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

Oh wow, it's another one of these! The world is still kinda shit, and for me on top of home issue, is kinda soul draining. However! We always have video games, and for me while anime games are my preferred choice, racing games would be a solid 2nd on the list for me. I find that because they usually have a story that doesn't really involve a plot, they are very easy to pick up, play for a bit, leave for a few months while real takes over, and start playing again, which makes them a prime candate for me to just write a few sentences on! And I've been playing a lot of DIRT:Rally by Codemasters, so let me talk about it!

Let me start off by saying Codemasters really knows how to make games look good. The graphics on  the car are astounding, the detail in the environments are amazing, and on my new laptop with a GTX 1650 and 10th Gen i5 processor, it runs at a constant 60fps, which is insane, However, please make my own livery in the next game, I want to Mini or 1600cc car that has weeb s**t on it. 

Anyways​, Dirt: Rally has 3 modes, Rally, Hillclimb and Rallycross. Rally is the signature mode, as the DIRT series is derived from the Colln McRae Rally series, and man is it hard! This is admittedly somewhat due to game being very heavy on the simulation side of things, so if your like me and use a controller, watch out!

There's also a lot of differences between this and a regular street race. If I was playing something like Grid: Autosport, the street racing there involves me being on screen with a bunch of other cars, and the roads are wide enough to accommodate side by side racing. Here, it's like a bike time trial, where everything is narrow, the road furniture constantly changes, and you're on your own against the clock.

Another thing that really hinders the experience for me is the handling, which to be honesty, is pretty fine tuned for steering wheels, and it feels like I need to play with ABS on just to stop locking up or stop the car in general. Also not helping is when I'm on a snow stage and having to deal with ice physics. ICE PHYSICS. IN A RACING GAME. Yes I know this is an off road game, but still I'm not use to this. 

However, once you get used to it, it's fun to race. I just think that the game has a lot of mechanic that you need to get use to, hell there is co driver yelling instructions at you for road furniture, what the road furniture is, what kind of turn the next turn is, it's too much for me to get use to at one time.

Hillclimb is something I honestly only put time into for this but to sum it up, it's like Rally, but with super modified cars and no co driver, so it's a little more traditional, but damn, do the cars there feel even more unstable at high speed with a controller.

But now on to the mode that I actually know the most about! Rallycross has only been around as a world championship since 2014, and this is the first official game for it. It's a bit lacklustre with tracks, as, there are only 3 with their variations. Lidden Hill in the UK, Hell in Norway, where it always seems to rain, and Hojles in Sweden. How did you guys miss the Estering? Or Loheac? Or Hockenheimring? I guess all of these and more are in Dirt 4, and GOD DAMN IT. 

Anyway, Rallycross is mix of both touring car and rally surfaces, so you have to be versatile. The races work this way: Qualifying is split into 4 heats and 4 groups of 4 drivers, and the fastest 12 from their combined finishing positions go into the semi final. The ones in Group A start on the first row, B on the second one and C on the 3rd one. The top 3 from each Semi-Final go into the final.

I honestly enjoy this mode the most because I feel as if I have control of the cars here, though the Supercars are still very slidey and I hate them for that, but the 1600 are alright and the classic mini is a joy to drive in. It also helps that the racing keeps me on my toes with the Joker Lap. This is a lap that all care have to take which is slower, and I find that this keeps things interesting, take it too early, and your stuck at the back, take it too late, and you just lost the place you were in. It's quite interesting.

Dirt Rally seems to take a lot of learning of in my opinion, which is not great for beginners in my opinion. If Dirt Rally 2.0 is better at this I would recommenced it to everyone, but the game requires you to sit down a learn it constantly for it's rally mode, which isn't great for a racing game in my opinion, you should be able to from the get go to some extant be able sit-down, play the game for a bit and get on with your day, which I feel like it's better accomplished in Rallycross mode. For that I would have say, get this if you are a sim racing fan, it's obviously made for that crowd. Besides that, I would say look for other alternatives.

I'm really sorry that I haven't written much in the past few months, really trying to get out of this hole I seem to be in, but Damn I can't get out of it atm. Got a few plans though so please look forward to them!

But for now, take care and I will see you guys next time!

Written by Nana Marfo
Good Smile Car image taken from Good Smile Racing's Twitter

Dirt Rally(C)Codemasters