Grid Preview

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.