GRID

I originally saw Race Driver: Grid on YouTube. Much like many modern gamers, its uncountable number of Let's Plays and playthroughs showed me at the time that it was one of the most immersive racing games I could get for the PC. Needless to say, I eventually broke down and bought it. This review is solely the experience I've had after having played it (when I could) over the past few years.

(If you're wondering about the (relatively extremely short) hour count I have on the Steam version, most of my time was spent on a non-Steam version years ago. Long story short I lost that copy and repurchased it on here a few months ago, hence the lack of hours logged. You don't need too many hours on the Steam version to know it's buggy, though... More on that later.)

Grid, some say, took the Dirt series and put it on asphalt. What there was in this game was mostly appealing; beautiful graphics, an excellent variety of cars, complete with dramatic damage models and high-definition, animated vehicle interiors on world-famous (and other fictional) tracks. The vehicles are extremely detailed in both visual and aural design, including the whine of the turbocharger, the clunk of the E-brake and pedals, the intense screeching scrape of trading paint with the track wall or another driver and the unsettling whirring and whining of the steering linkage after one too many collisions.

Initially, I found it difficult to learn how exactly to drive in-game, as at the time I only had a keyboard/mouse setup instead of an Xbox 360 controller (which, essentially, the game was originally designed for, that or a racing wheel... you can use a mouse and keyboard but in my experience you've got your work cut out for you in terms of handling. I don't have a racing wheel, can't judge that). The AI is quite challenging for that of a racing game in my opinion; your mileage may vary but it's difficult enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, while irritating you to no end should you have to restart a race due to being slammed into the wall or aggressively shoved between other competitors like a hot potato... made of metal, rubber, fabric, plastic and glass... with an exploding engine inside it. What a visceral experience, at least!

There was also a (fairly popular as I recall) online multiplayer mode in which you could buy and sell cars to each other (via a virtual eBay Motors, apparently... in-game advertising at its finest) and compete in races across the world. There were several planned DLC, including new cars, multiplayer race events and tracks. Even the singleplayer events were awesome: gymkhana-style drifting challenges, circuit racing, touge (a relay-style race on windy mountain roads from start-to-finish-to-start in two laps against one competitor).

There was a novel gameplay mechanic Grid introduced called Flashback, where in the event of a crash you can "rewind" a race to before the crash occurred to give yourself a few extra chances to complete it. There's nothing quite as cathartic as taking a turn apex at 190 mph, hopping into the air off a rumble strip, smashing through a tire barricade and three other cars and coming to a rest pancaked against the track wall... knowing you have three Flashbacks left!

You could create a virtual racing team, hire drivers and leverage their talent to give yourself a chance at dethroning some of the best drivers in the world. There was even a (time-compressed, obviously) simulation of the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans championship, an endurance race in which you have to fight your way to the head of the pack and avoid crashing for 24 minutes straight. Outside of all of this, the game's modding community allowed you to edit your own cars... although, because of a lack of research, I can't exactly say to what extent you could modify or replace vehicle models for sure.

The above is why I loved this game despite all its flaws.

These days, however, I see the game from a different, more critical perspective. Due to it being succeeded by sequels including Grid 2 and Grid: Autosport, it seems apparent that Codemasters have long since given up on maintaining support for the original Grid. Several game-hampering, if not game-breaking, bugs still exist, including some which cause framerate stuttering, the game's audio to loop unexpectedly (a problem I personally have NEVER gotten rid of, even after reinstalling, messing around with my game files to prevent the Flashback system file from ballooning to several gigabytes in size and disabling hardware audio rendering) and even random crashes to desktop.

I've even read on Grid's Steam Community forums that some players' computers restart randomly after the game crashes -- but that's their word, not mine, this has never happened to me. The online multiplayer servers have long since been shut down entirely, inexplicably over a year before Grid 2's release, thus rendering the entire multiplayer mode broken -- albeit, according to Wikipedia, only for PS3 and PC, the Xbox 360 version's multiplayer may still be *ahem* Live. Not to mention that one of the promised DLC packs was never actually released. I got into the game far too late to actually purchase any of the DLC, so it's not necessarily something I'll miss as much, but it's still fairly disappointing. Even the game's support website has been removed - last time I checked, Codemasters' site only had support and forums for Grid 2 and Autosport unless I'm mistaken, which I could very well be.

The worst part is, in my opinion this was the best Grid ever, the finest game yet in the franchise. There are many great features in the sequels, but for me personally I loved the immersion more than any other feature, which makes Codemasters' idiotic decision to completely remove the cockpit mode from Grid 2 and put it back in in Autosport with cockpits not nearly as detailed as those in a game six years old somewhat painful. I'm still not sure I'll ever come back to this franchise, as at this point in time there's honestly better racers dedicated to arcade gameplay AND simulation, especially on Steam, putting the Grid franchise in a position of questionable purpose.

There are many reasons for me to recommend this game and many for me to warn you that you might be wasting your money. I've outlined most of them, but here's a brief recap:

Pros:

-Beautiful, immersive vehicles, environments and audio

-A wide variety of vehicles, environments and challenges

-Then-popular online multiplayer and vehicle trading features

-A fairly-decent (by today's standards, at least) example of early DLC

-Very well-received, averaging 87% for all platforms on Metacritic (if you really believe in that sort of thing)

-Some degree of end-user modifications!

-Racing wheel and Xbox 360 controller support... in a racing game... thank you.

-Fairly detailed level of customizable handling for peripherals

Cons:

-Numerous unresolved, unavoidable, game-breaking bugs in PC version which at best harm immersion and at worst temporarily destabilize your computer... apparently? YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY... Heh, racing jokes

-Multiplayer mode hastily discontinued

-Official customer support non-existent, hastily discontinued

-Sequels take the same formula and remove entire features unexpectedly... the entire series, it seems, has been trying to reinvent itself by force, for better or worse

-Incomplete DLC release (gee, kinda like another racing game I liked a lot... *ahem*BurnoutParadise*ahem*)

EDIT: 9/25/2014: I'm going to change my mind on my previous verdict and say that despite all its flaws (and in light of the fact that GameRanger can perhaps replace multiplayer and I finally learned that the audio glitch may have been caused by a peripheral compatibility issue), Grid is a very competent game that, IF you can run it smoothly, will probably satisfy your racing/immersion urges if you're into beautiful visuals and arcade fun. Big "if" though.

Final verdict: a flawed gem

7.9/10

Review originally written September 23, 2014 on Steam, edited for repost