Grid demo and other thoughts

[Burningleviathan]

The grid demo made itself on to the market place this week. i was looking forward to hopefully gettinga decent arcardey racing game. There are a few good points to the game. Graphics look pretty good, the AI is good. The menus look pretty sweet. You also get voice recognition ofr your name. It's kind of cool to have your name (adam in miy case) being uttered to you by your pit crew and the like.

Unfortunetly the game breaks down where it needs to be at it's best. The control of the cars is terrrible. The game was made by the people who made dirt and they seem to have used the same car dynamics to this game. Unfortunetely one is a rally car game and one is not Having Touring cars drifting around bends is not my idea of a good game. While i'm not looking for a heap of realisim in this game, having a car turn like a touring car should be too much to ask for. The drift race also had it's problems. It doesn't seem to pick up when you are drifting particularly well. When you compare it to NFS or Juiced 2 it comes up short. The muscle cars also seem to steer a little too lightly.

So no racing game for me again. Hopefully Midnight Club can give me something decent as far as an arcadey racing game goes.

I wouldn't recommend it at all

I'm really starting to get annoyed with the lack of semi decent racing games though. Forza 2 is good for a sim but somettimes you just want a little fun. the NFS francise turned to crap and Burnout took away crash mode and two player split screen which was the best things about it. I just a racing game. Pretty straight forward. The one game i envy PS3 owners over is the F1 title. Just driving a car around a decent track and mark Webber actually winning something would be a blast. Hopefully we can get another supercar title or microsoft actually getting it's hands on the F1 license (IIRC it ends with PS this year).

 

[Lunchlady Doris]

You want a fun arcadey racer, and you want F1?

It is just a demo you know. You sound like one of those gamers tha tis very hard to please.

 

[Burningleviathan]

F1 is just a blast from the demo i've played at various game strores.

I wouldn't be that hard to please. If it turned like a touring car i would love the game completely. Maybe the fact that it isn't on a street makes it harder for me to like it turning that way. If it was a NFS type game, the steering would be fine.

Have you tried the demo?

 

[Burningleviathan]

Well, looks like i'll get one wish. F1 to go to codemasters, so a 360 F1 game on it's way!
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/67228

Mind you, if an F1 car drifts into corners i'll shoot someone!

 

[stu0411]

You want a fun arcadey racer, and you want F1?

It is just a demo you know. You sound like one of those gamers tha tis very hard to please.

The F1 game has a few different modes that completely change the feel of the game. He has most probably played it with some of the settings adjusted to make it more arcadey.

The f1 game can be brutally difficult with all stability controls etc removed, however with them on it does feel pretty arcadey.

On topic, I actually dig grid. Cranked it last night when I got back from the pub with a few mates and it was good fun. Just the tonic to counteract the sim style of gtp.

 

[melbournemartin]

Can you play online in the demo? How big is the download? Does it have the full graphics settings?

 

[Burningleviathan]

The F1 game has a few different modes that completely change the feel of the game. He has most probably played it with some of the settings adjusted to make it more arcadey.

The f1 game can be brutally difficult with all stability controls etc removed, however with them on it does feel pretty arcadey.

On topic, I actually dig grid. Cranked it last night when I got back from the pub with a few mates and it was good fun. Just the tonic to counteract the sim style of gtp.

Yeah, i got it for the PSP and it can be quite the bitch. It's alittle too difficult on that small screen to judge braking. The F! game gives you the chance to get thebest ofboth worlds i think. I hope they can do that on the codemasters version

 

[Burningleviathan]

Can you play online in the demo? How big is the download? Does it have the full graphics settings?

Demo is about 800 MB. I believe you can play online againstt people. Apprently people take you out in the first corner though crash damage is pretty good. I think the graphics settings are in full. Looks pretty good.

The only problem with it is that the cars steer like Dirt only you are on the road. If you have no problems with touring cars drifting around corners, you would probably like it.

 

[melbournemartin]

I'm not a massive car fan but even that might annoy me. I'll give the demo a go then.

DiRT was generally considered to be pretty average in reviews that I read. Does this mean that GRiD is just an average game transformed into something potentially worse?

 

[Burningleviathan]

I quite liked Dirt. Most people complained about the lack of mulitplayer and the like. But yeah, it just feels like a transfer of the game into a different setting

 

[raffrox]

I quite liked Dirt. Most people complained about the lack of mulitplayer and the like. But yeah, it just feels like a transfer of the game into a different setting

I liked DiRT and I just downloaded the Grid demo and I think that it is going to be good fun. It won't be any kind of groundbreaking super game but I think it will be worth a look.

 

[melbournemartin]

I was very disappointed with the handling. It's bloody impossible to turn in small increments. Even if you increase the steering deadzone, that just means there is a large gap of the steering doing nothing which is then met with a sudden swerve to the left or right.

My Logitech Rumblepad 2 also wasn't recognised when using the menus so I had to use the keyboard but I eventually managed to get the controller to work in the game.

On a positive note though, the graphics look superb and I completely maxed them out with only a tiny bit of lag on a large, smokey collision.

 

[Burningleviathan]

I played online a bit. Was a bit of fun but filled with stupid people trying to take you out in the first corner. I don't think they even bother to brake I think i got wrecked twice by people puttngme into walls when i was trying to overtake them.

It's fun but the steering still annoys me.

 

[melbournemartin]

Yeah, you will struggle to get a good online race. If people find themselves too far back to get into the game they often try to test out the crash mechanics

 

[stu0411]

Yeah, you will struggle to get a good online race. If people find themselves too far back to get into the game they often try to test out the crash mechanics

Yeah, by driving the car in the opposite direction to cause head ons

 

[Burningleviathan]

Yeah! had one of those people as well.

 

[melbournemartin]

Not sure if you were being sarcastic Stu but you pretty much can't cause any damage unless you are travelling in the same direction as the other car or at least side ways. This at least stops people from charging at you as you approach the finish line.

Getting around that first corner in the BMWs is hard.

I must admit that I have occasionally been found guilty of being the prick that stops traffic. I just thought that the first corner was a good place to park my car. I couldn't see a ticket inspector in sight