With two racers just a few feet ahead of me, the race is about to end. I plan to make a dash for the finish line on the penultimate corner. Maybe I’ll manage to squeeze in and beat them to first place. The second-last corner is looming ahead; now’s my chance. But before I can even understand what’s happening, the driver in the second position suddenly spins out of control and crashes into the side wall. As I whiz past, I look back to see him still spinning and crashing into the trailing pack of cars, leading to a satisfying pile up. I grin in amazement at how the AI racers are more realistic than the previous racing games I’ve played. No more rubber band AI. Nice touch there – AI racers that don’t always follow the perfect driving line.

With just one driver separating me from the finish line, it’s time to concentrate. In the excitement of the previous crash I failed to overtake him. The last corner is my only chance to overtake him. As I approach it with just a few feet separating us, I try to overtake him from the inside line. Much to my disappointment, I completely misjudge the turn and crash to my left. The screen goes crimson red. Front bumper crumpling in, windshield glass shattering – the car is wrecked beyond repair. It’s the end of the race for me…or is it? This is where the Flashback Feature comes to my rescue, which allows me to rewind up to the last ten seconds before my fatal crash. I can select any point from those ten seconds from which I can restart the race! I roll back to the point just before the crash, adjust my turn and shoot past my rival towards the finishing line and a thrilling victory.

All of this happened in the last twenty seconds of the race. That’s how exciting and adrenaline pumping this game can get.

The single-player campaign starts off with you as a freelance rookie racing for different teams across the three territories the game is set in, namely Europe, the United States and Japan. While Japan will have you racing slippery Japanese cars in drift as well as traditional Japanese races, Europe will see you driving on real world race circuits. The USA gets you racing in muscle cars on the streets of San Francisco, California and Washington. As you earn enough money and reputation points, you earn a rookie license and enough money to start your own team. Thus starts your career alongside the big boys of the sport.

The team management system is fairly simple in GRID. You’re the owner, driver and part-manager of your own team. You can name your team, brand it and choose official colors for your cars. There is a decent amount of visual customization but that only goes as far as changing the colors and visual designs on your car. You can’t tweak the cars to improve performance. No changing the tires or suspension. No fiddling with the braking system or changing the engine. You do get to manage the team sponsors where you decide who’ll be the main sponsor and whom the minor. Sponsors give you bonus sums if you’re able to achieve their given objectives, like being in the top five or getting on the podium or beating another racing team or even finishing the race. As you move along in your career, you can also hire a driver for your team who’ll take a cut from the earnings. But hiring the right driver for the job can reap tremendous benefits.

The single-player career is split into racing seasons. After you get the rookie license and have your own team, you take part in various race events spread across the above mentioned territories. You earn money and reputation points depending on your performance in the various events. The amount of reputation points you earn depends on the difficulty level chosen by you before the race. The higher the difficulty (tougher AI opponents, fixed car view, lesser flashbacks), the higher the chance of earning more reputation points. These are split across the three territories though, so while you may be racking up big wins and reputation points in the US and European circuits, you could still be languishing at the bottom rung in Japan. Ironically, it’s also possible to unlock higher level licenses in other circuits while still holding on to a rookie license in Japan.

Some racing events will require you to buy certain types of cars in exchange for participating. You can either buy brand new cars or you can buy used cars from the eBay Motor Store featured within the game itself. If you’re interested in saving some of your hard-earned cash, you’re advised to buy a used car, one which has been wrecked the least number of times as well as has a good performance record. Once done, you can sell your used cars through the eBay Motor Store. Each season ends with the legendary 24 hour Le-Mans Race (though you can choose to skip it). The race, though shortened to 12 minutes in-game, features a full day and night cycle.

I must mention that even after you start your own team in the single player career GRID World, you’ll still continue to receive offers to freelance for other teams. Apart from the single player career mode there is also a Race Day mode which allows you to choose the race type, race track and car and dive right into a race. The number of cars offered (about 45) may seem a bit less, but they pack enough punch. Cars range from muscle cars like the Ford Mustang and the Camaro’s to exotic super cars like the Koenigsegg CCXR, and Pagani Zonda finally down to Japanese Nissan Silvia and the Subaru Impreza. There’s even a couple of Formula racing cars thrown in for good measure, should you have an urge to race in one of these beauties.

As far as the game play is concerned, it was previously mentioned that driving the cars felt like skating on ice. This was misunderstood to mean that they’re difficult to handle. On the contrary, that’s not the case at all – the cars handle beautifully. The only grouse is that it seems like the cars are floating slightly above the ground. The situation seems to have been improved since the preview build but it’s still very much there. The AI racers are challenging and aggressive. Though at lower difficulty levels they’ll allow you to pass them, it gets harder to get past them as the difficulty ramps up. If need be, they will push you off the track and will take full advantage of your mistakes. A good variety of race types are up for selection right from circuit racing to drifting to demolition derbies all the way up to endurance racing and timed challenges. The Pro-Touge and Midnight-Touge race bring back memories of Need For Speed Carbon, with head-to-head races very similar to the mountainside races in Carbon.

The overall presentation is top-notch, from the 3-D Menu to the actual races. Visually speaking the game looks beautiful. It has all the effects you have come to expect in the current-gen games like motion blur and HDR lighting. The damage system is beautifully done with parts that actually fly off as you crash into other cars or obstacles. Windshields crack first and with further abuse, break off completely. Doors rip off from cars; in-fact, the whole car can be wrecked just like in real life. The car damage is more than just eye-candy. Damaging car parts can lead to a degradation in performance. Tires can go bald and in conjunction with a badly damaged steering wheel will make the car veer in one particular direction, making driving much more difficult. Persistent debris from the cars also form obstacles on the track. Even with these nifty visuals, the game runs very well, managing a healthy 40+ fps on a Dual core, 8800GTS system.

Audio in-game is no pushover. The sounds of cars revving up on the starting grid feel genuine. The sound of metal crumpling in a crash sound convincing. The background music is also pleasing. There are a few canned dialogues in the game spoken by your team manager, spotter and team-mate which tend to repeat quite a bit and can get irritating. GRID comes with a replay feature where you can pause, fast forward, rewind and change cameras during the replay. It’s always a treat to not just see your “perfect lap/race” but chuckle as you watch your car crash into a wall or another car at 200 miles an hour.

Multi-player racing in GRID includes both LAN gaming as well as online play (up to 12 players). One can race in ranked, unranked or private races online. There are options to turn off damage and catch-up, and one can also decide the region, race type, race track and race length in a custom session. You can also directly jump into a quick race without bothering about the same.

GRID is undoubtedly one of the best racers to release this year. It has the perfect concoction of arcade and simulation racing. If you are a simulation purist, you might want to stick to Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport but if you like arcade racing with a hint of realism, this is your game. I highly recommend this to all racing game fans. Codemasters has certainly come up with a winner.

9 / 10

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• Fth Says:
  Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 05:02 pm GMT +5.5 at 5:02 pm

  Mercii Boucoup cela n’aidera pas qu’un !
  svp comment faire pour mettre pro touge en reseau local
  merci de prendre le temps de m’aider . ” f.t.h {at} live(.)fr “

• Queen Luxury Says:
  Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 08:54 pm GMT +5.5 at 8:54 pm

  On the subject of stunning high-class vehicles, the Europeans retain the leadership, due to such legendary brands as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Koenigsegg, and Wiesmann. Relish high quality, enjoy life.

• Pill Man Says:
  Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 09:16 pm GMT +5.5 at 9:16 pm

  Don’t stop the first class work. It truly is good to know that there are bloggers like you around willing to talk about this.