This summer you’ll find racing exciting again. GRID the latest addition to the TOCA Touring Car series by Codemasters is tearing up the tarmac without a challenger in site. After I spent a whole lot of time with GRID, I’d a really tough time keeping myself from it. This game has the best of arcade racers and race stimulators that deliver a truly superb racing experience. Packed with a nice collection of the most powerful race cars and challenging racetracks across the US, Europe and Japan, GRID (also known as Race Driver: GRID) easily sucks you in its high-speed world - full of dramatic and beautifully realized race locations, to compete in a variety of racing events.
Unequal to any other title released before in this genre, GRID takeovers the gaming legacies – Gran Turismo, Forza MotorSports, and Burnout with its more casual approach to the simulation genre.
Giving its fans a realistic professional driving experience, Codemasters’ racing studio has got the key elements rights. Grid captures the soul of the track like none other. A simulator of mainly tarmac racing, this high-speeding automobile racing game consists of 45 cars - new and classic, circuit and drift where the players compete to conquer the most prestigious official race tracks and championships. However, one bump can send your car spinning out of control and out of the race. The crashes are insane, the races are intense, the cars are coated with style and overall presentation is simply great. This game isn’t about collecting cars or spending all your time in the front-end tuning suspension settings or designing liveries.
Grid breaks up the races into a variety of different events – where you can compete in challenging city-based competitions, roads events, urban street races, a Destruction Derby and a “24 Hours of Le Mans” endurance race that equates to 24 minutes of continuous racing. Fortunately, the Flashback feature gives you a limited number of tokens to rewind and replay critical moments and avoid accidents. Earning a rookie license gives you options, namely the chance to drive for various racing teams in the USA, Europe or Japan. Gamers compete on Europe’s greatest official race tracks in prestige Marques including Aston Martin, Koenigsegg and Pagani. Iconic cities across the U.S, including San Francisco, Washington DC and Detroit - each with their own atmosphere and events - play host to diverse street races, where high-performance V8 muscle cars set the pace in aggressive, closely fought pack competitions. And in the Far East, Japanese racing culture sets the tone where night races, including Drift racing, takes drivers through neon illuminated cities and to outlying mountain roads. There's also the opportunity to compete in races that operate on the fringes of legality in the back streets and industrial areas of Yokohama.
Although the game is challenging, it's not so tough that winning seems completely out of reach for novice drivers, which makes this racing game worth having. The game takes the series’ precision-based gameplay to new heights while maintaining the series’ trademark look and feel. The damage model is one of the best in the business with an excellent AI. The PC version supports keyboard controls but GRID makes it worthwhile to get a game pad. And given the choice between GRID and any of the other racing games available, you can't go far wrong.
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