Reviewed by Barry Little - August 11, 2008

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Fans of racing simulators have got a lot to crow about these days, with plenty of cool current and upcoming titles for all gaming platforms. It’s a different story for arcade racing games though, where things have been rather disappointing for awhile. Codemasters, the makers of the ToCA, Race Driver and Colin McRae series have recently changed that, with a hot new title featuring some of the world’s premier performance cars and tracks; gorgeous visuals, and a damage system that has to experienced to be believed. Racing just got exciting again. Welcome to GRID.

GRID places you in some of the world’s hottest cars on the most challenging tracks on the planet. Starting as a rookie driver, you’ll progress through numerous racing disciplines in a wide range of vehicles from demolition derby cars to exotic multi-million dollar prototypes, against fierce competition (and some well-known real-world racing teams). Your racing career will span the globe from circuit tracks in Long Beach, San Francisco, Detroit, the Spa Francorchamps in Paris and Istanbul Park in Turkey. Sprint and Grand Prix tracks in Nüburgring. Touge racing down the narrow, treacherous mountain roads of Japan’s Mount Haruna, Pro Tuned racing through the nighttime streets of Shibuya, and Drift battles on the Yokohama Docks. You’ll even race in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans. Your goal: become the world’s best race car driver with the world’s best racing team.

Although it is also known as Race Driver: GRID, GRID is not a sequel to Codemaster’s well-known Race Driver series of games, which had a greater emphasis on simulation (one of the Race Driver titles even had a storyline). GRID’s emphasis is more on fast-paced, “action-oriented” racing. And GRID delivers that in spades.

Like many racing games, GRID has a single and multiplayer component. Race Day is GRID’s equivalent of the “Quick Race” option. Here, you can select any of GRID’s racing disciplines; the cars specific to that discipline, the location, route, number of laps and Livery (racing team). Make your choices, jump in and race! This mode is a good way to get familiar with the cars and tracks without the pressures associated with competing in GRID’s campaign mode.

GRID World is where the real single-player action takes place in the game, and where your career begins. GRID World is where you and your racing team will face increasingly tougher challenges over three international podiums (regions)—the United States, Europe and Japan, on your way to becoming Number One. As with any campaign, you’ll need to start at the bottom to work your way up to that lofty position. You begin by creating your profile and selecting an in-game first name or nickname that your business manager and crew chief will use to address you throughout your career. Codemasters offers a good mix of male and female first names, and the usual nicknames you’d expect in a racing game. A small detail to be sure, but one that adds a nice bit of personalized immersion to GRID—one that I could particularly appreciate, as it’s not often that I get to hear in-game characters address me by my name while playing. Customized controller settings are saved with every profile you create, so if you start a new profile, you’ll have to re-create your settings for your controller again. Once you’ve created your profile, it’s time to go racing!

Your first race is in a Dodge Viper owned by Team Ravenwest (remember that name, as you’ll definitely cross paths with them again). The goal is to win your rookie racing license. If you’re more comfortable with jumping right into the meat ‘n potatoes of the game rather than going through some or all of Race Day races to get more of a feel for the ins and outs of GRID, this first race will serve as a trainer of sorts that will acclimate you to the world of GRID competition.

Winning this first race isn’t as important as finishing it—a task that you may find easier said than done. With one exception, there are no penalties for drivers “trading paint” in GRID. And unlike some racing games, the damage system Codemasters has implemented isn’t just for show. Engine and suspension damage from an impact can cripple the car’s performance or put it completely out of the race. Fortunately, you won’t be entirely alone out there. You crew chief will stay in contact with you throughout each race and your entire career, advising you over your helmet’s headset on how you’re doing during a race, the current health of your car and how serious any damage is; warning you of accidents on the track that could potentially trip you up, and basically keeping you out of trouble as much as possible. Of course, the responsibility for that last part primarily falls into your lap, but you’ve probably already figured that part out.

Once you’ve survived and successfully competed your first GRID trial-of-fire, you’ll get your rookie license for all three podiums and will have earned just enough cash for your first garage and your first car—a classic 1970 Mustang Boss 302. You’ve just taken the first step in establishing your own racing team. But you’ll need $80,000 to make the car track worthy and cover other team-related expenses. That’s where your business manager comes in. She’ll handle the finances while you focus on winning races. First though, she’ll give you the 411 on the two most important factors in advancing through and succeeding in the GRID World: Money and Reputation. To earn that first eighty-grand, you’re going to have to race for other teams via the Driver Offers option on the Main Menu. Driving for other teams is the fastest way to fill your bank account (though you won’t increase your reputation as much or as quickly as you would racing for your own team). In addition to a money-in-the-bank appearance fee, you are paid a bonus for completing the objective of a race. For example, some races require that you finish no lower than 3^rd in you class. Others may require a first-place win, or that you finish the race without any damage to your car (these are some of the toughest races to win in GRID). Successfully completing the objective adds to your reputation. Driver Offers are always available at any point in the GRID World campaign, so you never have to face the potential problem of “running out of cash” and hindering your progress, as in some other games.

Increasing your reputation allows you to unlock new licenses in each podium, and compete in more lucrative (and challenging) events that will bring you closer to competing in the final Global Racing League podium, once you’ve proven yourself in all the others. In exchange for having their logos on your cars, sponsors will also pay you for completing specific objectives during a race. As your career in GRID moves forward, you’ll receive offers from a wider range of sponsors, though you can only select eight sponsors at a time (which includes one major sponsor of your choice that pays double the objective bonus). To raise cash, you can also sell cars in your garage that you no longer want or need. Cars can be sold privately or through eBay Motors. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Selling privately puts a nice chunk of change in your bank account and clears the car from your inventory slot immediately. The downside is that you probably won’t get full value for the car. Selling on eBay takes longer, which also means the car occupies an inventory slot until its actually sold. However, you stand a better chance of getting more money for it.

Many arcade-oriented racing games lock you in at a fixed difficulty level that increases exponentially as you progress. GRID has five difficulty levels that you can choose from, which can be adjusted as desired before each race. Higher difficulty levels reward you with more reputation points, challenges you with AI opponents that are more aggressive and skilled in their driving techniques and make fewer mistakes, and reduces the number of Flashbacks available (more on that later). Turning off Pro Mode prevents you from restarting the race from the Pause Menu, and turning on the Locked To Head Camera forces your racing session to the Helmet Cam (interior) view. Both of those setting adjustments will also bolster your reputation points.

Once your Mustang is ready and you’ve got some wins under your team’s belt, you’ll eventually be able to hire another driver who will compete alongside you in events and bring in additional cash for the team, provided he meets or exceeds sponsor objectives. Each driver-for-hire has his own area of expertise with a specific racing discipline and car. His overall skills as a race car driver however, are more important than the discipline and car that is his forte (which is reflected by the amount of his signing bonus). If your team mate doesn’t work out, you can fire him and hire another. Once you fire a driver, you cannot hire him back. Win a podium championship (first place in all the podium events), and not only will you be given the opportunity to compete in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans for a huge cash and reputation points pay-out. You’ll be challenged to an equally lucrative one-on-one race between yourself and a driver from GRID’s most elite racing team. Bet you can’t guess who that is…

GRID has five racing disciplines. Grip Racing, Drift, Touge, Endurance and Demolition Derby. Though the list sounds a little short, several classes have multiple classes covering a wide range of race car types, or what could be considered “sub-disciplines.”

Grip covers GT, Open Wheel, Pro Muscle and Touring class cars where you engage in a multiple-lap race against up to 20 cars. The first one over the finish line wins the race. Drift has four different categories. Drift GP pairs you against another opponent where you get one chance to outscore him to win and progress to the next round. Drift Battle combines drifting and street racing where you must not only rack up more points for speed, angle and duration of your drifts, you’ve got to cross the finish line first as well to score the most points. Freestyle Drift gives you and your opponent two timed runs in an open area to score the most points, with the win going to the driver with the most points at the end of the two runs. The treacherous, downhill roads of Mount Haruna in Japan is the battleground for the Downhill Drift competition.

GRID features two types of Touge racing. Pro Touge events take place in the daytime on Japan’s narrow mountain roads, which are closed to the public during the event. Each race is made up of a single run. You have the lead going downhill, and your opponent has the lead going back on the uphill run. Pro Touge is the only racing discipline in GRID where contact between cars is strictly forbidden and punishable by penalties. Midnight Touge takes place at night. Once again, you have the lead downhill and your opponent has the lead uphill. Only this time, the roads are open and you have oncoming traffic to deal with. Also, the no-contact penalty when attempting to pass your opponent goes out the window (or over the cliff, if you will).

Endurance races involve four different classes racing on the same track. You only have to worry about beating the cars in your class. The most notable is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In GRID, the 24 hour period is compressed into 24 minutes of the most challenging racing in the game. The day-to-night transitions are simply beautiful to behold. Going ballistic over a long straight at speeds in excess of 175 MPH, then having to slow enough to negotiate a series of chicanes and hairpins while trying to keep the competition riding your rear bumper from overtaking you in the blink of an eye, is challenging enough during the day. At night where the claustrophobic, tunnel-vision effect of traveling at triple-digit speeds is magnified, it becomes an entirely different challenge and exercise in sheer concentration altogether. As you might imagine, Demolition Derby (there is only one such event in the game) has a single objective: get over the finish line first by any means necessary—including bashing the hell out of your opponents with your car.

Secure your place in the Global Racing League, and you and your team will be the best of the best!

GRID’s Multiplayer is powered by Demonware’s hosting service and allows up to 12 plays online or over a LAN. All the cars and tracks in the GRID’s single player campaign are automatically unlocked for multiplayer. While the 24 Hours of Le Mans race is condensed to 24 minutes in the single player campaign, it can be set to run for a maximum of 2 hours in multiplayer. For online play, you’ll need to create a user name and password first. Once you’re connected, you can compete as a Ranked or Unranked player in a Quick Race, Custom Match, Create Session Match or a Private Session Match. Quick Race is the fastest and easiest way to get into a GRID multiplayer race online, by finding the first available game that you can join and placing you in it. If you want more control over what type of match you want to join, you can select Custom Match and apply the following criteria:

If a game based on your criteria selections can’t be found, you’ll be prompted to create your own session where you can wait for other GRID players online to join.

To keep things fair and interesting, all online public multiplayer session in GRID are determined through GRID’s two-round Online Voting System, which gives all players an opportunity to determine what the next racing event will be. Each round of voting has a time limit. In the first round, players vote on the region they want to race in. Once the time limit is up, the region with the most votes is selected, and everyone is automatically taken to round two. Now players vote on the type of event from the winning region to compete against each other in. At the end of the time limit, the event with the most votes is the one the players will race in. Players are then taken to GRID’s lobby where they can choose their car and livery before starting the race.

GRID’s Online Point System determines how many points are on offer based on the number of players participating in a race. More players equals more points. This gives you the opportunity to win even if you are late joining a session. The Experience System awards points to players who compete as Ranked Players. The more races you compete in and win, the more points you earn and the higher you rise in rank. If you win against a player whose rank is higher than yours or score a podium finish, you’ll be awarded bonus points. Your progress is tracked and displayed on GRID’s Leaderboard, which also allows you to download and race against the Ghost Cars of the fastest player from each track in Test Drive Mode offline. The Private Session option allows you to join or create a private GRID match. The creator of a Private Session sets a password that is necessary for others to join. After each race, the Private Session creator selects the options for the next race at his or her discretion. Online Voting is not available. Playing GRID over a LAN is identical to participating in an online private session. GRID supports chat communications between players. Although the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game gets the benefit of voice chat, the PC version only supports text chat.

There are 43 different cars in GRID, a good cross-section of vehicles representing the three different regions in the game, and its unique racing disciplines. Chevrolet’s Camaro Concept, the Dodge Challenger Concept, Dodge Viper SRT10, Ford Mustang GT-R Concept, and the rare Plymouth AAR Barracuda, are just some of the cars heading up the American Muscle Car A-List. The BMW 320si, Aston Martin DBR9, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, Lamborghini Murcielago RGT, and Koenigsegg CCXR make up part of the list of GRID’s best-of-breed European Sports and Exotic Supercars. Not forgetting fans of Open-Wheel racing, Codemasters have included the JRC FJ100, Ford Doran JE4, Courage C65, and the Audi R10 TDI, to name a few. You’ll have some of the hottest cars in Japan at your disposal as you battle your way through GRID’s J-Speed tiers: the Mazda RX-7 FD3s, Toyota’s Supra, Subaru Impreza, and of course, Nissan’s finest: the legendary 350Z, Skyline GT-R Z-Tune and Silvia. And then there’s those insanely fast and incredibly sexy Prototypes like the Nissan R390 GT-1 and Mazda 787B...

When it’s time to purchase a new car, you can buy it brand new, or used from a selection of racing teams on eBay. The advantage of a new car, is that you know it’s in pristine condition. Of course, being a new car, you’ll have to pay top dollar for it, which might put a serious dent in your team’s budget. The same car on eBay will usually cost a lot less. And it has the benefit of being tuned to perfection by the racing team that has it up for sale. Along with the asking price, the car’s mileage, the number of events it entered and won, and the number of times it was totaled, will be listed.

Here’s where you can get yourself a real bargain and a winning car—or a real headache. Obviously, you will want a car for the lowest possible price that has won the majority of events it has entered. Generally speaking, it will usually out-handle and perform a car with a lower percentage of wins, and will give you just the edge you need on the track against upper-tier opponents on GRID’s more challenging tracks. But be warned: a car that has won 20 races and has been totaled 10 times is not a bargain, no matter how tempting the price tag.

Whether it’s for technical or financial reasons—or both— in-game replays usually top of the list of features to omit from many racing games. Using the replay in GRID is pretty straightforward with your keyboard’s function and arrow keys for switching between in-car and outside views, and rewinding and slowing down the action. The only thing better that viewing those spectacular crashes, close-calls and by-the-skin-of-your teeth wins, is admiring your handy-work in designing the branding for your racing team. Best of all, you get to view and appreciate many of the above-average details Codemasters placed into the world of GRID that you won’t find in similar racing games. Things you aren’t likely to notice while dodging over 3,000 pounds of steel flipping end-over-end and shedding debris like shrapnel and trying to prevent the guy in your rearview mirror from plowing into you and forcing you to meet a similar fate. Like the spectators who are not just a bunch of bland, cardboard cutouts in clothes, but a wide variety of 3D animated models that sound, behave and react as real spectators would during the events of a race. Or the impressive high resolution detail in the environment and buildings around the track. And the spectacular HDR lighting during day and night racing that has a quality you could almost reach out and touch.

There is another reason for GRID’s replay—Flashback. Some arcade racing games rely on a slow motion feature to bail the player out of a bad situation that can cost them the car and the race. It’s a good idea. But it doesn’t always work as well as expected. Codemasters takes more of a “time machine” approach with GRID’s Flashback, which allows you engage an in-race replay to “rewind” or roll back the race to that moment before your car was wrecked in a crash, or spun out of control off the track on the last lap seconds away from the finish line, giving the race to your opponent. Even though it’s not as “proactive” as a slow-motion feature, my personal experience with both player “fail-safes” is that GRID’s Flashback is more reliable and predictable.

While some would consider Flashback a “crutch for n00bs” keep in mind that at higher difficulty levels, you’ll have fewer or no Flashbacks at your disposal. And then there’s the incentive in the form of a cash bonus at the end of each race that GRID rewards you with for not using the Flashback feature. So you can let your ego, conscience and your team’s current financial status be your guide when it comes to GRID’s Flashbacks.

Codemasters focus for GRID is “All About The Racing,” nothing more or less. Consequently, you won’t find any pre-set or custom performance profiles you can load for your cars to maximize their performance on specific tracks as in another Codemaster’s title—ToCA Race Driver 3. Nor will you be able to purchase performance upgrades to install and fine-tune as in Forza Motorsport 2. GRID’s cars are rated by Top Speed, Acceleration, Grip and Brakes and of course, some are stronger in some areas than others. Since the cards dealt to you in GRID are the ones you have to play in terms of a car’s overall track performance, the process of choosing the best possible car for a particular race becomes a balancing act between the car’s inherent capabilities—and your own personal level of skill and driving style. In GRID, you can carve through an apex with more speed and precision in the Nissan Skyline GT-R Z-Tune than the Dodge Viper SRT10, which has a tendency of shaking its ass through corners like a stripper doing a lap dance. But by the time you move up to the tougher podiums, the distinction between the faster, more powerful cars will most likely blur any perceived differences in their characteristics.

If you’re used to all the customization options made popular in the Need For Speed, Forza, and Juiced racing games, no doubt you will probably find GRID’s “no-frills” livery customization sorely lacking, if not disappointing. Still, there is some merit in how Codemaster’s “keep-it-simple-focus-on-racing” approach for GRID works out when it’s time to come up with a look for your team’s cars—or Team Branding as it’s referred to in the game. GRID provides you with a number of graphical designs, racing number and a color scheme that consists of a base, primary and secondary color of your choosing. You can also take pot luck and select a randomized pattern, color scheme and numbers for your car. When it’s time to choose sponsor decals, you’ll have eight placement slots to play with, with the primary sponsor taking up the most visual real estate on your car. Decals can easily be swapped among the eight pre-set positions. You can also choose between the individual decal’s available colors, and though most of them are monochrome, some of them are in color. Patterns range from racing stripes and flames, to splashes and tribal patterns. Although the selection isn’t as extensive as you’d find in games where customization is one of the main selling points, you should be able to find something to suit your tastes. If not, you can always leave your car a single color. The biggest plus of GRID’s car livery customization is not just its speed and ease of use. Once you’ve settled on your team branding, it is automatically applied to every car you currently own, and every car your purchase in the future, for your team. And it’s just as easy to change later on in your career if you choose to do so.

One area where many arcade racing games come up short, is the interior view. Either the view is omitted altogether, or you get some lame, generic “one-car-fits-all” view. That’s not how they roll at Codemasters. GRID include a detailed and realistic view of the inside of the car with a representation of the player as the driver operating the wheel and shifter. The interior of each car is unique to the vehicle and authentically reproduced right down to the logo on the steering wheel. And yes, all of the gauges on the instrument panels work, as do the Drift Angle LED meters and rear-view TV cameras on the cars that are equipped with them.

Other racing games may have more cars, but few of them have cars that are as beautifully and fanatically detailed as the ones in GRID. Car reflections and tire smoke are almost photo-realistic. The variation of exhaust notes, and the sound of turbocharged, supercharged and normally aspirated engines, and the high-pitched whine of gearboxes are faithfully reproduced and unique for every car. The Volks GT-C wheels and AP Racing calipers on the 350Z looks almost as good in the game as they do in real life. View your car in replay mode, and not only will you see it covered in a thin layer of dirt and Astroturf if you happen to take a little “field trip” off the race course—the lower portion of the body panels near the wheel wells will be spackled with rubber deposits from the tires. Codemasters has also included cars from well know racing teams such as Top Secret, and Team Hurricane.

Codemasters didn’t want GRID to be just another “me-too pretty face” arcade racer where at the least, there are no visual or physical consequences for hitting a barrier or another car, or at the most, just superficial “for show” damage. So they added a damage and physics system usually found in racing simulation games. This takes the already white-hot, adrenalin-pumping speed of GRID to the next level when the fur—or better yet, the metal—really starts to fly. In GRID, when you hear rubber screeching in futility against asphalt, and the sickening sound of steel, fiberglass and carbon fiber “mating” with another car or a retaining wall, it’s going to do a lot more that rack up some half-assed cosmetic damage. Paint will do more than get scuffed down to bare metal. Hoods, fenders, doors and roof will not just twist, collapse and crumple like a beer can.  And the safety glass of your windshield will do more than just cobweb from cracks and interfere with your vision from the cockpit view. That ragged, twisted fender about to fall off so that it can die in peace on the next turn is suddenly the least of your worries, as you notice that your car now seems to be possessed with the uncontrollable urge to pull to the right. Or that your 150+ MPH multi-million dollar prototype race car is suddenly about as fast as a four-door beater with over 100,000 miles on the odometer stuck in rush hour traffic, since you inadvertently played tag with the rear end of the lead car you were trying to pass.

Depending on what and how hard you hit something in GRID, you can find your car impaired badly enough so that your hope of finishing a race at or ahead of your class is reduced to limping and wobbling over the finish line to failure well behind everyone else. Occasionally, another driver will spin out ahead or behind you and hit a wall or another car and practically disassemble itself sending body parts and wheels and tires from broken axles flying everywhere. If you suffer the same fate, the screen will suddenly turn blood red for a brief moment, and your crew chief will inform you over your headset that your car is totaled and it’s game over for you. The screen for GRID’s Flashback feature appears, which gives you information on how fast you were going and how many G’s were involved on the impact that trashed your car. You also have the option to restart the race from this screen. Of course, if you’re playing at the highest difficulty level, you’re SOL and will just have to cowboy (or cowgirl)-up to your loss.

All of the tracks you race on in GRID actually exist in the US, Europe and Japan. The PC version gets 15 tracks divided between the three regions (all console versions of GRID except the DS also get 15 tracks, while the DS gets an additional track). Among them are the Circuito del Jarama, Istanbul Park, the Nürburgring GP circuit, Okutama Grand Circuit, Donington Park, Le Mans, Long Beach and Washington to name a few. Although 15 race tracks may not seem like much, keep in mind that each track is set up for multiple configurations. Some of the tracks are reversed/mirrored. Others have alternate configurations where they are made smaller. Washington, for example, has a 2.36 mile Grand Prix Circuit, a 3.29 mile Grand Prix Circuit “B” and 1.80 miles Park Circuit.

With the exception of the 24 Hour Le Mans race, the time of day (or night) for each racing event is set and cannot be changed. Pro Tuned and Drift Racing on Japan’s Yokohama Docks always takes place late in the afternoon, while the Falken Super Street Pro Tuned events take place on three separate variations of Japan’s Shibuya Street Circuit at night. Unlike most racing sims, you cannot adjust the weather, nor is inclement weather included in the game.

I played GRID on the following set-up:

The visual effects were configured as follows:

As you can see, I had the settings pretty much maxed out for a typical 1920x1200 setup. With the ASUS EN8800GTS TOP GeForce 8800 GTS installed, FRAPS displayed the frame rate in the 40-50 FPS range on the G15’s LCD display, with GRID consistently running silky smooth and looking great while doing so. The VisionTek Radeon 3870 X2 was another matter. I had trouble getting the game to start. The system would frequently hang at a black screen as soon as the GRID logo displayed. Sometimes it would dump me back to the Windows desktop. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Radeon 8.6 drivers as cleanly as possible. The game finally loaded but I knew I was still in trouble when the game began stuttering when switching between the menu options. Loading up a quick race confirmed it. Frame rates hopped between 15-25 FPS. And the game froze again.

I didn’t have any problems running other games installed on the system with the VisionTek 3870 X2, so I ruled out a defective card. When I borrowed and installed a Sapphire Radeon 3870 from a colleague, GRID ran fine with the Catalyst 8.6 drivers without a hitch. Turns out, GRID has a tendency not to play nice with SLI and Crossfire video card configurations, according to the Known Issues/Troubleshooting section of the Readme file on the disc:

ix) Is ATI’s Crossfire or NVIDIA’s SLI supported?

 

Unfortunately, due to the working of GRID’s engine, systems which link two or more graphics cards (i.e. Crossfire or SLI) are not implicitly supported. This means you may not see a performance boost from having the second card, and you may even have trouble running the game. If GRID is failing to start properly and your system is SLI or Crossfire enabled, try disabling the technology in either NVIDIA’s or ATI’s control panel in Windows and see if this helps.

If you have a two or more non-X2 Radeon cards, disabling Crossfire through the Catalyst Control Center is easy and straightforward. However, the design of the Radeon 3870 X2 makes it “hard-wired” for Crossfire, so you can’t disable it. Owners of NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800 GX2 cards face the same dilemma.

GRID is a DirectX 9 title, so if you’re still not sold on using Windows Vista SP-1 as a gaming platform, it’s all good. As you’ll can see from the screenshots here and on the screenshot page, GRID isn’t exactly hurting in the looks and eye-candy department, even on a Windows XP rig like the one I used for the review. GRID is one of the few PC games on the market that is explicitly optimized for multi-core processors. As with many of the latest games, the more powerful your rig and video card, the better GRID will run, especially if you’re playing at resolutions of 1920x1200 or higher with the game’s MSAA (Multi-Sample Antialiasing) pumped-up. Don’t worry: GRID is no Crysis when it comes to system resources. I would also strongly recommend that you install the latest Version 1.2 patch for GRID, as 1.2 includes a number of critical fixes from the earlier Version 1.1 patch, while implementing a number of fixes for issues that slipped past the 1.1 patch.

Things have been rather bleak for arcade racing games over the last several years. Electronic Arts, who defined the genre with their Need For Speed games, hasn’t released a decent Need For Speed game since Need For Speed Underground 2. Yes, the focus was on imports and underground street racing (minus the cops) inspired by the Fast And The Furious. And the B-movie plot was told via comic strip story boards with some of the most cheesy ‘Hood-wannabe dialog ever used in a game.

But it was the customization, the ability to tune the engine and suspension and actually achieve measurable results in a race; user-selectable difficulty levels and the replays that made Underground 2 the best of the series. Unfortunately, Electronic Arts has moved away from those elements with the last three Need For Speed titles. THQ tried to step up with Juiced and Juiced: Hot Import Nights. But a lukewarm reception over technical issues, poor feature implementation and just plain lousy game play put an end to the franchise.

Codemasters picks up the ball that Electronic Arts and THQ dropped with GRID. You’ve got a wide selection of cars—Tuners, Muscle, Euro-sport, Open-Wheel, Exotics. And some of the world’s greatest tracks to race them on. Whether you’re into circuit or endurance racing, time-attack or drifting, there’s something for you in GRID. I can’t remember the last time since Need for Speed Underground 2 when a racing game put a real grin on my face. Tearing through GRID’s Yokohoma Docks under a golden sunset, and the neon-lit streets of Japan’s Shibuya Street Circuit in Top Secret’s beautiful gold Fairlady 350Z was one of many moments in the game, that did.

Rather than license the usual collection of Hip-Hop, Rock and Electronica/Dance music, Codemasters has put together a generic but surprisingly good soundtrack of racing tunes for GRID (you can download some of them from the official Codemasters GRID community forum here). I liked the theme that plays at the Main Menu  on the game’s start-up so much, I wake up to it in the morning. Well, evening actually when I’m working through the night until sunrise, which is quite often these days. And the UNKLE Remix of No One Knows by Queens of The Stone Age is without a doubt one of the most righteous, kick-ass songs ever dropped on a racing game soundtrack!

GRID’s business manager and crew chief are both helpful without being annoying or overbearing. On the other hand, the Japanese announcer at the drift events sounds like he could use a little quality-time with some non-caffeinated beverages. But after listening to Mr. “Hey, hey, hey it’s Ryan Cooper!” from Need For Speed Pro Street for as long as I could stand—which wasn’t long for a number of other reasons as well—before I banished it from my hard drive into the nearest waste basket, the Japanese announcer was soothing by comparison.

The crew chief often helped keep me focused  while my mind was processing everything else going on around me during the race, as I tried to get through the trickier parts of each track, while fighting to keep the competition in my rearview mirror and not wrecking the car in the blink of an eye. The fact that he used my actual name rather than some fictional racer protagonist when he was talking to me over the headset, helped a bit I think.

GRID doesn’t force you through a linear path. Although you need to complete a certain number of races in each regional podium before you can unlock the races in the international Global Racing League, you’re free to tackle the lower-tiered podiums in any order you choose. If you’d rather take the U.S. by storm first and then Europe and Japan, fine. Want to tackle the ARL Rookie Classic Muscle races for the Lucas Oil Bay Bridge Trophy in the U.S.; then hop over to Europe’s Euro R License podium for the Bilstein Classic Muscle showdown on the Milan Castello Circuit? No problem! So long as you have the cash and necessary cars to back you up, the path you take to achievement and glory in GRID is entirely up to you. And if there are certain races that just aren’t your cup of tea, you’re free to skip them, if you wish.

Regardless of what type of car you’re driving at the moment, GRID manages to impart a sense of sheer speed few games in the genre can match. GRID’s damage system and the physics  behind it will probably have you gritting your teeth and throwing up your arms in front of your face, as you brace yourself for impact when you plow into and jack-knife over a multi-car pile-up at triple-digit speeds. Either way, you can easily enjoy your victories and learn from your mistakes thanks to the replay feature.

Still, there’s a few areas where GRID could use a good tune-up. I think Codemasters could have done a much better job with the AI in terms of how they are used to justify and maximize the “coolness” factor of GRID’s damage model by turning much of the game into one big demolition derby. Although GRID’s adjustable difficulty levels and Flashback feature helps to take some of the frustration out of having to start a race over again, it doesn’t take all of it out. Accidents, either through driver error or mechanical failure, are a part of racing. If the player makes an error that causes him or her to trash their car, fine. That’s how you learn not to make those kinds of mistakes. But I don’t think GRID’s damage model would have lost any of its intended impact on the game’s “pucker factor potential,” had Codemasters toned-down or stripped the AI of its “bumper-car mentality” and made car crashes and collisions less frequent and more random and unpredictable. If I wanted to play something involving full-contact sports, I would have bought one of those Madden NFL games…

The drivers you hire could have been more skilled. The ones I hired—even the one my business manager seemed most enthusiastic about—had trouble meeting even the least demanding objectives of some of my team’s sponsors, like “Finish the race” or “Finish no lower than third place.” As a result, the additional money they contributed to the team’s coffers was minimal, at best. Only one driver ever won a single race, and that was because I was basically hanging back running interference for him because my car was too banged up to make it over the finish line in first or second place. So I decided to keep everyone else off his back. I would have liked Codemasters to make at least some of the drivers for hire as skillful and tenacious as some of the top AI drivers that you compete against in the GRID World campaign.

One issue some people might take with GRID is that you are more or less locked into using specific cars for specific racing disciplines. On the surface, this seems perfectly logical, particularly when you’re trying to keep the game’s focus on racing and keeping the player’s choices as uncomplicated as possible. Especially if those choices are ones casual players might get bogged down in. This approach does have its limits. For example, a Nissan 350Z can be just as capable a drift car as the Nissan Silvia. But If you have a 350Z in your team’s inventory, you can’t enter it in any of GRID’s drift events.

While creating multiple profiles in GRID is easy, getting rid of the ones you no longer need, isn’t. At least not through the Main Menu. It would be nice if Codemasters included a menu option for deleting profiles that you no longer want to keep. Next patch, perhaps?

Gamers with SLI and Cross Fire video card setups should be prepared to turn their respective dual video card config off if they experience any performance issues or other “anomalies” playing GRID. Those with dual GPUs on a single card should either keep their fingers crossed or have a spare, single GPU card ready and waiting. Kinda sucks that GRID’s graphic engine isn’t officially SLI or Cross Fire friendly, but it’s not the only game out there that has that problem. I’m sure all the gamers who aren’t exactly fans of either technology are grinning and saying “we told you so.” Just as Xbox and PS3 owners are probably elated that they have voice chat support, while all the PC gamers with their killer gaming rigs that can enjoy GRID at much higher resolutions and greater detail, are stuck with primitive text chat. Oh well. Some days you get the bear…

I’ll admit that I do miss the more extensive tuning and customizing features of other games—particularly the ability to tweak engine performance and handling. It was a little frustrating trying to get used to all of the different car’s handling capabilities. I spent more time than I would have liked playing around with the advanced settings on my Logitech Driving Force Pro trying to compensate for this. Once I finally got everything dialed in and began adjusting to the as-is handling idiosyncrasies of each car, I’ll also admit that for the most part, I was having too much fun with GRID to miss the lack of tuning and tweaking features that much.

GRID has clearly put some real excitement back into racing games that cater to casual players, and may even win over more serious players looking to take a break from the demands of hard-core racing sims for a little no-strings-attached fun. It seems like Codemasters listened to almost every complaint about the abysmal bumper crop of arcade racing games in the last three or four years and tried to make it right with GRID.

Looks like they pretty much succeeded.

Final Score: