GRID | GRID - What GT5 Prologue should have been.

GRID | Blown away

pc & video games:

GRID

	GRID PLAYSTATION 3 \| Codemasters, 2008 average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

GRID - What GT5 Prologue should have been.

My review of GT5 Prologue elsewhere on Amazon reveals how disappointed I was with that preview to the full game. Things are a lot different this time around though. I downloaded the demo for Grid from the PS3 store first of all. 983Mb, so it took a while, but once it was installed and I was able to start playing - wow. The next day I went out and traded GT5 Prologue at my local games store and bought the full version of Grid. Why? Because Grid is exciting to play.

How can this be? It doesn't run at 60Hz. It doesn't run in 1080p (it's a 720p game). The graphics aren't as clean. The physics isn't as accurate. Surely GT5 Prologue ought to be head and shoulders above Grid?

In the computer graphics world, there's a concept called The Uncanny Valley - it's when CGI becomes so real that humans no longer accept it as being real any more. GT 5 Prologue has crossed the Uncanny Valley. Grid hasn't and it's so much better for it. The graphics are grubbier, dirtier and rougher - more like the real world. That's not to say they're worse. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact the detail on the cars and tracks in Grid is every bit as complex as that in GT 5 Prologue. Pause a replay or look around the cars in the garage - the detail goes as far as manufacturer logos on the wheel rims and brake calipers.

The single big-ticket item for me though is that Grid has solved the two biggest problems with GT 5 Prologue. Grid has car damage, and it's AI for the other drivers is stunning. First the car damage - it's incremental. Starting with scratched paint, bent wings and cracked windows. Keep up the reckless driving and bumpers will work loose and windows will pop out. Keep going and you can bend just about every part of the car. It all affects the car handling too - not extremely, but it is noticable. Steering can pull to one side or the other, acceleration can be dulled, brakes can lose their efficiency. Cracked radiators, bent air intakes - all affect the performance of your car. It's more arcade than simulation, but frankly it's so much better for it. Best of all, like Forza and other racers, when something drops off a car, it's persistent - it stays on the track creating a hazard for competitors behind. Same goes for tyre walls - whack into one of those and the tyres will fly all over the place, scattering into the crowd and track. Oh - and the crowd - 3D people that cheer and chant, and if you smack the wall right next to them, jump back. A nice touch.
On to the AI front, a breath of fresh air from the awful GT 5 Prologue disaster. Drivers jostle for position all over the track. They will get aggressive with you if you get aggressive with them. They make mistakes, often spinning out or crashing into each other or trackside objects. Fabulous. Love it.

You can whip up a paint job for your team from some basic choices of patterns and colours. It's got nowhere near the amount of tunability and customisation that some racers do but really - do you need it? There's plenty of variety in Grid to give you a custom look to your team. On top of that, the more you race, the more sponsors become available to you, so you can stuff sponsor stickers all over your ride to make more money when you race.

Other graphics touches are nice - the tyre smoke effects, dirt and sparks from the odd hard landing or excursion into the grass. Realtime reflections and shadows from everything. It's all gravy but it's all brilliant.

There are a raft of racing events to choose from - Pro Stock, Touring Cars, Destruction Derby, Open-wheel, Drift, Pro Togue - the list goes on. There's a large choice of tracks and a reasonable good choice of cars to choose from. Most tracks have a couple of different versions with forward and reverse options coming up later in the game.

The in-race music is patchy - it only seems to exist in a couple of races and I'm not sure why. Nobody in the Codemasters support forums seems to know why either but it's not a biggie. When racing there are plenty of ambient sound effects going on around you, even if the engine sounds are all a bit samey.

The replay facility is exciting to watch but it is a little limited. You can only focus on your car and you can't rotate the camera around, and there's no save facility. There are 5 or 6 predetermined camera choices including TV-style coverage which is nice, and the ability to slow the action down to ultra-slow-motion is really a nice addition. Grid also comes with a flashback feature. If you cock something up in a race, you can watch an instant replay and then choose the point in the replay from which you want a do-over. You'd think that would make it easy to win the races but in reality it doesn't. You only get between 2 to 6 chances in a race depending on your difficulty level. Each time you use one, you lose potential cash and reputation from your end-of-race winnings. The more cash you have, the more cars you can buy. The more reputation you earn, the more you can demand for racing for other teams. Yes - you have your own team, but you can also race for others as a sort of 'gun for hire'. Once you've progressed far enough you can also hire a second driver to drive a second car for you, doubling the chances of making money. As you work your way through the game your reputation level also unlocks more licence classes to race in - 10 in all, split 3 ways between US-, Euro- and Japanese-Racing once you've won your way through the basic licence.

Grid's online mode is also a lot better than GT 5 Prologue's too. It's intuitive and easy to use, and doesn't seem to really care about how your internet connection is set up. There is not a lot of noticable lag which makes for a nice, smooth racing environment. You can opt to join an existing lobby on the internet, or set up one of your own and wait for others to come to you. If you set up your own lobby, you can set a couple of different options, like damage levels and whether or not the race employs 'catch up' to keep the racers closer together. The only thing that marrs the online play is that you'll inevitably get one or two idiots who, once they've realised they're not at the front, will turn around and race the wrong way around to try to crash into everyone else. But I guess that's the motor racing equivalent of the 5 year old Korean kid who knows every glitch in first person shooters and appears to be able to snipe you from across the map.

Most importantly though, Grid is exciting to play. Properly exciting - enough to annoy you when you lose a race and make you want to run it over again to try to improve your ranking. It has plenty of eye-candy, plenty of replayability and plenty of variety. And that is why, for the time being, Grid trumps GT 5 Prologue in every category. Sure GT5P is a "preview" or "expensive demo" but if Polyphony don't learn from what Codemasters have done with Grid, the full version of GT5 will falter and ultimately fail. Grid doesn't fail - it wins comprehensively. Download the demo and I bet you'll end up buying the full game.

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Blown away

I have been waiting for a racing game that gives that adrenaline rush of speed and agressive driving. Burnout came close, but it tried too hard, but Grid nails it. The presentation of the game is fantastic. Some people will complaint that there is no modding of cars, but personally, I just want to race. I don't want to worry that someone beat me becaus they know how to adjust camber height or gear ratio. Earlier I purchased GT5 Prologue, but it just didn't excite me. This game is about as exciting as racing gets.

Some of the videogame review sites only gave Grid a rating between 8 and 9, but they all knocked the game for what it isn't. It is not a sim raceer, but at the same time it is not an arcade racer either. It strikes a nice balance in between.

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Superb Game

This is the best racing game for the PS3 out yet. the realism of the race experience is so close to perfect you would need a real car to get any closer. The instant replay's are amazing to watch. It is fun to watch the car damage in the instant replay.

Hard Game

I was looking forward to this game since I heard it was coming out. I have DiRT and I thought it was a great game so I figured GRID being from codemasters was going to be an excellent, game but I feel kind of let down.
The worst thing of all its that the cars have terrible handling. It feels like I am on a race track driving a GTA4 car. The other drivers will run into you and cause you to spin out of control when you least expect it and not just in Derby Racing. That can be fun sometimes but it gets old after a while.
I have mixed feelings about this game. If I could return it I would. I am not saying its not worth buying but its definitely not worth $[...]. Try to get a used copy or wait until it goes down in price.

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Something to hold us over until the full GT5

GRID is a game that gives a more realistic feeling than games like Need for Speed and actually requires a touch of skill. It also looks amazing, as far as other games I've seen. The cars sound pretty weak and altogether similar, and there is also lack of any and all music beyond that which is in the menu and the cheesy epic music that plays during the Lemans Race. Between these aspects, the sound in the game is almost not worth listening to at all. The driving is fun, though, and the various racing modes keep the game interesting. Unfortunately, there is a very small amount of cars and events to complete in the GRID world, making this game feel unworthy of a $60 price tag. If you can find this game for cheap I would suggest getting it, as it helps tide you over until GT5 comes out, but it's really short and the sound quality is pretty lacking for a game these days.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7

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