GRID Autosport First Impressions

[TokoTurismo]

I almost didn't buy it. When I picked it up on steam I thought I would be wasting my money but took the plunge.
So glad I did.
Like any game, it's not without it's flaws. No pit stops is disappointing. Racing some tracks such as Bathurst and Spa in reverse felt very wrong at first, although I suppose it adds longevity.

SP is a blast though as is MP. There is something very nice about racing online in your own car knowing that if you bin it you have to pay for the damage (MP).
I also like the fact that you can set up your own custom cup both in SP and MP by picking a class of car and deciding on which tracks to race and the number of rounds etc.

Oh wow. O_O GAS sounds like a game I'll really enjoy, especially creating your own custom cup! :tup:

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Yup...it's RWD

Explains a lot.

 

[Nick Skyline]

Oh wow. O_O GAS sounds like a game I'll really enjoy, especially creating your own custom cup! :tup:

I'd like for you to listen to me when I tell you, you won't regret spending your money on this one. Right now, I'm really enjoying this game, along with the club I made and occasionally race online with. It, and you, are awesome. While GRID 2 is, to me, the worst CM racing game I've ever played (being specific here), this is the opposite. It does take itself seriously, but not by much. Yet simultaneously, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

If I had to assign GRID Autosport a rating, it'd be 8.5/10. If I assigned that rating in relation to GRID 2, it'd be a 10/10!

I'm going to call it like I see it, not like it is: everything has improved since last year's outing.

I'm probably going to unlock the GRID Masters Trophy soon, and I'm just replaying through some of the events I've already completed as a Ravenwest teammate, in my attempts to get my Endurance and Street levels up to 6 atm.

TIP: After you complete a season, if you finish 1st in an event, you can replay that event with an offer from Ravenwest, if you've the necessary skills to take it. There is a benefit; you can fine tune their cars more so than the other teams will let you, in increments of 10. And the cars have all of their upgrades installed, which I guess is a plus.

I guess I should mention, I did the GRID Grand Slam as Arron Westley's Ravenwest teammate and we just killed it. Monster Energy Racing's Ryan Thompson Jr., who finished 3rd overall, might give us an even bigger run for our top dollar in the Masters Trophy, and maybe in the Legends Series as well.

So, yeah. I'm really liking it.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I'm kind of disappointed that Touring Cars don't race on street circuits in career mode. I had a lot of fun on some of the Barcelona, Paris and Washington street circuits today, but I reckon they'd be more fun in Touring Cars.

 

[anim8r_uk]

I'm kind of disappointed that Touring Cars don't race on street circuits in career mode. I had a lot of fun on some of the Barcelona, Paris and Washington street circuits today, but I reckon they'd be more fun in Touring Cars.

Have you tried it in Custom Cup? I like taking the open wheelers around city streets (Washington and Chicago specifically)

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Not yet. I like encountering circuits for the first time in career mode. Weird, I know. But I reckon Brands Hatch, Champs-Elyese, the Red Bull Ring, Mont-Tremblant and something in Barcelona would make for a good championship.

 

[anim8r_uk]

@prisonermonkeys might have to get online and race you in that championship

Sounds good to me...

 

[mister dog]

Is it just me, or is the BMW 320i Cat-B Touring Car really difficult to drive?

I can't figure out what the problem is. I think it's rear-wheel drive, but I can't tell because I was playing around with the traction control before I drove it. With TC on, it's horrendously slow, but take it off and you spin the moment you're pointing at the slightest of angles. I'm sure there's a way to set the car up, but since it's Cusco Racing, the set-up options are limited to 0/50/100.

I'm driving that Cusco beemer right now, try my settings:

Diff +1
Front suspension +1
Wings -1

And if it still wants to spin i would do a -1 on the Rear springs.
For me it's perfectly drivable with all aids off except ABS.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

@prisonermonkeys might have to get online and race you in that championship

I'm afraid you might be waiting for a while - I don't have an internet connection (yet). I post on the forums from my phone.

I'm driving that Cusco beemer right now, try my settings:

Diff +1
Front suspension +1
Wings -1

And if it still wants to spin i would do a -1 on the Rear springs.
For me it's perfectly drivable with all aids off except ABS.

Thanks for the tip. I've never been great at setting cars up. GT lost a lot of its appeal when I could win just about anything with stock settings.

As for the numbers you cited, I assume you mean +50 and -50? The team has a limited ability to set the car up, so my only options are 0, 50 and 100.

 

[mister dog]

Thanks for the tip. I've never been great at setting cars up. GT lost a lot of its appeal when I could win just about anything with stock settings.

As for the numbers you cited, I assume you mean +50 and -50? The team has a limited ability to set the car up, so my only options are 0, 50 and 100.

That's why GAS would be a perfect start for you; only the main tuning settings (that have the biggest effect IMO) are presented

Yep +50 and -50 = +1 and -1

 

[TokoTurismo]

I'd like for you to listen to me when I tell you, you won't regret spending your money on this one. Right now, I'm really enjoying this game, along with the club I made and occasionally race online with. It, and you, are awesome. While GRID 2 is, to me, the worst CM racing game I've ever played (being specific here), this is the opposite. It does take itself seriously, but not by much. Yet simultaneously, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

If I had to assign GRID Autosport a rating, it'd be 8.5/10. If I assigned that rating in relation to GRID 2, it'd be a 10/10!

I'm going to call it like I see it, not like it is: everything has improved since last year's outing.

I'm probably going to unlock the GRID Masters Trophy soon, and I'm just replaying through some of the events I've already completed as a Ravenwest teammate, in my attempts to get my Endurance and Street levels up to 6 atm.

TIP: After you complete a season, if you finish 1st in an event, you can replay that event with an offer from Ravenwest, if you've the necessary skills to take it. There is a benefit; you can fine tune their cars more so than the other teams will let you, in increments of 10. And the cars have all of their upgrades installed, which I guess is a plus.

I guess I should mention, I did the GRID Grand Slam as Arron Westley's Ravenwest teammate and we just killed it. Monster Energy Racing's Ryan Thompson Jr., who finished 3rd overall, might give us an even bigger run for our top dollar in the Masters Trophy, and maybe in the Legends Series as well.

So, yeah. I'm really liking it.

I had a great read from your post Nick! :tup: After reading the whole thing, I feel even more excited about this game, and will want to join Ravenwest (my favorite team from GRID 1). The events even sound exciting to play over and over again as well. I'm just dying to do the reverse tracks.

 

[greggypoos]

I had a great read from your post Nick! :tup: After reading the whole thing, I feel even more excited about this game, and will want to join Ravenwest (my favorite team from GRID 1). The events even sound exciting to play over and over again as well. I'm just dying to do the reverse tracks.

I don't care what anyone says: Mount Panorama reversed is great!

 

[mister dog]

I don't care what anyone says: Mount Panorama reversed is great!

Tried it for a while yesterday and must say it is

 

[prisonermonkeys]

That's why GAS would be a perfect start for you; only the main tuning settings (that have the biggest effect IMO) are presented

Yep +50 and -50 = +1 and -1

Well, it's working. It's not much fun, but considerably better than before. I no longer have to feather the throttle, but I still have to re-learn the circuits. Another sixty laps of Mont-Tremblant South, and I still haven't nailed the first corner complex yet. I'm having to brake late and chuck it in sideways and hope I don't understeer off. I always felt way more in control of the Focus - I'm two seconds a lap quicker in it; give me time and I reckon I could break into the 0:43s with it - but it's still better than the Cruze, which just feels big and wallowing to me.

 

[Awong124]

I'm driving that Cusco beemer right now, try my settings:

Diff +1
Front suspension +1
Wings -1

And if it still wants to spin i would do a -1 on the Rear springs.
For me it's perfectly drivable with all aids off except ABS.

Diff +1? That would make the car want to spin even more. Locking the diff makes it more stable.

I had a great read from your post Nick! :tup: After reading the whole thing, I feel even more excited about this game, and will want to join Ravenwest (my favorite team from GRID 1). The events even sound exciting to play over and over again as well. I'm just dying to do the reverse tracks.

I don't think I'll sign for Ravenwest. I prefer beating them

I don't care what anyone says: Mount Panorama reversed is great!

I have to admit that that particular track isn't bad reversed.

Well, it's working. It's not much fun, but considerably better than before. I no longer have to feather the throttle, but I still have to re-learn the circuits. Another sixty laps of Mont-Tremblant South, and I still haven't nailed the first corner complex yet. I'm having to brake late and chuck it in sideways and hope I don't understeer off. I always felt way more in control of the Focus - I'm two seconds a lap quicker in it; give me time and I reckon I could break into the 0:43s with it - but it's still better than the Cruze, which just feels big and wallowing to me.

I'm a Ford guy, so I'll probably sign for Kicker in Cat C if I get the chance. But I already beat Ravenwest with Razer.

 

[Rotorist]

3-5 laps per race and 8 minute endurance races are the base race distances. You can set them up to 5x that amount if you want. But no, there are no pit stops.

Open wheel feels more like the F1 games with none of the floatiness. Why can't they do that with the regular cars?

On normal cars suspension an tires are softer than in Formulas. So, floatiness is simple logic.

 

[Awong124]

On normal cars suspension an tires are softer than in Formulas. So, floatiness is simple logic.

It's an unnatural sense of floatiness that doesn't feel like part of the car but more with the controls. Driving a real road car doesn't feel like that, much less a race prepped touring car.

 

[Speedster911]

Oh well.. the game never claimed to be a sim anyway.

Keep at it, you might extract a lot of fun out of it.

 

[doblocruiser]

Update on impressions:

I am still in the Touring discipline and the race with the Utes on Autosport Raceway is an absolute joy. I have to give a big + for the track design. It's lovely to drive and a great challenge. I think it's becomming one of my favorite tracks.

The AI in the touring car discipline is a blast. It's never boring on the track and even if I don't use the qualifying a lot I always end up around 8 to 12th place the first race and the second race it's a steady top 4. I like the idea how the career works but I miss to be able to race for my own team. Within career you choose all the time between the same teams and I have no bond with any of them. I get the offers but with the structure of choosing the teams there is no "Yes I am part of this great team" feeling. It would have been nice if there would have been a team garage, mechanics etc etc as part of CGI or in the form of a menu like structure.

Today I took within custom cup the Peugeot 408 and I ran it round Paris against the clock. Awesome. Great track and the car with that sound is just awesome. It has to be my favorite car in the game. Second come the Group C tourers. The Classic Tourers I drove online a couple of times. I don't like them at all. The handling feels less refined than the C, B and A group. Overall the handling is great but I would like to see it goes a bit more to the simulation side. Would like to have a bit more feedback and a less sudden dropoff while cornering. If you put on onboard lap of the BTCC next to an onboard lap in GRID you get the point.

Setups and upgrades can be dropped for me. We are talking about an on track racing experience, my mechanics set the car up for me. If you would like to have tuning maybe it could gather the data from the lap you have driven and the mechanics suggest setup changes in a kind of in garage sequence. I am not the kind of guy who wants to fiddle with sliders a lot (had my fun in GT with that).

The cockpitviews: I like and I don't like. The view without the wheel is very enjoyable. The view with the wheel I find almost useless. It's almost like the cockpit of the standard cars in GT6. I would have liked this would have been less blurred and more detailed. The incar sound however is ACE! You can hear all the noises and it makes the experience inside even more immersive.

I like to use the chasecam in timetrial runs and unfortunately the chasecams in Autosport are practically unusable. The view is too low and you just can't see infront of the car properly which makes aiming for apexes difficult. Let alone during a race with opponents. Chasecam needs a fix. The camera needs to be raised a bit to make it useable. I love the chasecam and I tried to get the hang of it but the view is just to unpractical.

During the races I had in the career there as an AI driver which I liked a lot. To bad I forgot his name for the moment but it's an AI which is mostly in the middle of the pack and every time this buddy puts up a lovely battle. That McKane dude is just rude

I haven't tried the other disciplines in career mode so I can't talk about that. Online I drove street and touring. Within street I like to lower end cars. They are great for close door to door racing. The faster cars I skip, just not my cup of tea to blast with a Mclaren or Koenig??? on the circuits.

One thing I truely miss are pitstops. If my steering is banged up by the AI I would like to be able to fix that. Same for punctures and that kind of stuff.

The menu's I like. Simple, fast and easy to navigate. A few unwanted extra clicks (track selection for example) but for the rest great!

Effects like smoke, dust and lightening are just awesome. If the AI is battling, you just see the sparks flying and dust kicking up. The one who did these effects needs a raise

I think GRID Autosport is a great game and it goes back to an old sentence used by Codies: Genius at Play! Even with the small issues I have with the game I am having a great time. It is just so much fun to spend time in GAS. It's one of those games that can be called a " Must Have " if you are a racing fan.

I give GRID Autosport an 8.5 / 10. A great comeback and a big step in the right direction. I think you have won many fans back with this one! Great work 👍

Now go and get that BTCC license and focus on some proper touringcar racing!

 

[anim8r_uk]

Effects like smoke, dust lightening effects are just awesome. If the AI is battling you just see the sparks flying and dust kicking up. The one who did these effects needs a raise

Hahaha! Sir....you are too kind. Thank you.

Great review.....really liked reading that (not just the FX bit )

 

[PepeMickey]

So how is this game compared to the first Grid and Dirt 3 in terms of physics? Are the open wheelers closer to the F1 series or a bit more floaty.

BTW I never played Grid 2.

 

[Furinkazen]

@doblocruiser great review, but one thing...

Now go and get that BTCC license and focus on some proper touringcar racing!

@anim8r_uk . Now. Please

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The open-wheel cars all have their own individual feeling. Yes, they can be floaty, but you can tweak the set-up to make them feel a bit more grounded.

The rest of the cars feel like DIRT 3, only heavier and requiring a lot more in the way of throttle management. If it were like DIRT 3, you would be able to throw the car headlong into Paddock Hill Bend and power-slide out. You can't do that here.

 

[Awong124]

So how is this game compared to the first Grid and Dirt 3 in terms of physics? Are the open wheelers closer to the F1 series or a bit more floaty.

BTW I never played Grid 2.

It's a lot tighter than GRID 1. The touring cars feel a little floaty for some reason, but the open wheel cars aren't floaty at all.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The rest of the cars feel like DIRT 3, only heavier and requiring a lot more in the way of throttle management. If it were like DIRT 3, you would be able to throw the car headlong into Paddock Hill Bend and power-slide out. You can't do that here.

I think it might be more accurate to say that you can powerslide almost as much as you want, but it's not as fast as being smooth and within the grip limits of the car. When you slide the car bogs down a bit and you lose time and least in the cars I've driven so far, which isn't a lot. I like that you can kick the tail out when you have to to correct your own miscue and it only costs you a few tenths, but you don't completely throw it into the gravel and cost yourself seconds.

 

[We Are Alfisti]

I have the game since Friday and I absolutely love it!!

The design of the game is great, the menus look really nice. I really liked the intro, before the first race at Hockenheimring, where "you" open the door and get into the garage and then into the car, and you get to see what the spectator sees.

The cars look good (on the PS3, on PC they look awesome), and the circuits and locations also look very good. I love the little details like the planes and helicopters, also the sparks, smoke, dirt, etc. The sounds also are great, really gives the sense of inmersion.

So far I played the two first Touring seasons, the first Street season, and i started the first Endurance season. The AI is excelent, they make mistakes, defend their position, some times they even change their line to block you, I've never seen that in a racing game. CM did a really good job.

As many of you said, the physics are somewhere between GT6 and NFS Shift 2. I've been playing ToCA Race Driver 3 on my PS2 for the past few days and -for me- the handling in ToCA is more "realistic", in GAS the cars feel light, you don't really know or feel what the wheels are really doing. But once you get used to that and you get used to the way the car feels, the game is really enjoyable.

Of course I like the game, but there are some things that really bother me, for example: The fact that there are no pitstops, I mean CM adds this team mate feature to manage a race and have a strategy but doesn't include pitstops, pitstops are also part of the strategy of a team. It would also be nice to include yellow, blue and black flags (like in ToCA), and also a pace car, so when there's an accident the cars make one or two laps with the pace car. The two cockpit views have a good field of vision, the one without the steering wheel is good, the other one is also quite good but the blur spoils it, I don't care about the blur on the dashboard (ok, I do care but it doesn't bother me that much) the problem is with the blured mirrors, whats the point of that?

The selection of cars is good, but it would be nice if you could add BTCC cars from the 90's (Alfa Romeo 155; BMW 3 series (e36); Volvo 850; Renault Laguna; Ford Mondeo; Vectra, Audi A4, etc) and their street versions. Anyways it's just an idea/dream

I think the game deserves a 9.0/10, it's a really good game, of course it has it's things here and there but they are not that important, so if you will skip this game just because it doesn't have pitstops or a nice cockpit view, you are really missing a great racing game. Congrats CM.

PS: @anim8r_uk In the video "The Alfa Romeos in Grid Autosport" (or something like that) you can see a 4C and a Giulietta QV. I found the 4C but where's the Giulietta? Is it a DLC?

PS II: English is not my mother tongue, so sorry if I make mistakes

 

[TokoTurismo]

I finally got the game in my hands, and I must say, it is a blast! Before I did career mode, I've been practicing for a bit to learn the controls, and it feels really good. Handling of the cars is what really caught my eye, they felt great to drive! Reverses on tracks (especially ones I know from other games) is both hilarious and fun, something that other games, I'm looking at you GT, should try out for once. I can't wait to do more events in career mode (as I finished one event from Streets but not the whole thing yet). Really I never thought I'll have this much fun in a loooong time, CM did a very good job on this game.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the music in the game is FANTASTIC, I need them and I need them NOW! 👍 Cheers

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Is it just me, or is the AI on the Red Bull Ring (Reverse) unusually aggressive?

 

[doblocruiser]

Btw: the ladies who did the ingame voices are superb. They are very nice to listen to

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Ladies? Isn't there only one? Or can you have a female race engineer, the way you could have a female co-driver in DIRT 3?