Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be invited to a GRID event at codemasters. I got a few hours with the game:
(I Should stress that this WAS NOT FINISHED CODE)
I didn't get enough dedicated time with the game to make a solid opinion but:
The crash physics are undoubtedly excellent. Bodywork and wheels flying off everywhere and the game looks impressive. It runs at what seems like a solid 30fps (on 360, PS3 seemed a bit dodgy at times but they said that the PS3 version we played was a little behind the 360 one). The lighting effects and things look very good and it all seems to work well even with up to 20 cars on track. Visually, it's up there with anything I've seen in a racing game.
I got to play on a made up racing circuit in Japan based loosely on a real Japanese track (can't remember which one) in a single seater. They obviously chose this as the first demo as the handling was surprisingly good and the racing was fun. Instantly, it felt better than Dirt.
Later on we got our hands on the game and were able to choose any game mode/car we liked. I played touring cars around Donny, Spa and nurburgring, some drifting and Touge (some hill racing mode).
The TOCA style racing was very good and I can't wait to get the demo so I can play some more. The drifting and Touge modes did nothing for me. It was like the inaccurate handling of Dirt crossed with the feel of sega rally all amplified. One guy there seemed to be enjoying it. Nobody else really gave a **** about those modes. The drift mode is point and combo based, not on finish position. I can see what they're going for with the drift mode and I'm sure some will enjoy it. Thankfully, I got the impression that I could do the whole game without being forced to do the drifting but some achievements are based on it.
Me, being me :roll: , stuck all the assists off and the AI on the highest difficulty and none of us could touch them, with everyone, bar none, coming last. As it got later in the day I was winning races on the 2nd or 3rd highest difficulty quite comfortably (there's what feels like 20 difficulty options, normal, hard, serious, savage, extreme...).
There's no tuning (yay!), no pit stops (boo), full 24hr realtime le mans! (seriously, but only in single player, maximum online is 2 hours) and amoung others, a pretty big hitter for me:
You cannot turn collisions off, only turn damage off. I?ll be interested to see how that works out online.
Online wise, they say (we didn't see) that it's up to 12 players online in ranked racing and unranked. Ranked is similar to Dirt where a voting system is used and to decide the event, car and track but the racing is head to head. In unranked lobbies you can choose what you want as the host and do all the usual stuff we expect such as kicking people.
You can see that PGR has been a big influence on the game in the art style, courses and general approach. All in all I can?t wait to get my hands on the demo next week (confirmed) and will make a decision on purchase after that but it was better than I was expecting so a big thumbs up from me.
(mods I checked the rules for first play threads and hope this counts)
(I Should stress that this WAS NOT FINISHED CODE)
I didn't get enough dedicated time with the game to make a solid opinion but:
The crash physics are undoubtedly excellent. Bodywork and wheels flying off everywhere and the game looks impressive. It runs at what seems like a solid 30fps (on 360, PS3 seemed a bit dodgy at times but they said that the PS3 version we played was a little behind the 360 one). The lighting effects and things look very good and it all seems to work well even with up to 20 cars on track. Visually, it's up there with anything I've seen in a racing game.
I got to play on a made up racing circuit in Japan based loosely on a real Japanese track (can't remember which one) in a single seater. They obviously chose this as the first demo as the handling was surprisingly good and the racing was fun. Instantly, it felt better than Dirt.
Later on we got our hands on the game and were able to choose any game mode/car we liked. I played touring cars around Donny, Spa and nurburgring, some drifting and Touge (some hill racing mode).
The TOCA style racing was very good and I can't wait to get the demo so I can play some more. The drifting and Touge modes did nothing for me. It was like the inaccurate handling of Dirt crossed with the feel of sega rally all amplified. One guy there seemed to be enjoying it. Nobody else really gave a **** about those modes. The drift mode is point and combo based, not on finish position. I can see what they're going for with the drift mode and I'm sure some will enjoy it. Thankfully, I got the impression that I could do the whole game without being forced to do the drifting but some achievements are based on it.
Me, being me :roll: , stuck all the assists off and the AI on the highest difficulty and none of us could touch them, with everyone, bar none, coming last. As it got later in the day I was winning races on the 2nd or 3rd highest difficulty quite comfortably (there's what feels like 20 difficulty options, normal, hard, serious, savage, extreme...).
There's no tuning (yay!), no pit stops (boo), full 24hr realtime le mans! (seriously, but only in single player, maximum online is 2 hours) and amoung others, a pretty big hitter for me:
You cannot turn collisions off, only turn damage off. I?ll be interested to see how that works out online.
Online wise, they say (we didn't see) that it's up to 12 players online in ranked racing and unranked. Ranked is similar to Dirt where a voting system is used and to decide the event, car and track but the racing is head to head. In unranked lobbies you can choose what you want as the host and do all the usual stuff we expect such as kicking people.
You can see that PGR has been a big influence on the game in the art style, courses and general approach. All in all I can?t wait to get my hands on the demo next week (confirmed) and will make a decision on purchase after that but it was better than I was expecting so a big thumbs up from me.
(mods I checked the rules for first play threads and hope this counts)
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