Grid Preview
Codies brushes off the DiRT and hits the road.
by Ryan Geddes
March 3, 2008 - Continuing a trend that started with its 2007 release of DiRT, Codemasters' next racing effort shies away from both strict simulation and broad customization, a direction that places the emphasis on what the company feels the genre has been lacking of late: having fun with race cars.
We recently sat down with Codies to view a demo of Grid, the latest project in the works by the same team that developed DiRT. Although they don't name names, part of the Codies' marketing pitch for Grid includes a shot across the grill of the developers of Forza Motorsport 2 and Grand Turismo 5. The former, which owned the hardcore racing space in 2007, is a car collection fest with a deep livery creation system. The latter, due in 2008, is being touted as the king of all racing sims, appealing to die-hard digital gearheads.
Grid is being positioned on a different band of the racing spectrum. It's hardcore, but it's not an uptight sim. It has personalization, but not so much that it detracts from the core racing elements. There are cars galore, but you're not trying to catch 'em all. It's an attempt to both differentiate the brand as authentic and broaden its appeal to multiple markets.
Codemasters describes Grid as a racing game in which you build a career in what's supposed to feel like a persistent worldwide racing realm. You start off as a rookie drive for hire in America, Europe or Japan. As you win races, you'll be able to hire a teammate, create your own unique team identity and build up a small but focused stable of cars. Along the way, you'll attract sponsors and get to know the names of some of the more than 600 AI racers in the game, all of whom you'll have the ability to hire, fire and race against.
According to the Codemasters team, building your career in Grid is a non-linear experience. You can start in any region you want and build your reputation and bank account as you progress. At the beginning, you'll work out of a dingy garage. But by the time you've hired a teammate (you can only have one) and racked up sponsorships, your digs will improve to match your status in the industry.
But you won't be using your garage for much more than storage. If you're the type who loves to constantly spend your winnings on car upgrades a la Forza and Midnight Club, you'll be disappointed with Grid. The cars you buy are meant to be tuned and groomed to be the best-performing race cars at their level the minute they're delivered. You're a driver, not a mechanic. Aside from changing the paint job, what you see is what you get in Grid's stable of 50 cars.
But that doesn't mean you'll be stuck with stock cars. This ain't NASCAR, after all. We're talking the Aston Martin DBR9, Dodge Viper SRT-10, Mazda 787B and Audi R10 TDI -- the first diesel car ever to win the 24-hour Le Mans. You'll have the opportunity to attempt an Audi repeat, as Grid features a Le Mans race in which a minute represents an hour, resulting in a 24-minute-long race.
Each of Grid's three regions features different racing specialties. In Europe, you'll compete in events such as Le Mans and GT on both fictional and licensed tracks. In the US, you'll visit cities like Detroit and Long Beach for street races. In Japan, you'll get behind the wheel of iconic Japanese sports cars for drift racing.
As you race against AI opponents in all three regions, you'll start seeing familiar names. The idea, Codies says, is to take note of who's out-racing you and whose style complements your own. Then hire them on to gain an edge in a certain racing style. If drift isn't your best category, sign on a drift master to race with you, increasing your odds of winning. There's a "perpetual calendar" of races, too. So if you're having trouble in GT in France, head over to the US and run your Dodge for a bit.
There is a multiplayer component in Grid, but Codemasters isn't saying much about it yet. We were told it will support up to 12 racers online with very few restrictions on cars and tracks. We also know that the campaign mode is offline-only, and there's no co-op available there. A friend can't pop in as your teammate to help you finish a race, for example.
Grid uses Codemasters' own Ego engine, a step up from the Neon engine used to push DiRT. Codies says it has entirely re-written the damage code used in DiRT, too, making for persistent damage environments. If a fender falls off your Mitsubishi in lap one, you'll pass by in lap three. The same goes for piles of tires, chunks of debris and even competing cars.
If you choose the interior camera view as you race, you'll see it take damage too. At least you will if you race like we do. Nothing about the car damage is scripted, Codemasters told us, which should make for some interesting-looking cars at the end of an especially brutal Le Mans.
If you like to see things get smashed, you'll be happy to hear Codies is including a sophisticated replay system into Grid that will not only allow you to view your races afterward but will also let you rewind mid-race and pick up where you left off if you make an error. Apparently using the replay system in such a way comes with penalties though, such as possibly locking you out of achievements or preventing you from posting to leaderboards.
What we were shown of Grid looked sharp, although we didn't get a feel for what it would be like to progress through a career. We didn't see the car buying process, the race selection process or the teammate hiring process. We also didn't see a race start-to-finish, which made it hard to get a feel for Grid's overall attitude. But menus were well-designed, and the cars looked nice.
Of course, a racing game is impossible to assess until you get behind the wheel, something we still haven't done with Grid. But Codies seems to be hitting the sweet spot that lurks somewhere between Forza 2's bland environments and collection-based mechanic; Burnout Paradise's over-the-top antics; PGR4's drift-centrism; and the looming shadow of GT5's photorealism fest.
Grid is scheduled for a simultaneous June release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Nintendo DS.
