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GRiD Race Driver

Written by DM on Thursday, June 12 2008

When you are playing the game, you needn’t worry about getting bored with the same type of race over and over again. Just like in DiRT, Codemasters has come up with a slew of different types of races. Just to name a few, there is the Demolition Derby, Pro-Tuned Race, Drift Race, and regular old straightforward racing. There are even special race events that pop up here and there during your race season. One of the more infamous races in GRiD is the LeMans. The things you have heard are true, this is a 24 hour race that you can compete in if you choose. Of course, the clock is sped up a bit so that the race really only lasts about 30-45 minutes, but that is still one serious piece of gaming, trust me.

Surprisingly, though, one of the few areas where Codemasters failed to offer a great amount of diversity is in its car selection. There are only three types of cars to choose from, and there are only about 15-20 cars in each type to purchase. This means there are not even as many cars as there were in DiRT, which was only focused on the off-road genre of racing. Why Codies decided that we only needed three sets of race cars to choose form, I am not sure, they could have added hundreds.

Some have complained that one of the major drawbacks in GRiD is the fact that there are only a handful of real, licensed, races in the game. Besides the aforementioned LeMans, there are not many local US tracks represented in the game. There are foreign tracks in the game, but those really do not hit home, as they are worlds away from most of us.

While the licensing may be the big issue to most, to me it was secondary to another game feature that was missing. GRiD makes no provisions for changing or tuning cars. The game has an in-race pit radio man, but no ability to make pit stops. The game has supposedly official races, but no official race rules. It seems to me that at least the ability to tune your cars should have been added. Car tuning was available in DiRT, why not GRiD? When you and an opponent have identical cars, the only way to distinguish your vehicle from his/hers is to tune it differently. Codemasters, what were you thinking? Pit stops do not do much in a 3 lap race, so that is understandable, and since this is more arcade racer than sim, race rules being absent are forgivable, but vehicle tuning? Come on now.

Ok, enough about the subtractions Codemasters made, how about some additions. There are several that come to mind. The first is the race flashback system.

The race flashback system is a new feature that allows gamers to salvage a race that they screwed up with a crash or spinout on the last lap or last stage of the race, without restarting. You can pause the game at any point and pick the instant replay feature. This is nothing special, but what is special is that Codemasters now gives us five chances to hit the X button during any instant replay and play the game over from that point in the replay. You heard me, folks! You can literally rewind your race up to a certain point and replay from that instant. This makes things so much easier when you have raced 4 perfect laps and you get distracted by the phone ringing and screw up halfway through lap 5, the last lap. If you have ever played Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, then you know exactly what the instant replay flashback system does. The greatest thing this flashback system adds, believe it or not, is peace of mind. When the tension is off and you do not have to worry about screwing up a perfect race on the last lap, your races not only become more fun, but you race better as well.

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