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By colmwarner (17th Jun 2008)

Racing games have come such a long way in recent years that it’s hard to imagine where improvements are going to come from. Forza Motorsport 2 offered in-game telemetry that while attractive at first, ultimately lacked the long-term appeal it promised. The Project Gotham series brought us excellent graphics, and the Kudos system that encouraged players to take corners that little bit faster. Buying new parts for your car and tuning it to perfection were fast becoming commonplace in Gran Turismo and pretty much every racing game since. So now all of a sudden, Codemasters give us a game with no telemetry, no spare parts, no tuning, and somehow expect it to take a worthy place in our collections amongst the greats? “It’s all about the race” says the marketing material. And with none of the peripheral activities listed above, it had better be.

The game begins rather suddenly. You create your character; you give them a name and nationality. Then you pick an in-game name for your character. This name is how you will be referred to in the audio during races as your manager and pit crew talk to you. Now that your character is created, your manager introduces herself, and explains that you haven’t enough money for your own team, so you will be racing for other teams until you get $60,000 together.

Then that’s it, no tutorial, no explanations, you’re off racing. For a few seconds it feels like you’ve been thrown in at the deep end, but then it’s explained to you that winning isn’t everything, at least not initially. You just have to finish the first race to cash in. Once you reach the $60k mark, you can afford to restore an old car, and you officially launch your team, even though you are the only driver. You then pick a branding for your team, which will be applied to all cars you get in future. The options are extensive, but certainly more limited than in Forza 2.

As with other racing games, entry to events is dictated by licences held. Licences are achieved by earning enough respect in the relevant zone, the US, Europe and Japan. Your first licence covers all areas, and once you complete the first area-specific licence, you get to hire a second driver for your team. Drivers have different sign-on bonuses and will want to keep different percentages of their winnings. However it’s better to get a decent driver as soon as you can, as the more expensive ones are more likely to achieve sponsorship bonuses (more on these to come). Once you have your second driver, you have a better chance of winning not events not just as a driver, but as a team.

Finance in GRID is dictated by positioning, and also by sponsorship. The better your positioning in an event, the more sponsorship offers you get. Each sponsor will pay a certain amount every time you race, and will also have a bonus on offer if a certain condition is met. Your primary sponsor pays double, so you have to choose wisely. For example, a sponsor might only pay 3k bonus, but might only require that you finish the race to get it. Others will pay more, but might require that you win the race with no damage. You only have a fixed number of sponsorship slots available on your cars, so mixing the high payers with the easily achievable will mean you get at least some bonus when you race, and can really cash in if you place well. Money is used to buy cars, and cars can be bought new or on eBay. EBay cars will cost only slightly less than new, and you have to look at how many previous wins they’ve had, but also how many times they’ve been written off. You can sell cars on eBay as well.

Now we turn to what it’s all about, the racing. Graphically, this game is amazing, but so too are all the other racing games. The selection of cars is limited to 45 in total, the controls are exactly where you’d expect them to be from other racing games, and yet it’s the gameplay that really sets GRID apart. As with other games, you can use other cars as steering assists to help you around corners, but the damage mounts up here, and more impressively, that bumper you lost in the first lap is there in the second to get in your way. So, if you barge your way through the field to get ahead, you risk degrading the performance of your car, but also coming a cropper in successive laps. Tyre barriers that you send into the track will also haunt you. Each car handles differently, but what’s really outstanding is the difference between classes. If you perfect the pro-tune class, and then try the same track in a touring car, you’ll find you have to learn it all over again. The cars handle beautifully once you get the hang of them, and there is tension from green light to chequered flag as other cars jostle with you for the lead. Your opponents will crash into each other, and holding the best racing line isn’t always an option if the car ahead spins out in your path. Music is used to great effect, as it builds up during races to keep the tension high. This is most noticeable during the 24h Le Mans endurance races at the end of each season (don’t worry, it’s 24 minutes), when the music starts as almost nothing in the background, and gradually builds up to a heart-popping crescendo. Multiplay also distributes functions amongst all players, so lag is less likely to rear its ugly head.

While there are no pit stops in the game, your pit crew will talk to you, reporting on damage after crashes, on your position in the race, and on the obstacles coming up. This feature is normally accurate, but can be frustratingly laggy or plain wrong at times. It’s annoying to be told you’re in fifth when you’ve overtaken two cars since, and likewise when you turn a corner and have to act fast to avoid a car that has spun out, only to be warned about the same crash 15 seconds later. If you crash, you take damage, but if you total the car, you can engage the flashback function, where you rewind the action back to just before you made your mistake, then go from that point, using the brakes this time for your second chance. You get fewer flashbacks as you move up the difficulty settings, and a bonus for not using them.

Camera angles in this game are perfect. No, not very good, perfect. Fly around a corner or under a bridge and you’ll keep track of your car at all times. I’ve never been a fan of replays, but they are spectacular in GRID, with great focus on camera angles here as well. Pity then, that they cannot be saved, as I’ve created some horrendous wrecks that I’d only love to share with friends.

Overall, this game creates the feel of racing like no other game I’ve played before, and while it lacks some polish around the edges, that’s all forgotten once the lights go green for another few laps of racing perfection.