system in Forza 2, you'll be underwhelmed by the design customization options in Grid. For me, Grid includes just enough visual tweaking. To keep the races somewhat realistic looking that’s when the serious money starts rolling in.You’ll then be able to buy and sell cars, set-up sponsorship deals and (eventually) hire teammates. A bizarre side note here– each time you choose a car that you would like to purchase ,you’re given the option of buying it secondhand on an in-game version of eBay. This rather odd inclusion doesn’t ever really feel necessary as the cars are only very slightly cheaper and the majority of them, you’re told, have been wrecked multiple times by their previous owner/owners.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot muscle cars
Grid splits its racing between three geographical locations, with Europe, the US, and Japan each presenting an assortment of racing styles. Europe features track-based racing, with famous locations such as the Nurburgring, Donington Park, and Le Mans on its roster. Europe also boasts a city track in Milan, but it's the US that is more focused on street racing with courses in Washington, San Francisco, Detroit, and more. Japan is clearly influenced by underground street racing and has short, winding tracks that are perfect for drifting around. Each of these locations demands different vehicles; Europe features touring and GT cars, the US has muscle cars such as Vipers and Mustangs, and in Japan you get to drive tricked-out Nissans and Subarus.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot race in japan
Japan is a different bag altogether, featuring no less than three different types of drift event, which, as Need For Speed fans will attest, involve sliding your car round in an irresponsible fashion in order to accrue points.
Japan is also host to the Touge races, .A pro touge is essentially a head to head battle from point A to point B, usually broken up into different rounds i.e. quarterfinal, semi-final and final. These are some of the game’s more difficult events (depending on what difficulty you’re playing on) as even minor nudges against your opponents car can cause you to incur very harsh penalties, in the form of seconds being added to your final time.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot chase
Depending on your skills and event selection, reaching the magical 40k figure should only take a handful of races, at which point you're rewarded with a recently renovated... Ford Mustang.Despite the Mustang's status as a classic American street car and a popular choice on race tracks and drag strips, after driving Lamborghinis and Porsches it seems a bit of a slap in the face.
Drift races score you on style as well as speed
The simple upgrade system and accessible racing style mean that Grid is more of an arcade-style racing game than a sim. That said, the game is still challenging, and the believable AI opponents will happily smash you into walls. In a nod to realism, head-on collisions will often take you out of a race completely, though one of Grid's new features offers you a way back in. The flashback system, which can be selected from the pause menu, lets you rewind time and resume gameplay at a point before the mistake was made. Your chosen difficulty level determines the number of flashbacks at your disposal, and there's a cash incentive at the end of each race for not using the feature. Racing purists may baulk at the concept, but it's completely up to you whether you choose to use flashbacks in the game.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot Big crash
You can hurl the majority of vehicles around hairpin turns at ridiculous speeds, needing to apply the breaks for only a second or two to get the job done. However, you’ll still need to be careful not to brake too hard while cornering, as it’s all too easy to spin out 180 degrees and end up facing oncoming traffic (never a smart move).On the other hand, this intense speed does come at a price. Crashing into the barriers or colliding with other vehicles is all too easily done and the damage it can cause to your car will often mean you can’t continue the race in that state.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot crashing into one another
Computer A.I. is impressive in GRID. There are no preset routes that cars follow here, and opponents tend to be just as crazy as the player when it comes to taking corners at suicidal speeds and crashing into one another. This leads to a fair amount of accidents in which you have had no direct part.
Pre-recorded dialogue is a big part of the Grid experience. Your business manager, spotter and teammate (who you'll hire later in the game) are constantly chattering at you, which at first makes for an immersive experience that gives the illusion of a real working race team. If there's an accident on the track, your spotter will alert you over the radio
Grid's controls feel light, responsive, and even quite forgiving, but the damage model and challenging AI can make for a difficult first few races. Minor bumps and crashes will do little to impact the performance of your vehicle; bumpers will fall off and windscreens will shatter, but the innards of your car will perform as normal.Damage modeling on the vehicles is impressive too. Hit the wall too hard and you could end up leaving a significant portion of your car behind, or, at the very least, mangle it up to such a degree that it looks as though the engine will drop out the bottom at any moment.
GRID XBOX 360 Screenshot Mustang going fast
failing a race in Grid can be almost as much fun as winning thanks to an excellent damage system that's capable of crumpling your car into a rolling mass of bustedness. Using the damage modeling developed for DiRT, Codemasters has created the most dramatic racing crash effects we've ever seen in a videogame. Bumpers fall off when tapped too hard, Le Mans prototypes lose their wings and stock cars lose their doors after spectacular rolls.
Less terrifying, but in need of just as much concentration, are Drift Battles and Drift GPs, which feed into the game's competitiveness with PGR. The mechanics are similar to Bizarre's game - as you overpower the wheels into a turn, the backside of your car slides out and you massage the acceleration and braking triggers to maintain stability. The faster you're going, the more acute the angle, and the closer you are to any flags on the inside kerb, the more points you accumulate for each stunt. By fishtailing along straights and moving seamlessly between opposing drifts, you can build up a combo, with a short grace period after each drift to execute another one and build up a multiplier for your eventual score.
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