909th played so far
Genre: Racing
Platform: Playstation 3/Xbox 360/PC
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
I’ve played plenty of racing games,and I’ll be honest, with only a couple more left to go I feel like I need something more to set them apart. At a certain point, a lot of them are the same, street circuits through fairly build up areas except where you drive past a sea or through a ravine – or you go through generic English country landscapes. At the very least, I hope for a decent progression mechanic – the Colin McRae: Dirt and Forza series have done that quite well. Most others, however, seem to thrive on a difficult tutorial, let up a bit in gameplay, but still require you to win from the start without a chance to build your skills. For Race Driver: Grid, I’m not sure whether it will go one way or the other, but it seems like the chances of this being done right are still low.
Our Thoughts
The verdict? In short, I felt this was a game that looks nice, but unless you’re a hardcore fan you’re not going to get far in – you’re probably better off trying to find a game that actually wants you to learn as you play it.
As with so many racing games, you start off with a set of cars with no grip, leading to you spinning out of control at the least notice. Even on your first lap there are some annoying turns that you end up struggling with. This means that on the first race, where you just have to finish, not even get first, I struggled to complete the race. It took me about five tries because the controls were so floaty and it put me off. You’re not helped here by the dark tracks that make it difficult to see where you’re actually going. After that first lap and race, I tried the other races, but I couldn’t make it to the end of any of them. It’s incredibly hardcore, which doesn’t work for a casual player like me.
Final Thoughts
So the game looks nice and they clearly put a lot of work into it, but as I said, they aimed this at an audience that’s not me or anyone else who hasn’t gotten deep into this type of game. I don’t think it’s necessarily as much of a must-play as the list might suggest, as it just don’t reach that playability.