GRID2 review

[Neon Ignition]

Tail-happy.

That is the first thing to come to my mind upon starting this up. I'm early in the racing ranks, my in game fan count has just broken the five digit count and my first series is under my belt. It's only around now that I have a sense of being to grips with the handling which leans itself to the car ass waving end of the handling spectrum.

I never really bothered with the original GRID, something about it rubbed me the wrong way but several years later and a mellowing to Codemasters style (coupled with a low price and getting on board with Simply's fast delivery times) and I figured I'd give this a go. It leans towards the arcade end of the control spectrum somewhat without being an arcade racer and is full of small visual details. I'm not too fussed by racer framerates but this is one of the few titles where I feel 60fps should have been in place. It's a solid 30fps at all times but it feels like the extra frames would have made a lot of difference.

If your familiar with the original I'm assuming you'll know what to expect as so far, having focused more on Codies other racers this feels more of their usual serving.

[Neon Ignition]

Hovering about halfway through the game now, overall it's good fun throughout. Sometimes the racer AI shows itself to be moronic or you feel the handling/collisions are working against you and your having to waste a couple of rewinds but most of the time its fine if a tad generic looking.

[englishbob]

I've been playing this on and off since Wednesday (360 version) and think its alright but at the moment nothing outstanding. Being playing mostly offline.

Presentation is as usual their excellent standard, although depressingly again its very US-of A centric again, its all American voice overs, American garage etc. Also during the first hour or so its really ramming those crappy US muscle cars down your throat.

Camera views are disappointing. Forgetting the lack of cockpit view for a minute (which in hindsight probably wouldn't fit this game very well) those available are very stingy. You get bonnet cam (which feels like your sitting on the bonnet itself), bumper cam (the worst view ever IMO unless you like to push your nose to the ground and drive?) and 2 externals. I lament the fact that the ONLY game this gen to allow you to set up your views was TDU, I've never understood why you can't set your own up.

I would of personally liked the bonnet cam hight WITHOUT the bloody bonnet in it, like Ridge Racer. Gameplay wise it shares a lot with Ridge (its NOT Ridge though!) in that its all about drifting around corners, and there are lot of them. Like the car choice in the first couple of hours, it rams the same sort of city track at you constantly with little variety. The CUSTOM RACE option revels that there is quite a lot of locations and tracks, so they must be saving them up.

There are the usual variety of racing modes, one of which is the overtaking-count one, and 1:1s, and another new one (a bit like Split Second) where new parts of the track open up per lap, although its hard to tell the difference sometimes. AI is, as usual pretty off, hence why you get the REWIND feature.

To me this game (like the reviews state) is a bit of everything - Blur, Ridge, PGR, NFS, and as such its an arcade racer, no sim like aspects at all. A quick couple of rounds in multiplayer confirms that its more like bumper cars and not giving two-hoots about driving properly. If that sort of game appeals (and online it frustrates the life out of me, there a BRAKE for a reason, my car ISN'T your brake into a corner!) then go for it!

[Neon Ignition]

It's probably worth noting that GAME have given this a low trade in value of ?15 which suggests its expected to drop fast in price like F1 Race Stars and Showdown did before it.

[Neon Ignition]

Disappointedly, had a few races with only a framerate of about 20fps for long stretches or throughout and some really stupid driver AI at times which is spoiling it a bit.

[JohnMcL7]

I didn't click with Grid at all for some reason but was keen for a new racing game so decided to give this a go and so far I've been enjoying it. Unusually these days the game is properly optimised for the PC and it's incredibly pretty, it runs smoothly at 2560x1440 with 4xAA and the cars are beautiful with realistic lighting effects and body panels which have detailed reflections. I've not managed to get great screenshots but these should give an idea of how it looks:

http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-sWrKWXK/0/O/2013-05-31_00007.jpg

http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-S4fbgbB/0/O/2013-05-31_00003.jpg

http://johnmcl7.smugmug.com/Other/General/i-LdKsq2P/0/O/2013-05-31_00005.jpg

I'm onto the WSR series part after supposedly attracting the racers from each of the three areas and so far the game feels much more like a PGR game to me which is no bad thing. I think the liveroutes addition is a good idea where the street circuit dynamically changes as you're going along and I also like the overtaking challenge system where you're awarded points for clean overtakes and build up a combo if you avoid collisions. It's quite a challenge tip-toeing round the vehicles and getting the power down when there's clean gaps to be exploited.

The AI though is close to ruining the game entirely as it's just incredibly bad which isn't helped by the fact that your rivals always start at the front of a grid and no matter how well you're performing even in a race series you almost always start at the back of the grid which is ridiculously unfair. The AI cars are completely incapable when you can see them on screen as they brake far, far too early and near stop on the corners which sounds like they would be easy to get by but most of the circuits are street ones and very tight with little space to get by. As you pass the AI cars they'll frequently ram you off the track and your car is almost always worse off in collisions then when they are off screen either behind or ahead they are super fast and can seem to boost when needed as I've seen them absolutely fly up the straights even when they crashed on the previous corner.

It makes it immensely frustrating as you have to dispatch the cars very quickly otherwise the lead car will gain too much of a lead making it impossible to catch.

The American feel of the game is irritating although you can turn the commentator's voice off in game and still have him explain the rules of new gametypes which I find is a bit improvement.

John

[dvdx2]

Is that an atom bomb going off in the background of the third photo?

Didnt know the game had weapons ;-)

[bwi]

The Live route races are absolutely dog poo. Who in the right mind thought "lets have an ever evolving track but the racers won't be told if its a hairpin or a 90 degree bend".

Stupid game designers.

Apart fom that i like this its a solid 7 or 8, though grid 1 was a 9/10 imo

[Neon Ignition]

Got to the backend and despite starting very well the flaws just become more and more prevailent till it stops being fun at all. Good while the good times last though so a 6 for me.

[JohnMcL7]

Is that an atom bomb going off in the background of the third photo?

Didnt know the game had weapons ;-)

Worryingly that's a pretty mild example as there's some occasions when the sun is so bright you can't make out elements of the HUD nor the track itself, reminds me of this cartoon:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

I'm about 16 hours in and think I'm done with this game as it's reached the point where I've had enough of the terrible AI mixed with being forced to start at the back of the grid on small tight street circuits which clearly are completely unsuitable for the big heavy GT cars. I find if I try to overtake properly there's so little room which means it takes longer and even with quick laps, the leader just gets too much of an advantage so you're forced to barge into and smash through the rival cars to get through them quickly enough to reach the leader in time.

I just don't understand why computer controlled rivals (AI seems a bit too strong a term) in AAA racing games is still so rubbish these days, even back to the N64 the computer rivals were able to function fairly well without horrendous rubber banding and more recently NFS Shift was able to make the drivers function more like human drivers.

John

[englishbob]

Ferrari F355 Challenge on the Dreamcast - best AI ever.

I got very bored of this game very quicky. ebay here we come!

[nakamura]

NFS Shift had really good AI.