It’s been a long time since Grid’s release; it was a quirky
arcade racer with some obvious flaws. So it’s good to see Codemasters returning
for another go as arcade racers are really few and far between.
This time round Codemasters have taken a new approach to the
single player story progression. You start out as an upcoming driver hired by
Patrick Callaghan, an entrepreneur with
the grand vision of creating a new racing league; the World Series of Racing.
You set off a journey to race against the best drivers and clubs in the world
in a bid to get them to join the WSR.
This is broken down into a series of different racing modes
and challenges, with your progress being tracked by the number of fans that
begin to follow you. You earn new fans with top three finishes and by
completing sponsor objectives, which add extra objectives to achieve in races. Sponsor
objectives do tend to be incredibly specific such as beating a particular opponent
on a certain track. I ended up ignoring them entirely as it became too much trouble,
only to then find that I would constantly get hassled by Patrick to complete them.
It wasn’t long before I muted the voices in the sound options.
You start off with just a single car, but as you complete
various races, you’re given the choice of a new vehicle to add to your garage.
Your ‘fans’ effectively represent your experience bar, the more you earn, the
more events you unlock until eventually you can race in the season finale. Do well and you can jump up to the next tier
of vehicles and a new set of events. There was only one season in which I had
to complete a drift event that I really wasn’t interested in to progress, and
that was thankfully short. Otherwise there was enough variety for me to always
pick a race type I wanted to take part in.
You can unlock all of the cars by taking part in extra
events as you progress so that you have a complete garage, but often races are
limited to which cars you can use, so it’s only really necessary for the sense
of completion.
The other noteworthy element of the single player is the
effort they’ve put in to make the WSR convincing. Between seasons you’re
treated to cut scenes showing how the WSR progressing as word spreads via social
networks and even makes appearances on the sports network ESPN. I expected the
acted scenes for ESPN to be completely cringe-worthy, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The ESPN anchor did a good job and made the discussion around the WSR sound
believable, though I can’t say the same for the pundit who was a bit silly.
Mechanically Grid 2 plays exactly as you would expect. There’s
a whole selection of vehicles from hatchbacks, muscle cars, track cars and
super cars spread throughout the game. To keep things simple, each has a clear
set of stats and a description of its handling type. So if you fancy having
some fun with a bit over-steer, there are plenty of cars with a drift set up.
Oddly, only a few cars have a focus on grip for a more traditional driving
experience. You do spend a lot of time going round corners sideways with tyres
screeching for a road and track based racing game.
Instant replays are
present again to help undo your mistakes. You get five for each race, but with
less control than in previous Codemaster’s titles. When you hit the replay
button now, the game simply rewinds and you have to be ready to start racing
again when you want. In multiplayer, using a replay acts as a quick reset to
track, so consuming them to avoid an impending crash can be a real time saver.
And saving time is something I really wish had been the
focus of the multiplayer. Instead everything about it seems overly long and
laborious. Loading screens, waiting times and a slow levelling curve all made a
negative impact here. The time between races can become quite ridiculous. I
decided to put the game to the test. Having just finished a race, I decided to
see if I could make a cup of tea between all the loading screens. Sadly the
answer is yes, although the tea was a small plus. And this was using the quick
match option. There’s some serious room for streamlining here as spending time
waiting for experience bars to tick up, tracks to be vetoed and new players to
join takes just as long as the race itself!
The other major problem with the quick multiplayer is that
its collision enabled. Almost every race can be won in the first few corners if
you manage to escape the guaranteed pile-ups. Cornering can also be a highly
risky business with a player behind you. Often in this situation you quickly
find that you become a ramming target and there’s little you can do about it. If
you don’t escape the main pack, you often find yourself being clawed back into
an abyss of crashes. The only way round it is to join custom games with no collisions,
but this only adds to the waiting problem as the host messes about with
settings.
I stuck with the multiplayer for a few hours as I was drawn
in by the levelling and customisation options. As you progress, you can buy new
cars and upgrades with money earned in races. However it didn’t take long for
it to become clear how incredibly steep the curve was. I noticed a few players
had opted to buy the DLC to get access to a greater choice of higher tier cars.
By default you have a car for each tier without upgrades, so it’s hardly a
level playing when veteran players are in the same lobby as you.
A small plus for the multiplayer in the inclusion of a split
screen option which is very welcome. Far too many games snub this feature. To
get the most out the multiplayer, you need a lot of patience and to focus on
custom games. Another handy feature is that all players in a lobby can be
easily muted, although you have to do this every time you enter a new lobby.
Graphically the game looks stunning for the current
generation. Even running the game on my modest machine let me turn the graphics
up to high settings and get an average frame rate over forty. The city back
drops and landscapes have a great level of detail. The car models all look
excellent and the colour scheme options are quite extensive. The models and
textures for the track side fans are still at a fairly low level of detail by
comparison, but as they are a blur for the majority of the time that’s fine.
Overall the single player provides a solid experience. It
could have made more use of the ‘live routes’ feature where the track changes
mid-race. It only makes a couple of appearances and it’s the really distinctive
game mode Grid 2 offers. The multiplayer feels like a grind that has been set
up around the DLC content. Fun for a few goes until you begin to notice it
flaws and get fed up with reckless drivers. I couldn’t recommend this as a full
price title as the single player will only last a couple of hours. However if
it appears at a bargain price and you’re looking for a new arcade racer, this
will be a good option.
