Review: Race Driver: GRID

Publisher: Codemasters

Developer: Codemasters

Formats: Xbox 360, PC, DS, PS3

Release Date: May 2008

The last two years have seen a proliferation of high profile racers screaming their way onto the 360 after the consoles rather quality free first year. Running a gamut between open world arcade and realistic simulator, petrolheads have been suitably compensated for the initial mediocre offerings.
GRID, none too surprisingly, is the monosyllabic big brother of Codies’ 2007 DIRT and the spiritual successor to the previous generation’s TOCA Race Driver series. All of which gives an inkling to the class held within the rather more polished confines of their new product.
With the TOCA moniker and license dropped, GRID has grown up from the story based racers we saw on the original XBOX into a frenetic driving game that straddles the unforgiving sim of Forza and the overtly arcadey PGR4. With the drunk Scotsman, er… Scotty, a foul-breathed memory of TOCA’s past, newcomers will find themselves guided by a disembodied, sultry voiced business manager and a race manager who is more than happy to throw you in at the deep end. Your career begins in San Francisco, your driving a Dodge Viper and before you know it you’re competing to earn your rookie license. Finishing this one lap, one chance race will give you a feel for the chaotic race day action as well as provide a pre-text for the heart of the one player game, the Grid World career. Here the aim is too work up from your meager beginnings and build into a world beating team. To do this you will have to race for other teams to gain money and reputation, subsequently you will receive new licenses which open up more events. You will eventually be able to create your own team with a teammate, customize your cars with a limited set of decals and earn sponsorship deals to splash over your various motors. It’s no FORZA, but it gives the player a certain level of in game personality.
Unlike it’s predecessor, GRID is considerably more about the race. It isn’t here to weave a story of rookie come world beater and subsequently GRID has become a more focused affair. Heck once you get racing, the career merely becomes the excuse not the aim and you will quickly forget to care how well your team is doing as the season’s role by.
Like in TOCA, your GRID career will see you span the globe; however where the two differ is in application. GRID is set out across three regions, the US, Europe and Japan. Each region has a distinct racing ethos, in the US you will find a propensity for big muscle cars and tight street circuits, Europe is tied to more traditionalist track day pursuits and Japan sees a tendency towards Drift racing and touge, a kind of two part hill-climb-come-rally event. Each region has its own sets of cars suited to the style of event and the game runs the spectrum from back heavy drift cars, juggernaut steering Muscle cars and nippy aerodynamic formula three’s and Le Mans GT’s.
With such a vast difference in steering models you would expect GRID to struggle, especially after the somewhat washy handling experience in DIRT. However Codemasters have come out all guns blazing, cars handle as they should with the various styles being well catered throughout the range. This was probably helped by limiting the game too just 43 playable vehicles and stripping out the kind of pre-race tweaking seen in FORZA Motorsport, subsequently, with so few cars in the roster, many events will run with just a single car option and whilst this may disappoint some its clearly where Codemasters had to cut the corner. Nevertheless what GRID lacks in car selection, it more than makes up for with the considerable diversity in events. One minute you can be competing in a Le Mans race with a car that feels like it has been glued to the track, next you are skating about in a dustbowl in a banged up American sedan trying to complete a demolition derby.
Whilst the handling lacks the rigidity of FORZA, it has developed to become the primary element distinguishing the regions in GRID. The sheer difference in the various handling models is where some of the initial dizzying challenge comes from as you work your way up from a rookie and learn to become a master tamer of track and the car. You will certainly find yourself going cross-country in the early hours of your career, but the learning curve is mercifully short and sharp and there is a certain sense of achievement on earning your first back to back wins when the first race was a Tokyo drift and your next was a race prept’ touring car event.
One thing that did not need any improvement from DIRT was the graphics, with sumptuous bloom lighting and crafted motion blur, DIRT managed to make mud look interesting and this very same graphics engine has been carried through to GRID and renamed “Ego.” Subsequently handling the more diverse vistas from the cluttered surrounds of the San Francisco streets, to the sparseness of Spa Francochamps and the drizzly neon drifting streets of Japan and the Tokyo docklands, Codemasters know how to make a pretty racing game whilst having the time to throw in real time shadows and reflections. In fact, if you have the time, or find yourself parked in pieces under a tree, you will notice the developers have gone to the extent to craft a lighting system that glows through the gaps in trees. These little touches set the bar at a new height for attention to detail in a racing game where you will often find yourself staring at the tarmac and missing the blurred beauty passing you by.
Subsequently it could be argued that the greater care had been implemented in the surroundings and the oh-so smooth menus adopted from DIRT. Whilst the car models are effective and maintain the standards set by other top end racing titles, GRID’s cars never quite reach the purist come swat sheik of FORZA, but then again that is not what the graphics engine was primarily concerned with here. Instead, Codies’ TOCA series was always noted for its damage modeling and GRID is no different. Harnessing the power of the 360, Codemasters driving epic now has the definitive model for driving mishaps. From minute paint scratches borne out of panel rubbing racing to full blown wheels and engine block meets windscreen disasters, GRID knows how to make a replay look especially spectacular for people who enjoy watching car crashes and let’s face it, that’s most of us.
What does differ from real world calamities is the new flashback model GRID has inserted into its racing world. Where traditionally throwing your car into a brick wall is not the prescription for racing success, those displeased with their wheels making tracks 100 feet away from their chassis can now rewind time, up to 10 seconds, and have another shot at not cocking up. Kind of like Timeshift meets PGR, the physics defying feature staves of the need for time consuming race restarting and allows the career to flow without feeling like you have cheated yourself, much.
Pealing away the veneer and the variety, when it comes down to racing GRID provides one of the best balls out experiences without ever feeling like it is camping in the arcade or simulation corners. Instead the racing is chaotic and full blooded but also tempered and balanced. This is aided by an exceptional and schizophrenic AI. One moment placid, the next outright brutal, the AI racers in GRID never feel like they are running on rails but do feel like they are sufferers of a multiple personality disorder. Despite the occasional propensity to catch up suddenly as if to enforce excitement, the computer drivers will block, nudge and spin off in their desperation to beat you and everyone else and it all sums up to grandstand the single player experience.
Said experience is particularly enhanced when the volume is turned up. Where one could be critical of the effort put in to the car modeling, the various audio components help communicate the extreme differences in racing types. You know when you’re in a V8 muscle car in comparison to a whiny single-seater and the general cacophony that surrounds the race events from panel bashings and crowds is well realized and helps thicken up a race game already munching down on its Beefcake 4000.
Bottom-line, GRID more than holds its own amongst the 360’s most stellar racing titles. It doesn’t do this by providing an accurate racing experience or throwing turbo boosts and power ups on every corner. It does it by nailing the thrill of racing and the heart pounding difficulty of beating a thoughtful AI whilst throwing an accessible experience into the mix. And that isn’t GRID’s only selling point. To this day, no other next-gen racer has offered the level of variety in race events that GRID does, it pushes you to know how to win in every event and from extensive playtime I can say that takes an awful long time on Extreme difficulty. But push you will, not just because you want the achievement, but because GRID manages to remain a compelling race experience long after you have opened up your global license. Sure you may have played through all 43 vehicles within a weekend, but GRID doesn’t sell itself as an eye spy book for cars, it’s the variety held within the limited permutations and the consistently accurate handling that wins the day and takes the chequered flag.
Best racer on the 360, meh, it’s a matter of taste but it certainly sits amongst them and it is certainly the best presented.
8/10
A standalone racer that offers a little bit of something everybody will like and it will do it with precision and beauty. It maybe light in cars and tracks but it more than makes up for it with captivating and exciting racing.

Feature: Microsoft Play it Hardcore

It could be said that the hardware wars as recently as the last generation was a marketing battleground drawn upon, primarily, the hardcore gamer. As a definition it’s difficult to encapsulate exactly what a hardcore gamer is, but it’s something the general public is not. Commonly speaking, a hardcore gamer is somebody who identifies gaming as a culture and possesses a competitive attitude to gaming as well as a working knowledge of the industry itself. Traditionally the people for whom triple A titles were built, the hardcore gamer was the consumer who powered the old school sub cultural media. What Nintendo have done with their recent design and promotion structure is subverted the traditional hardcore market and demonstrated that there is another, previously unseen consumer who will buy products dubbed “family,” “educational” and “casual.” Furthermore, Nintendo have shown that this new market, with its bewildering demographic, is a very big and very profitable one.
With the DS and Wii streaking ahead in sales in both portable and home console markets, those that had dubbed the Wii and its remote as short termed gimmickry are being forced to eat humble pie. Said analysts are now going as far as to say that this generation is now the Wii and a battle between Playstation and the Xbox as units of cookery and brain training “games” fly off the shelves.
For Microsoft, the trend has become a particular concern. In June 2007 the Xbox 360 owned 45.9% of the three-horse market share in home console sales. Come June 2008 Microsoft had shifted a further 8.7 million units worldwide, however the PS3 had sold to the tune of 9.4 million and the Wii a staggering 18.4 million. What this resulted in was a considerable drop to 32.2% of the market, being pushed into a distant second place against the Wii, with the Blu-Ray playing PS3 making considerable gains.
Naturally this was to be expected, the Xbox had a substantial head start on the other two consoles and this was in partial effect come June 2007. About this time the Xbox’s mechanical problems were coming to light and being splashed about every corner of the media as a host of new, younger gamers began snapping up Wii’s and PS3’s made all the more attractive by significant price cuts. Worse was to follow when Toshiba announced it had dropped its support for the HD-DVD format, rendering the XBOX’s already overpriced and external HD-DVD drive all but obsolete.
This made for bleak reading for Microsoft and with the announcements at the Nordic Game Conference that a variety of continental European retailers were considering delisting the big white box, 2008 was turning out to be a bad year. The reasoning given for the seeming disinterest in Microsoft’s machine outside of the US, Australasia and the UK was that the console was unable to loose its “urban, irreverent adult male feel,” and this sentiment seems to be at the root of Microsoft’s problem. Mainland Europe, particularly France, Portugal and Spain is a casual gaming base. With Microsoft stocking up a software catalogue based solely upon hardcore genres and a multiplayer ethos that is ferociously competitive, the Xbox is beginning to loose traction on its opponents with a last generation attitude to casual gaming trends.
Having seen their efforts to wean casual gamers away from the Nintendo market dubbed “disastrous” by a panel speaking at the Nordic Games conference in May, it was less than surprising to see a raft of new “casual” applications in the developmental pipeline when Microsoft presented at E3 in July.
Nevertheless, Microsoft’s presentation seemed nothing more than begrudging lip-service to an industry it appears to understand less and less. Banding around words like “Family” and “casual,” Microsoft’s promotional push into the bounds of Nintendo’s market appeared lazy and unimaginative, almost depressing to the average onlooker.
Sure Microsoft is pushing its timed exclusive Rock Band with an advertising campaign showing it as a family or friends party game, but with the cost of its peripherals alone totaling more than your average Nintendo DS, Rock Band is unlikely to pull in many undecided gamers. So what of Microsoft’s new wares? Well rumors abound that Xbox Live could be enlightened with digital personas, currently dubbed “Avatars.” Looking ever so slightly like the Wii Mii’s, the new avatars will be available to all Xbox Live members in the place of the frankly more sophisticated gamerpics and are a keen indication of Microsoft trying to pull in pre-teen gamers. Furthermore, online videos have begun demonstrating Microsoft’s new avatar system in what appears to be a dumbed down version of Sony’s as yet unrealized Home system. Coupled with “Lips” a game that will basically be Singstar for the 360 and a Wiimote style motion control peripheral currently being developed by Motus Games and the term “disastrous” could quickly be joined by the term “Copyright Infringement.”
At the end of the day Microsoft know they have to make some inroads into new gaming trends. To ignore what Nintendo have achieved would be corporate suicide and with the installed brand loyalty Playstation achieved with the PS2 and with a new market hungry for a cheap Blu Ray player’s Microsoft have to act fast to secure their position within the hardware market, simple imitation will do nothing but destabilize itself further.
Additionally, Microsoft are a company being increasingly crippled by its hardcore demographic. Now finding itself at a nexus in new gaming ethics, Microsoft could take the casual gaming route at the risk of alienating its already installed user base, or it could continue to concentrate on hardcore gaming genres in the hope that it can siphon off those with nostalgia for old school gaming fashions. However such a summary would be ignorant to the tremendous amounts of money Microsoft and its third party publishers have to throw at next generation blockbusters. Without the support of some casual gamers, often willing to spend on cheap thrills, continued output of triple a games will be limited as evidenced by the considerably more anemic release roster of 2008.
Painful rebellions from Microsoft loyal users aside, the 360 is in desperate need of some innovative tactics to influence front room gamers as a knock on to funding its hardcore gaming ambitions. Sony has realized this with a diverse software catalogue. Admittedly light on console exclusives, those it holds run a complete spectrum of gaming wants coupled with the ability to play next generation movies. Seemingly incapable of learning from successful models, Microsoft has decided to boost their long term casual push with knee jerk and predictable supplements. Touting an upcoming price reduction on its machines and toying with another external drive, this time for Blu-Ray, Microsoft are treading a much worn path at a time of year when hardware manufacturers expect sales slumps.
It’s clear then that Microsoft has one ham-fisted eye on gaming’s big new profit margin without a real grasp on what kind of software it needs to support its bluster. Still those “fanboys” loyal to Xbox will probably relish in the companies decided ineptitude in hauling in new younger players and families, after all the majority of Xbox gamers are traditionalists more than happy to see their chosen brand plow its particular gaming furrow. Only time will tell if Microsoft can turn it round, in reality both Sony and Microsoft seem resigned to losing this generation and for the hardcore gamer this can only be of concern for the future of gaming and the next-next generation.

E3 Preview: Borderlands

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Gearbox Software

Formats: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC

Release Date: Q1/Q2 2009

Borderlands is a game that quickly shot to the forefront of everybody’s conscience when it was announced at the Leipzig games convention in August 2007. Mixing RPG elements within FPS parameters, Borderlands was something strikingly different with its promises of 500,000 weapon combinations and a Mad Max influenced open world setting. Supporting its own hype with a nice selection of screenshots, concept art and rhetoric, Borderlands was set to become one of 2008’s most talked about games.
However almost a year on and aside from the occasional screenshot here and a cryptic trailer there, the only notable thing about Gearbox Software’s newest project was its ominous release push backs. Frankly with Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 on the horizon, Borderlands had somewhat dropped off the radar and much of those early promises were beginning to look like worrisome gimmicks.
Those that did keep the faith were rewarded come E3. Corralling some serious screen time, Gearbox Software, noted primarily for their Brother’s in Arms series, were able to present a meaty 11 minute demo which covered an extensive range of the gameplay elements we can expect to see come launch time.
For those not in the know, Borderlands is set on a planet named Pandora located in the farthest regions of humanities space colonies. With vast mineral riches said to be found, Pandora became the scene of a futuristic gold rush. However the settlers soon discovered the planet was a vast, barren dustbowl with nothing to offer. Lawlessness and banditry quickly overcame the penniless unable to leave and that was the least of their worries. Owing to a slow orbit, Pandora’s seasons run decades in length. Having been colonized for seven Earth years, its ragtag population experienced the passing of winter into spring. Spring is the time when hibernation ends for Pandora’s wildlife and it is not cute little hedgehogs immerging from the ground. Suffice to say slithering aliens with more tendrils than you can fire half a million guns at is the order of the day.
Increasingly setout as yet another online co-operative shooter, Borderlands promises 2-4 player co-op with players being able to drop in and drop out of their own, and friends games whilst maintaining their own XP. This was evidenced at the 2K booth as two Gearbox staff made their way through a previously unseen backdrop called the “Barrens.” As suggested the Barrens is a less-than-verdant landscape pot marked with jagged outcrops and pipelines. Necessitated by the vast openness of Pandora, vehicles will be a major part of the game and this was shown early in the demo with the two players entering a nimble buggy with a fixed gun turret and what seemed to be boosters for hill climbing. Utilizing the co-operative gameplay, one takes on the driving duties whilst the other acts as gunner. A particularly neat aspect shown in the presentation was the ability for the two players to switch positions in the buggy during lengthy drives.
Another reason to commandeer vehicles is the swarming wildlife that has awoken in Pandora’s spring. Whilst the towns act as heavily armored sanctuaries, out in the Borderlands dog like creatures called “Skags” roam the wilderness. The minions are small and dangerous, particularly if you’re on foot but they are frightened by vehicles and easily run over; the daddies however dubbed “Alpha’s” are considerably fiercer. Looking a bit like the Ant Lion Guards seen in Half Life 2, Alpha’s are significantly bigger than the other Skags and required some taking down.
Lucky then that you have plenty of weapons at your disposal. Now bumped up to 650,000, this has become the undeniable selling point for Borderlands. Described as being “Procedurally Generated,” built in software actually creates weapons using parameters to fulfill the ultimate gaming arsenal and provides an unending set of artillery options when entering into battle. Still the demonstration contained your usual suspects, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, magnums and a deluge of machine guns as well as a grenade type reminiscent of the cluster bomb in Worms. Nevertheless, these are not just minute variations on a theme. Instead the guns and explosives are colour coded with some having electronic, poison or acidic effects aside from the searing impact of a bullet. Weaponry will also be available for sale, upgrade or customization so you can simply beef up your favorites from the many hundreds of thousands to choose from and ship out the dross for some much needed dough.
Also touched upon was the various RPG elements Gearbox are trying to thrust into their FPS world. Players will begin by selecting a character class and this will shape your approach to combat in the same way as Mass Effect or Oblivion. As you make your way through the story, players will be able to level up in the various weapons categories earning XP through kills and gunmanship. Furthermore, Borderlands systemic nature will see each player’s individual evolution of character suggesting the leveling up mechanic will take some other form than just weaponry skills. Side quests will be widely available in what Gearbox describes as a grand adventure and the general layout of the narrative has a distinct air of Mass Effect about it in its current guise.
Indeed, partaking in one of the games hopefully many optional missions, the demonstration saw our two heroes make their way into Iridium Mines to seek out alien technologies. Alien technologies have become the major source of what little wealth Pandora has to offer and the various brigands running amok in the Borderlands have taken to hoarding these commodities having left the towns in search of food and fuel. Entering into the Mines one could be reminded of the various caves and dungeons seen in Oblivion, only with guns and considerable gore. During the presentation many an unfortunate bandit found himself exploded by some brutally powerful hardware.
Considering that the demonstration code was still pre alpha, Borderlands has certainly shaped up better than many had expected. With upwards of eight months of development expected before anywhere near complete, Gearbox has time to cure a few of the kinks in its early build such as the dopey AI which seemed more like fodder than foe.
Running unexpectedly smoothly at such an early stage the game, built up from a heavily modified Unreal 3 engine, is already looking pretty smart and with added spit and polish should look great. There is still a concern whether Gearbox can pull of a complete planet whilst still keeping it entertaining; with huge barren landscapes being the order of the day, one can only hope there is sufficient gun totting enjoyment to be found out in the wastes. In the meantime, Borderlands still strikes a pose as one of the most interesting looking games in development. Whilst not innately unique, as a sum of its parts, Borderlands could be something special when it arrives on our shores in Q1 of 2009.