Nana MarfoA student with a passion for game development and all things Japan. Archives
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Rambling about GRID:Autosport31/8/2020
Racing games are cool! And last week, I spoke about Codemasters' Rally offering, and game that I thought was a bit too hard for beginners. This time however, I wanted to talk about what was one of, if not the last 7th gen(PS3/360) offering, and what it entails! There's a lot of different types of racing here's so let's take another virtual tour around Europe... and in this case the world.
So GRID:Autosport has 5 different styles of racing: Touring, Endurance, Openwheel, Tuner and Street. You race in these 5 categories and once you reach certain levels in all 5 style, you get to race in the GRID Series. I got up to the Grid Grand Slam for this article.
I will start by saying Codemasters knew how to get most of the PS3/360 at this point because THIS LOOKS LIKE A EARLY PS4 GAME. Seriously, it's insane how good a lot of cars look in this game. While I didn't play Race Driver: Grid, I know from playing Grid 2, the had the problem of too much bloom because 7th Gen. This is thankfully not much of an issue here, as everything feels very clean, crisp, and most importantly, visible. The music... well there isn't much, that's why I didn't mention it in Dirt:Rally, it's only the menus, and even I usually turn music off in a racing game to listen to my own music, or a podcast. It's how racing games are meant to be play in my opinion. I do wish there were bunch of licence songs to listen to while in race, and again, please let make weeb cars in your future games. I know F1 2020 has a livery editor, but IDK if I can put images in there.
So lets start with the gameplay and I'll get the styles I didn't like out of the way first. Compared to all of the other starter cars, the lowest level of Endurance cars are extremely fast and a bit harder to handle. While the same argument can be put across for something such as OpenWheel, there it feels better because you know there all the cars are different. Here, in everything else, you start in Road cars, and build your way up to race in the super fast cars. So it kinda feels a bit harder to start out in Endurance. Also everything is at night, and it kinda feels weird, since the game doesn't have a day to night cycle, and races don't usually last longer than 10 min, so it kinda feels unnecessary, especially with lack of visibility and all other styles taking place at daytime .
The drift challenges in tuner are super hard in my opinion. Then again I hate drifting challenges in games, so I won't talk about it because that would make me stupidly mad.
Touring cars are basically stock cars for all the Americans out there, but unlike NASCAR, we race on race tracks and street circuits instead of ovals. It's honestly really fun, as these feel like stock cars with the volume turned up, and not being forced to turn a hard left. Before you can race, you have to qualify, and there are 3 extra championships points for qualify first here, which can make all the difference here, because there are 2 races to do! This also goes for OpenWheel as well, just with out the 3 points in Qualifying and the reverse grid that happens in the 2nd race. It's honestly fun to race around circuits such as Brands Hatch and Istanbul Park in these cars. That's all I can say about it sadly, as I don't really watch BTCC, WTCC or DTM, so all my knowledge is an outsider's knowledge, so I can't really say anything about tactics.
Tuner has 2 types of races, the drift challenges as I talked about earlier, and time trials/races. These revolve around you taking muscle and what in game are called "Jam" cars, and driving them around the track as fast as you can. I personally find the muscle cars, such as the Dodge Charger to be a bit unstable due to the amount of power in them, but the Jam cars, such as the Nissan Sliva are pretty fun to use, and the variety of cars in the Jam category is astounding. Oh I should mention how the career mode works.
So basically, once pick a style of racing, you get a choice to go to a team, where the difference are the amount of XP you earn, and how much you be able to set up your car. You have a rival to beat, but most of the time, you will want to try and beat Ravenwest Motorsport, so focus on them. I will say that this does affect the replay of the career mode quite a bit as I just feel like I need to beat RavenWest... and yea my job is done. I mean we have a lot of IRL brands here, such as Intel and Monster Energy, so why not try to make them top contenders as well?
Street racing here is mostly focused on the city, as you race places such as Barcelona and Dubai, where the surface is constantly changing, and the width of the roads can change at a moments notice. This is honest my 2nd favorate style because racing all all the different surfaces is really fun, especially when you feel it through the controller.
But now, let's get to OpenWheel.
Open-Wheel is the racing style basted on Formula 1 or Indycar if you are American, and it's the best type of racing this game has to offer in my opinion. The race feels really fast as you go around tracks like Istanbul Park, Brands Hatch and Yas Marina circuit. It also helps that the cars feel better to control with a controller! This goes for all of them, even the Endurance class. We need more sim style games that feel good to play with a controller on PC!
Overall, I can recommend this game, especially given that the new GRID game is still getting DLC, and will probably be getting a updated version later on. I think that game, as is, is really fun, even the parts that I don't like that much here is probably just me complaining a bit too much admittedly, as they have their followings! Play this. please. You can get this on PS3,360, Steam and Humble Bundle.
So, that was fun! Let me know if I should look at more racing games here, preferably ones that let me weeb up my car. Got a good few ideas on content, so stay tuned!
But for now, thanks for reading and I will see you guys next time. Written by Nana Marfo Grid:Autosport(C)Codemasters
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