Is GRID the Game of the Year?

Games
1

Yes, I do realize there’s another thread on the front page about GRID demo, and I usually try not to start threads as a general rule, but the lack of enthusiasm and talk about this absolutely incredible game just seems so unfair to me, I have to start a new thread.

Let me start by linking to Tom’s 10 Reasons You Should be Playing GRID.

I have to admit that I wasn’t a fan of racing games until 1999. Any exposure I had to racing games left me mildly entertained, but I never really understood why someone would want to play a racing game over a good space sim, or Mech game, or Fallout RPG, or turn-based strategy game.

The game to finally hook me onto racing games was Need For Speed: High Stakes (aka Need for Speed 4). The sense of speed was palatable. The career mode was long and deep. The damage modeling had not just a cosmetic affect, but also affected car performance in a number of different ways. It had many different kinds of races, and it even had the added element of police chases, and it even had upgradeable cars. By the time I was done with that game, I was a bona fide racing game fan.

I started enjoying nearly every kind of racing game, from detailed simulations to arcade racing games, and a lot of hybrids in between the two. But once I became a racing game fan, I felt like I’d lost my objectivity as an outsider to the genre. I had no idea which racing games would appeal to non-racing game fans. The one exception to that rule was Burnout. Burnout definitely appeals to the adrenaline junkie in all of us. You don’t have to like racing games at all to like the Burnout series, especially Burnout Revenge. But that’s because Burnout is an action game first, and a racing game second.

But now that I’m playing GRID, I feel like I’ve found the first pure racing game since Need For Speed: High Stakes that I would recommend even to non-racing fans. If you’ve ever wondered what the appeal of the genre is, if you’ve ever wondered why people play racing games instead of whatever your current favorite genre happens to be, I’d recommend you give GRID a try. For all I know, you could continue to be indifferent about racing games after playing GRID. But my instinct tells me that this game has the kind of crossover appeal that really shows people across the board why racing games are so appealing.

I think GRID is so good, that for the first time since I felt I lost objectivity by becoming a racing game fan, I’m recommending a racing game to everyone I know. It’s still not a perfect game obviously. It definitely has little flaws, and I’m still not sure if I can ever become good at the drift events in the game. But it’s easy to overlook those flaws when the rest of the game is this goddamn brilliant. Everything from the graphics, to the menus, to the sound effects, to the music, to the damage modeling, to the driving physics, create an experience that accentuates the sense of speed and excitement that shows off the very best aspects of the racing genre.

Play this game. And love this game. GRID is the best racing game to come out in years.

EDIT: In 2019, I can’t access Tom’s fidgit piece linked in the above post. It can be seen at the wayback machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20080701141832/http://www.fidgit.com/archives/2008/06/10-reasons-you-should-be-playi.php

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Is that the one and only picture that Tom ever sends out to places he writes for? :P

3

… I can hardly do a time trail without spinning out in the sand or smacking a wall. Trying to actually race without side-sutoing another car seems nigh impossible.

It is a fun demo, otherwise. Would prefer some pedals and a wheel to the silly PS3 controller (coming from a PC gamer). Maybe i can hook up my flight sim gear?

4

I just recently got into racing sims. I only have a Momo Force wheel/pedals and only race against the AI so I’m not very hardcore, but is a game like this even fun in their “simulation” mode? Not trying to be snobby, I’m actually curious if they model enough physics and force feedback to make it feel somewhat like driving a real car, or if it’s better to just play with a gamepad like I do in Trackmania.

Hmm… maybe I should sneak over to the race sim geek forums and find out!

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Having a good controller is definitely important to the experience. YMMV, but I always found the PS2/PS3 controllers to not be very good for controlling racing games. Even the PS3’s more “trigger-like” L2 and R2 buttons aren’t really proper analog triggers that allow fine control like the 360 controller does. (Plus the dualshock/sixaxis analog sticks aren’t as tight as the 360 controller’s analog sticks, which allow for more steering control).

Do you have access to a 360 controller that you could use for the PC demo (or perhaps, an Xbox 360 that you could try the demo on)? If you don’t like the 360 controller for racing games, then maybe flight sim gear would be a good substitute. I know I used to play PC racing games with my Sidewinder Precision Pro, and that was a lot more fun for me than playing it with the keyboard, or with the PS2/PS3 controllers.

6

They didn’t seem to have done the voicework for my name: Javier (Hellooo, Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role anyone?), but I did pick a funny nickname like “Boner” which craked me up every time.

7

If you’re at all serious about racing games, a wheel makes all the difference. Granted, it’s cumbersome compared to a regular controller, but the control you gain over the thumbsticks cannot be understated.

That said, I’m not about to drop a hundred bucks for Microsoft’s wheel. I think I’m going to dig out the wheel I got with Gran Turismo for the PS2. It’s just a rebranded Logitech wheel, is USB, and worked fine on my PC. I have my doubts that the Xbox will like it, but it will be nice if it does. I think I lost my power supply, though, so no FF for me.

Anyway, GRID is excellent. I’m not a big racing fan, either. Yeah, I got Gran Turismo, but mostly that was a stupid impulse buy that I hardly ever played. The only racing series I ever really loved was Need for Speed, which started for me with Hot Pursuit. The sense of speed was really excellent in that game, as it was in some of the sequels such as Porsche Unleashed. Once they got into the hip and edgy Vin Diesel street racing titles, though, I quickly lost all interest.

GRID, on the other hand, manages to do just about everything right. It’s got just enough of a sim feel to make you feel like you’re a good driver, but not so much that it becomes impossible to play. The different classes of cars certainly handle differently, and it takes some getting used to. Jumping from an Open Wheel to a Supercar race will have you sliding into the sand until you adjust yourself to how the other car handles. However, it never loses sight of the fact that it’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun, and it is. It’s not simmy like Gran Turismo, nor is it pure arcadey like rrrrrrrRidge Racer. It’s somewhere in-between, in its own space of awesome.

GRID has it all: the sense of speed, excellent graphics, cool features like calling you by name and team/sponsor management, great courses, etc…but the one thing it does better than any other racer I’ve ever played, hands-down, is good AI. There’s no rubber banding, the other drivers don’t follow the same line like robot cars, they aren’t infallible and can (and do) make mistakes. In short, they pass as the most believable drivers I’ve ever raced against, excluding multiplayer.

Heck, my teammate is improving with every race. The cocky kid even beats me now and again, which annoys me to no end. I still get paid, but I can’t have my protege upstage me!

Go get the game. Trust us. Join us. One of us. One of us.

EDIT: I meant to include an anecdote about using a wheel for racing games. There was a bit in Mafia that was notorious for its difficulty. It had you driving a speedy car in a race, and people were having no end of problems winning the race, which was required. Granted, most people were using a mouse and keyboard which is far from ideal, but even those that plugged in joypads were having problems. When I hit the same problem in the same mission, I went and grabbed that PS2 wheel, plugged it into my PC, then loaded up Mafia. After countless tries without the wheel, and I mean countless, I finished the race in first place on my first attempt after plugging in the wheel. I did the race several times after that to see if it was a fluke, but it wasn’t. The leap in control was just enormous when using the wheel.

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Not much response on the sim forums about this game. Most just acknowledged that it was a fun arcade game. I think a few were satisfied with the feel while using a wheel. I still have seasons in GTR2 and Race07 to play, along with some Formula 1 rFactor mods to mess with and maybe a good rally game if I can find one, so I’ll think about this when it’s in the bargain bin. Might make for a good HTPC game in the living room when my car enthusiast friends and family are over.

Alex, I’m playing through Mafia and recently beat that race on my first try. I think they patched it later so it wasn’t as difficult. It was a novelty so I’m glad I didn’t have to do it multiple times like a couple levels I’ve encountered. I’m a PC gamer so replaying entire maps more than a couple times makes me angry. :)

9

I like racing sims, if one defines “racing” as “plowing into things at very high speed”. Carmageddon is my ultimate racing sim, followed closely by the immortal Test Drive: EOD , the kinda immortal Trackmania, and the less immortal Burnout series. I also enjoyed Porsche Unleashed back in the day, although its excellent force feedback support may have had more to do with that.

Here’s hoping I enjoy my GRID purchase :)

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Dude. Porsche Unleashed was the first NFS game I played, so I couldn’t understand why every subsequent NFS release seemed to get worse and worse (read: sillier and sillier).

Still trying to gauge whether I should pick Grid up on xbox or PC. Need to get through some of my backlog first, though, but I’ll get there.

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If you like crashes, GRID satisfies. In fact, with its Flashback feature built around the Instant Replay, it manages to do what Burnout should have done a long, long time ago - which is provide excellent replay controls. I still wish you could save replays at will, though - for when you either have an excellent race or a spectacular crash.

I was having a great deal of difficulty in an Open Wheel race, due to very poor steering response. I couldn’t imagine why the car controlled so poorly until the replay. I’d forgotten about a fairly significant bust-up I had early on in the race, which left me apparently driving with no front end to speak of.

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It might be up for “Best Presented Game of the Year”, but “Best Game” is a stretch.

Personally, I could dismiss DiRT’s horrendous butchering of Earth-style physics and was able to find a fun arcade game within, but GRID just left me cold.

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Which? This one?

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I’m surprised that so many other people here besides me have played Porsche Unleashed. That was the follow up to the game that made me a racing game fan, so I essentially HAD to get it. If they were numbered, Porsche Unleashed would have been NFS 5, whereas High Stakes was NFS 4.

For me personally Porsche Unleashed was a mixed bag. On the one hand, they improved their physics model over High Stakes, and had more courses and despite only having Porsche, they had a lot more cars. On the other hand, they got rid of a lot of features. No more police chases during races. The career mode wasn’t as fun, the sense of speed was really muted compared to High Stakes, and they got rid of car upgrades and damage modeling too if I recall correctly.

What ultimately stopped me from getting through NFS: PU was their “driving tests” which didn’t actually teach you how to pull off the maneuvers they wanted you to attempt. So when I got to the mission where you’re supposed to do a 360 spin followed by a 180 spin, I just couldn’t finish it, and I couldn’t move on because the game wouldn’t let me move on. So I got stuck forever and eventually had to uninstall the game, because I had no idea how to do a 360 spin. They only gave you a short runway, so by the time I got to the zone where you’re supposed to do the 360 spin, I wasn’t going very fast. So when I pulled the handbrake and turned, my car always stopped before I could pull off the whole 360 turn. So then I started giving it gas (which wasn’t easy to do with a joystick) during the turn so it wouldn’t stop, but the game didn’t seem to count that as the same “turn” for some reason, even though the car was still moving and didn’t come to a stop.

I figured at the time that maybe I just couldn’t do a 360 turn with my Sidewinder Precision Pro, and I had to move on. What a horribly designed mission that was. If you’re going to require that the player learn a new move before they can play the rest of your game, shouldn’t you at least give them some advice on how to pull off that move?

Now that I’m more proficient in racing games, I could probably pull off a 360 given enough trial and error, but back when I was a racing newbie, that just seemed like an impossible feat.

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Well, previous to NFS:PU my only experience with “racing games” was with Screamer, Stunts, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer and TopGear … so to me it felt more like driving a real car than anything else I’d played. After PU, it felt the NFS series slid more into arcade territory, and I didn’t find anything better until Toca, GTR and GTL.

Speaking of driving tests, (I think) it was the original Driver that stuck you in an underground garage, forcing you to do similar kinds of difficult maneuvers, before you could even start playing the game. I came close to giving up on it before even playing the first mission.

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Don’t know if it’s been discussed elsewhere, but Codemasters has the Formula 1 license. And with what they paid for it, I’m sure they will make a huge effort with it. Even if it’s arcadey I will probably pick it up. GRID seems to have a lot of flash and fun so that’s a promising sign.

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This has definitely got me interested enough to grab the XBL demo.

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Ah, memories.

Porsche Unleashed was the best of the NFS series IMO. Has been going steadily down the tubes since.

The game that really needs a sequel is Mobil 1 Rally Championship! That was hard-core rallying. None of the silly condensed arcade-style rallying that Colin McRae or Dirt had.

Still on the fence about Grid. Maybe wait for the price to drop and pick it up.

19

I see your bet and raise you:

(Disclaimer: I honestly liked this game)

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I always wondered about that mission. It took me two tries and everyone bitched about it. Maybe the fact that I used a wheel was the difference.