The first thing we jumped into were the single player options. GRID looks set to feature two single player modes. First up is the career mode, which will take place in three different locales, the United States, Europe and Japan. The career mode is set up similar to Dirt, in that players select different challenges and work their way up a tier. The mode we got to get our hands dirty with was the grid world mode. The grid world challenges take place in the three different locales from the career mode and the objective is to improve your reputation and win money to start your own team. Reputation is accumulated as you win races and by playing on tougher difficulty levels. The grid world mode will feature a few different types of racing.
First up is normal street racing. Racing is done with the left and right triggers and there are several different views. The game is a little more arcadey than previous Race Driver (or V8 Supercar titles), Codemasters haven't quite gone down the Ridge Racer route, but it's definitely possible to slide your car around a little more this time around. Like the previous Race Driver titles the game features some stunning crash effects, except this time when players crash their vehicles it isn't the end of a race, unless of course you want it to be. The game actually allows the player three 'flashbacks': after crashing your vehicle you will view the replay leading up to the incident and by pressing the X button the player can flashback to this part of the race, vehicle intact. It's a very cool addition and definitely a whole lot easier than restarting the race.
The game really does look this fantastic.
GRID doesn't just feature your normal street racing though. There is also a drift mode. In the drift mode players aren't racing for first place, but are competing for points. There are combos in drift mode too, so if players can keep up their high speed antics, they will rack up some decent scores. Even better is the fact that if you do wipeout, you won't lose your drift score. The drift mode definitely isn't as arcadey as Juiced 2, but still feels extremely intuitive and best of all, it doesn't feel like the drift mode was added just for the sake of expanding the available race types.
One of the neatest additions to Race Driver: GRID is a small one. When you first setup your profile you will enter a profile name. In this instance we entered 'Luke' of course. Throughout the races and during cut scenes the game will actually say your name, rather naturally too. So rather than hearing "great racing" the player will actually hear "great racing Luke". We didn't do too much fiddling around with this feature, but it's a very clever little addition that certainly makes the comments seem a little more personal.
Race Driver: GRID utilises the same engine as Dirt and just like Dirt, the game looks absolutely fantastic. The tracks we played were well designed and looked absolutely fantastic. Those who complained about the lighting in Dirt aren't going to be too impressed with Race Driver though. But overall GRID looks rather fantastic. We were very doubtful of how well the game would look when the first images were released, but the game does look very solid.
We probably wouldn't want to flashback to here.
When Race Driver: GRID was first announced it's fair to say we were a little disappointed here at PALGN. While GRID seemed like a new direction for the team behind the V8 Supercars titles, the fact the team was taking a new direction meant that the V8 Supercars series was dead, or at least in a state of hibernation. Well, after playing the game we can conclusively say we're absolutely ecstatic that Codemasters have tried to innovate. The result is what looks to be a stunning racer, set in a variety of of different locations with some excellent vehicles and some brilliant visuals. The game still has a few months of work left, but from what we've seen so far, GRID looks like it is going to be one of the racing titles of the year.
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