Grid is a racing game which comes developed and published by Codemasters. The game is available on PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Google Stadia. It is the fourth game in the Grid series.
I hadn’t really been paying much attention to this game at all and only recently became interested in it as I searched for a new racing game to play. Having just upgraded my PC for the first time in 5 years I was keen to test it out on some of 2019’s latest titles and since Grid released in the same week I completed my new build, I was keen to give it a go and max out its settings.
For me this was one of the first racing game I’ve ever played at over 60 fps and I was immediately impressed with how the game looked and how it played on a high frame rate. On PC I was able to experience Grid at over 100fps on a 1080p resolution and the game was very smooth.
The graphics look awesome and I appreciated that all of the cars I unlocked were detailed enough to have an inside driver’s view complete with a speedometer and other guages that move as you drive. I do not usually like to drive in racing games with the cockpit view on but in Grid this was actually my preferred option.I loved the way the car interior looked and the positioning of the window for driving seemed just right. There’s also some very nice details put into some car interiors for the way gears are shifting up or down as you drive with some cars lighting up and doing all sorts of fancy things.
Grid is not a difficult game to play and most gamers should be able to pick it up easily and win races. Races take place on race tracks around the world and Australia is included as one of the locations. Tracks are similar to what you would expect from something like Gran Turismo, but the as it’s arcade style racing in Grid, much of the seriousness of having to get everything right like you would have to do in a simulator isn’t there. I found that this made my play times with Grid fairly relaxing and casual. The game is more about the cars, the sounds and the thrill of the race than anything else.
Grid comes complete with weather effects and players will experience races in sunlight, in the dark of night and also heavy rain. The heavy rain events were my favourite as I loved seeing the rain drops splash on the windshield, but I also really enjoyed the night races as some maps were brought to life by lights and even fireworks at times.
Cars in Grid take damage and things can break as you smash into things on the road. This is closely tied to the arcade style fun of it all and the game seems to encourage damaging your opponents from time to time. If you actually damage one car enough the driver of that car will gain a ‘nemesis’ status which means that should you drive alongside them for long enough they may just side swipe you back to take you off the road. This is a nice feature and it’s a bunch of fun but it’s also undone quite quickly by Grid’s reverse the race feature. At any time in a race if you mess up you can just rewind the race to a point before you crashed and have a go again at that point in the track. It’s handy at times but it also means that races can be completed without any real consequences for a players bad driving and I feel it removes any feeling of pressure from any race in the game. Things are just a little too easy.
One of the things i felt was a little poor in this game was the voice overs. There was just not enough variety. When going through the career mode, you will listen to different people discussing the race before you start it and to be honest it doesn’t take very long at all until you have heard it all. The same can be said for when you trigger the nemesis mode. The voice overs lack any variety there as well. It’s disappointing because it does make the game’s campaign mode feel very repititve and when you mix this in with the limited number of tracks and similar race style options, the game starts to feel like the same thing over and over again.
Playing on PC I did run into issues launching Grid after I purchased it, I found that the game would just crash on start up. At the time of writing I don’t believe this has been patched yet. I do have a guide here for how to solve this though if anyone needs help. This was My only issue but I am aware of other issues from reading the community forms. I mention in it in this review as it’s a little frustrating to purchase something on PC and then it doesn’t launch, which means I have to spend all day figuring out why.
Overall I would say that Grid is a game worth getting this week if you are looking for an arcade style racer that is a little more fast paced and less serious than games like Gran Turismo. The graphics are very nice and cars are well detailed. Weather effects are also excellent. But the game is weighed down by repetitive voiceover dialogues, limited tracks and similar race style options that don’t give the player much variety. Grid will still give players a couple of weekends of good fun, but if you can find this one on sale and not at full price. I think actually that it will be a good game to add to your collection. I recommend waiting a bit and buying it a good price at the right time (on sale) because there is quite a bit of value in this game and I did have a bit of fun with it.
