Race Driver: GRID Review

by Dillon Andrews at Jun 19, 2008 10:09am

Race Driver GRID Review
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, PC, DS
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
By: Dillon Andrews

When you pop in a title—seldom do you expect to be absolutely floored with the intensity and excitement that comes along when you initiate Race Driver: GRID. From the moment the game boots, your adrenaline begins to pump. Making the experience even greater for first impressions, a suave female voice welcomes you by either you name or a nickname to the action. If you can’t tell by now, Ve3tro absolutely loved this game and this review will be all positives. If you hate optimism—feel free to stop reading from here on out, because there is little to be said about the downfalls of this title.

Graphics
Wow. With one word I can effectively sum up to you what GRID brings to the table in terms of graphics, and that word is Wow! This is one of the sexiest titles I’ve played thus far on the Xbox 360. Each track is rendered beautifully with great textures and effects. The same can be said when it comes to the vehicles—the overly abundant amount of vehicles that are at your exposure. Unlike most licensed games that tend to preserve the vehicles, GRID seems to go overboard in generating destruction and mayhem. In what can only be paralleled to the Burnout Franchise, Race Driver: GRID over emphasizes damage and creates visual masterpieces for every miniscule dent in your car—to the greatest of crashes.

You have the ability to change the camera angle so that you can have whatever cinematic experience you prefer. This is the basic; Close Chase Cam, Far Chase Cam, Bumper Cam, Bonnet Cam (Overlooking the hood), and then a camera view from inside the drivers helmet. Of course you can look behind you by pressing Y at any time during a race to check up on the opponents eating your dust.

Each board has its own look and feel. You will have to traverse around through countries such as Japan, Europe or the United States. Each of which has disguisable race styles and courses making every experience different and unique. To navigate to all these courses you won’t have to scroll through miles of text or menus. Instead you simple select from one of four options on the main menu—which is the only complaint I can have. Upon first glance there are no obvious wordings to select. Codemasters’ could have more appropriately labeled each option to perhaps say exhibition, story mode etc.

So the game looks good, what about the gameplay?

Gameplay
In GRID you will have a garage to manage all of your vehicles. This is used as the terminal for all your racing activities. Within the garage you can do micromanagement tasks such as washing your car, doing miniscule tasks for reputation points or surfing the web for good car deals on Ebay. This is obviously something to do while passing time and to give the gamer a time to catch their breath from the amazing races they will need to endure.

Race Driver: GRID always feels rejuvenating and unique due to how well it pulls off several racing genres in one major title. You will feel like you’re inside the Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift during the intense drift battles and then seconds later you’ll be cruising down the open roads of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There is such a great variety in all of the tracks which reside in 3 different sections of the world. Yet another minor complaint can be brought up here for anyone picking up the game for their first few tries. Some of these tracks can be hard to see what’s coming up ahead and the small track GPS on the left side of the screen often doesn’t show you what’s to come early enough. Luckily the game has a red blinking light that will appear in the bottom corner of the screen to alert you that a sharp embankment is approaching—but it is often too late.

The whole dream of today’s racers is the fame, money and women. Of course there are no crazy fans or women stalking you in this title, there is a plethora of money for you to claim as your own. You will need to do tasks for other drivers, achieve a podium placing, beat out other teams, recruit proper team mates and win over good sponsorship deals to be bringing in the big bucks. This isn’t as easy as it sounds as often the sponsors have restrictions on what you need to accomplish in order to receive funding by them.

While damage may be enjoyable, you will have to monitor closely that your car does not become too wrecked in the collisions. You will have to ensure that there is little damage done to the gears, suspension, steering, engine and wheels or else you may find yourself getting stranded in the middle of a race with no chance of winning. But do not worry readers; if you crash at any point of the game and lose your positioning immensely, there is a flashback feature—similar to the one in the Prince of Persia games. You can initiate this option and rewind time 30 seconds or so and avoid the dangers and traps you fell susceptible to earlier.

Gameplay is of the same high caliber of the design and graphics. If you were to become blatantly nit-picky with every aspect of the game, surely you’ll come across some slight negatives. These of course will have to be exaggerated greatly to impact the games near perfect performance. Perhaps there will be some flaws with the sound?

Sound
As a fan of the racing genre, I can attest to any complaints about repetitive pop rock that plays on loop over and over throughout racing games. Thank God, Race Driver: GRID avoids this predicament entirely. The music is seldom featured when racing but during heated, intense moments, an emotional score penetrates through the roar of the engines and you get engulfed in the drama. This sensation is fantastic and makes crossing the finishing line just a little more satisfying.

Of course with the epic music only participating in the final moments of a battle, you’re probably wondering what sounds will stimulate your senses while you’re doing your rounds around the track. Each car has its own exclusive sounds from engines, breaking, exhaust, etc. You never feel the absence of the music—as surprising as that may sound to you when reading this.

Another nice touch is the voice of the team mates, crew and commentator. You will receive updates through a headset about who is in first, who is following behind, where your partner is and when there is a collision either ahead or behind you. All of the aforementioned points, plus this aspect of the game make GRID one of the most realistic racing titles ever released.

Conclusion
As I’ve stated prior—at least a few times in this review. Race Driver: GRID is a freaking awesome game and it is something that every console owner has to experience. It is ambitious games such as this one that make us gaming enthusiasts and we wish to respect Codemasters by giving them the appreciation they deserve. Go buy this game right away, even if it means selling a kidney.