Everyone on the starting grid.
Version tested: XBOX One.
With over 30 years of history behind it, Codemasters is undoubtedly one of the longest running developers and the best known in the field of racing games. Although he has also made titles of different genres, the actual success in racing games begins in 1997 with the TOCA Touring Car Championship, closely followed by the much loved Colin McRae Rally. The two successful series have allowed the company to carve out a privileged position in the videogame scene, reaching important milestones over time, including the acquisition of licenses, in 2009, to develop annual titles dedicated to the Formula One championship.
In 2008, Codemasters uses the experience gained with racing simulations to create Race Driver: Grid, a game with a more arcade flavor in which to indulge more with ideas and that could meet a wider audience. The result was appreciated by critics and audiences, convincing the company to continue the series by publishing two more chapters within six years.
After five years from the last title, the British company has decided to revive the brand with GRID, as simple in name as in the proposed formula. We had the opportunity to test it on XBOX One S and now we are ready to give you our impressions.
Towards the Olympus of pilots.
The new GRID it detaches itself from everything that defines a driving simulator, closing all the “wasted time” in the dashboard in favor of an immediate and no-frills pace of play. The goal is simple: climb the rankings by collecting victories to become the undisputed champions of the prestigious GRID World Series. Codemasters' intentions are clear from the very first start, catapulting us directly onto the track as if to say "Press down on the accelerator and aim for victory, no matter which way".
The game makes available three modes: Free Play, Multiplayer and Career. Typically, the former allows you to satisfy your thirst for speed in classic no-obligation races, before which you can work out a handful of options.
Online multiplayer is divided into private matches or quick matches against other players, who can also take part in unique seasonal challenges by logging in with a RaceNet account. Unfortunately, split-screen multiplayer has not been implemented, so nostalgics of the old days will be left with a dry mouth and will not be able to schedule head-to-head evenings with friends.
The centerpiece of GRID is the Career mode, essential in the structure but capable of entertaining and offering a good degree of challenge. In order to enter the GRID World Series tournament, we will first need to prove our driving skills in six different leagues hosting hundreds of events based on different car classes. The races take place both on real circuits such as Silverstone and Brands Hatch and on tracks created ad hoc by the developer that intersect the streets of some of the most famous cities in the world. Although they have little more than a dozen locations, the different configurations in which the tracks are repeated manage to offer a fair amount of variety.
As we said, the game lends itself to a purely "hit and run" style, minimizing all the elements that do not blend well with a markedly arcade gameplay. The only hints to the simulative are in the limited optional tuning of the car and in the mechanical damage, these obviously present if you play at the highest difficulty or if you enable them from the options. The rest is totally focused on a very permissive and undemanding driving model, even if in some ways too unnatural. During our races, in fact, we had a continuous perception of "lightness" in the maneuverability of the cars and the same, ending up against a wall, tend to "bounce" rather than suffer heavily from the force of the impact.
Il GRID's car fleet has over seventy vehicles of various real brands (Subaru, Audi, Ferrari and many others) and divided into different categories, ranging from the most 
modified classics, passing through sports cars up to NASCAR. By virtue of the speed of the game formula, however, Codemasters has excessively neglected an element that instead would have benefited the production: the personalization of the cars. About that, you can only change the colors of the dozens of predefined liveries, which can be unlocked by completing the race objectives and leveling up; artists who hoped to give life to unique designs and eventually share them with the community, therefore, will have to be satisfied. To give the coup de grace then theabsence of an engine enhancement system, forcing players to frequently buy new cars to become increasingly competitive and sell outdated ones to recover extra credits.
Another customizable element, albeit always to a minimum, is the player card. This shows our name and number in the race and we can change the background of the title, the background of the profile and show off up to three badges relating to the objectives achieved.
What intrigued us, however, is the interesting management system of our team. Both us and our opponents will have a partner just like in real teams, who will contribute to the positioning in the ranking of the best teams in each event. Hence the importance of choosing the most suitable drivers before tackling the various championships: each, in fact, is specialized in a specific car class and has more or less developed statistics such as fidelity, dexterity, attack and defense. It goes without saying that exchanging them frequently, paying the required contract fee each time, is very useful in order to obtain better results.
The driver's parameters will influence his behavior on the track and the way he reacts to our orders. Through four options that can be selected with the directional arrows, we can ask him to increase or maintain the pace or get information from the technicians about his position and that of our rival in the race.
Obviously, we will also be able to favor our partner in a more concrete way by hindering the opponents or even hitting them to get them off the track. GRID it does not provide for punishments for such actions but introduces the nemesis system: by carrying out unorthodox maneuvers towards other pilots, they will enter a "state of anger" that will lead them to adopt a more aggressive driving in response to our misconduct. This new feature is undoubtedly intriguing, but on balance it does not revolutionize artificial intelligence in a marked way, giving it a more "human" tone. At the highest difficulties, however, we will have a hard time gaining a step on the podium.
It's time for the service.
GRID is moved byEGO Engine 4.0, the proprietary engine of Codemasters, which manages to offer an overall pleasant graphic rendering both in the cars and in the settings, maintaining a stable 30 frames per second on XBOX One S. However, not infrequently we have encountered several problems, such as the headlights front “mixed” and without texture for the entire race or the car that floats a few centimeters from the ground instead of having the tires anchored to the asphalt.
Even the audio sector does not shine particularly, not so much for the roar of the cars, as for the range of sound effects. During the events we didn't hear any accompanying music and the presence of sounds in general is quite poor, including a couple of Spanish voice overs commenting on some situations.
All this gave us a sense of hasty basting from a technical point of view, as if the developer had wanted to churn out a new chapter simply to "resurrect" the series rather than for real interest in innovation.
Final comment
GRID marks the return of the series five years after its predecessor, offering a simple, immediate game formula with a massive arcade mold. The collaboration of Fernando Alonso with Codemasters, however, does not seem to have brought the great results hoped for. The innovations introduced turn out to be interesting and pleasant but, unfortunately, not adequately developed, proving that this chapter does not aim to renew the gameplay but to be, more than anything else, a new racing game that lovers of the genre will appreciate within the limits of what it has to offer.
- - Interesting stable management system
- - Arcade driving model for everyone
- - Fast-paced and immediate gameplay
- - The nemesis system has not been adequately developed
- - Lacking from a technical point of view
- - Minimized car customization
