REVIEW: Race Driver GRID...
I had mentioned previously how Race Driver GRID had looked impressive to me, but I had mostly dismissed the game as just another racer in the sea of racing games. Let me set the record straight, Race Driver GRID is single handedly the most impressive racing game I have played since PGR3 and before that Gran Turismo 3. Without doubt this is the game that actually brings the genre forward. For me, RDG is
the next gen racing game.
Available for both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, RDG offers both single player career and online gaming. When you start off, you'll be asked for your details, name and country primarily. At which point you'll hear your first name repeated back to you in audio. Throughout the game whether in the menus or middle of racing, team members will guide you while using your audio name. There seems to be a large list of names available, but more unusal names you may find unavailable but it's a nice touch if you can make use of it.
From that point you'll start your career. After passing the first test, a race where you must finish to get your rookie license, you'll be asked to take one off jobs for various racing teams. Who will pay you for completing the race and offer a bonus objective. The bonus objective will be something like finish 5th in a race or finish ahead of a rival team. This phase lasts until you earn enough cash to fund your own team. You are introduced to the business manager early on who explains that once you have the cash you'll have freedom to select your own cars, sponsers, paint design and the team name.
The style of races available to you are split into three territories. Japan, Europe and America. Japan focuses mostly on drift racing, America more so towards Muscle Cars and street racing, while Europe is the most varied with both street and track racing, but mostly track. Once you have your own team it's up to you which locations you visit first and which racing style you go with. If you like Gran Turismo or Forza because you can completely modify your cars to your liking, then RDG comes up short in this area. The cars are setup and ready to go when you buy them, but you can buy and sell cars on Ebay motors within the game and the game suggests that cars with lots of victories, have them for a reason.
RDG is also one of the most graphically impressive games I have seen in a long time, a thing of beauty to be exact. Everything looks smooth and unbelievably realistic. From the tracks and their surroundings to the cars, to way the game is presented throughout its menus or the race start, there is real style to it all. It easily does away with anything you have seen in Forza, PGR 4 and even Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.
All of this means nothing if the core gameplay doesn't match up. Again RDG excels here too. The actual mechanics initially feel a little twitchy but you'll quickly adapt. The feel of the racing is a mix of simulation and arcade, you can vary this from assisted control to full on simulation, but the default settings will appeal to pretty much everyone. Where RDG really comes into its own is against the AI opponents. They weave, dodge, crash, spin out and all follow different racing lines around the track, none of the GT5P AI where every car follows the perfect line. The AI is truly believable, some races you'll see situations where there are pile ups due to an accident, or tires that blow out, cars that take bad racing lines and spin out or crash into a corner and I don't recall being able to roll my car in Forza or PGR.
Combining the massively varied racing styles, the incredibly realistic graphics, AI opponents and overall car handling Race Driver GRID is one hell of a package. The variety alone and the unpredictability of each race builds to an atmosphere not present within the majority of racing games. I have yet to experience the online racing, but the damage modelling should prevent the usual PGR style bump and shunt cornering tactics that are detrimental to serious racing fans. I cannot recommend RDG enough and for the unconvinced their is a very convincing demo on both Xbox Live and PSN.