GRID Review
Author: Griffin.
Genres: Racing, Reviews.
GRID Directory.
Here is our GRID Review giving you a subjective, unbiased review helping you make a more educated decision on whether or not the game is for you.
- Release Date: 11-Oct-2019.
- Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia.
- Price At Launch: £54.99.
- Developer: Codemasters.
- Publisher: Codemasters.
- Genre: Arcade Racer, Grindfest.
The Game
GRID is an arcade style racer developed and published by Codemasters and as arcade racers go, it’s pretty good to be fair.
You have a good amount of realistic licenced cars and tracks to utilise as you progress through the game including over 100 career events to progress through, an online multiplayer section which allows you to play through with your friends or against random players and a free play mode where you can choose any car and track to practice your lap times and racing lines.
Career is where most of the action is to be had, where you progress through a series of increasingly challenging races to the Showdown event which if you win, you will then hold the title for that series.
Car damage has had a lot of time spent on it in GRID and as a lot of the races are Touring Car based you will inevitably have several bumps, grind and smashes as you make your way through the games various race events.
The car damage can be set as either cosmetic where you will lose bumpers, scratch the paint and rip spoilers and wings off the back of your car or set it to full damage where one front end impact can see you out of the race with a busted car.
The tracks have been made spot on with every corner you would find in a track in real life will be placed in the game giving you a good sense of what it would be like to drive the courses themselves.
It’s not all good though as the cars, whichever ones you choose from a stock touring car to a le mans racer are constantly struggling for grip even at low speeds making cornering feel disjointed and just not quite right which is somewhat disappointing considering Codemasters pedigree with solid racing games.
Also, aside from a handful of tuning options there’s no other way of suping the cars up making them go faster or handle better which would have been nice to see.
The Good
At its heart, GRID is a good, well balanced arcade racer that ticks a lot of boxes with licenced cars which have well thought out, authentic interiors. A good number of fun, accurate tracks to thump around whilst battling to win a series in first place.
Visually, the game is nicely polished with good lighting effects, realistic tyre marks when your brakes lock up or you skid round a corner and well thought out, impressively designed car damage both visually and mechanically.
Each event you win, you will earn money which will allow you to purchase more vehicles for the next series of events, the more you win, the better the vehicle will be that you can purchase giving you a better chance of taking the next win.
The not so good
One of the biggest issues I have with GRID is the cornering. I know how well Codemasters can make cars feel whilst cornering. Just look at their F1 series of games, now I’m well away a Touring Car or a super car will handle very differently to an F1 car, however, the cars in GRID just feel a bit limp.
They are constantly over or understeering and slip about in the corners like you’re constantly in the wet, then in the wet you might as well be driving on ice.
Then there’s the trophies which I understand aren’t for everyone in a game, however, this entire website and YouTube channel was originally created for the sole purpose of making trophy guides and there is one trophy in this game which quite frankly, is utter bullshit.
You need to drive 24,901 miles (40074.3 km) in the game to unlock Around the Globe.
To put that into context, by the time you have completed all 104 career events and have unlocked every other trophy in the game, you will be around 5% of the way there which is just obnoxiously arrogant of Codemasters to put such a grind in a game with no end game content leaving you to (if you want the easy way) perform thousands of laps around the Indianapolis Indy Circuit in the Porsche 917/30 which will take you a few hundred hours at best.
Audio
The sound effects in GRID are pretty good, you get a good rev range as you go faster through the gears which is notably different depending on the car you are using.
The engine sounds are on point and sound like they have been taken directly from the cars they come from which is good to hear when a game like GRID is committing to using licenced cars throughout the game.
You can tell a noticeable difference between a Supercar and a hatchback which is just what you want in a game with so many events to complete.
There isn’t really a voice element to the game, except a member of your support team occasionally letting you know you’re halfway over the radio or that your team mate will push harder or hang back.
It would have been nice to have some more involvement from your team but given the structure of the game, what we have been presented with works well enough.
The game does a fairly decent job with the crashing sound effects throughout which, given the close contact nature of GRID, you’ll be hearing a lot.
The cars crunch, snap and bang around nicely.
Overall, the audio of the cars is primarily what you’ll be listening to as you go around the tracks / courses in GRID and the developer’s have got all of that side of it spot on.
Online
You are pretty well catered for in Online Multiplayer which allows you to play through any of the games modes in any car (as long as you own it) against your online friends or random’s in private or public lobbies which is nice to see.
Trophies
Trophy wise in GRID there is a good amount of variety. You need to win every career event which isn’t to bad, perform a few miscellaneous actions like cross the line backwards or complete an event with no damage.
Then, as I mentioned in the “The not so Good” section of this review, there is the Around The Globe trophy which sees you needing to drive the distance which matches the circumference of our planet, 44,901 miles or 40074.3 km which is frankly a ridiculous ask and will ultimately put a lot of people off of a game that they would have happily made their way through otherwise as trophy hunters.
Click the link to go to the GRID Trophy Guide.
Gallery
Here are a series of photos to show you how the game looks:
Overall
To summarise, GRID is a very good arcade racer which will definitely satisfy a lot of players if you’re looking for some high speed, high impact fun to laze away a few afternoons whilst you progress the multiple series of events.
Online Multiplayer is good to have with private or public lobbies catering for your choices you want to make with a multitude of car / track combinations.
The cornering is limp wristed for the most part leaving you either hand braking around most of the corners or under / oversteering if you try and race properly, especially on the higher powered cars in the game.
Overall and this is mainly down to the Around The Globe trophy which has cost GRID 1 point off of the score just for how ridiculously obnoxious the requirements are. I’ll score GRID a 7/10.
Final Score: 7
That’s our GRID Review I hope it helps you decide whether or not the game is worth your time and money.