Race Driver: GRID Multiplayer Comments by Tom Bramwell

Just hope the handling is less arcadey than the early videos suggest.

it isn't. The demo is shocking on the wheel.

Note - I am a huge Forza 2 fan and recognise that this is an arcade game and not a sim. When are Codemasters going to anything for the hardcore racing sim fans?????

I thought it played really well from the demo... :S

I really liked the way the handling changed, pulling to the side when damaged etc. Over all I was impressed.

cant wait for it, need for speed pro street was so dissapointly bad after the fun i had had in previous nfs's , this is a very welcome game - demo is a LOT of fun

Tried the demo once and hated it so far!

Not happy with the way it handles at all. Shopping trolley comes to mind. Goes for PS3 and 360 demos.

well at least it has damage and thats all that matters in a driving game!

"shonky" is not a word! ;)

The handling in ALL racing agmes should come with settings like pro, semi-pro and arcade to cover all the bases otherwise your gonna alienate people which I think GRID may do as the graphics are stunning.

I'm just glad it has proper online, unlike DiRT. I know the handling isn't at all sim-like, but I enjoy it in an arcadey way (using a standard controller). Looking forward to this.

A bit more arcade than PGR 4 but it plays great. Damage is a blast although it may give way to grievers online. I would get it had I not invested in PGR 4 some time ago. Since I am not an avid driving games fan I think one such game will suffice for me.

The handling is fine. You're just expecting PGR-style handing. In this game, the amount you turn the thumbstick is the amount you turn the wheel, as opposed to the amount of pressure you put on the wheel (as in PGR).

It will probably drive a lot better with the steering wheel (which I ordered at the weekend...). Will let you know... somehow.

Don't suppose you got to ask them about the PS3 tearing being fixed before release Tom ? as mentioned at 40% in your blog entry ?

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?art...

I don't really like racing games, but I downloaded the demo and was well impressed. Especially at the graphics, I nearly shit my pants

"and complete wimps can allow for driver assists like traction control."

Have they actually played it with the assists off? Somehow I doubt it.

Downloaded it, didn't think the graphics were that impressive (admit I didnt play for too long) but hated, yes hated the handling. It didn't have any.

Loving the demo at the minute, I really have missed Grid's arcade type handling after my recent addiction to Forza.

The twitch/sliding round corners gameplay together with the one mess up once and your out damage system really works for me.

The only thing that will stop me getting this at the end of the month is if I give in to Rockband's amazingly high price tag next week!

It makes me laugh the amount of criticism for the shit handling here. None of you obviously bothered to turn all of the aids off. You can make the game as realistic or as arcadey as you want.

It's much more twitchy with the wheel than the pad - and more difficult for obvious reasons i.e. time taken to go from full lock to full lock.

Best wheel implementation is still Forza 2 for sim"ish" racing and Flatout for arcade/destruction fun driving.

In fact just had a mate overplaying Flatout - Rockstar could do to buy the rendering engine from it as it seems to manage cities at high speed with ease - with thousands of objects flying all over and no dithering to be seen!

http://gamez-vault.com/wp-content/upload...

http://gamez-vault.com/wp-content/upload...

@CreepinJesus

I've tried it on the wheel and it not good. Like I said in my post above, I accept its and arcade game and thats fine for the majority.

@UltimateWarrior

Er, I actually did try every setting the game possess and its still handles like a dog compared to the default on Forza 2. I'm guessing you don't own a wheel.....

@Nova5lag
Racing games have been doing that for years.

Anyway, never has my opinion varied so wildly over a video game
1st lap hated it, thought the handling was rubbish in the BMW
After 20min turned all the driving aids off and started to enjoy the races, doing laps of about 1:20 ish.
Then turned to the Time trail competition, couldn't get anywhere near the 1:17.8 qualify time so turned all the aids back on but stayed in manual gears and soon realised you have to drive like an absolute loon, take every inch of available surface on the inside of corners (basically cheating) and barely dab the brakes on all but the 1st corner. Managed a 1:15.8 which was still nearly 2 seconds slower that the world record last time I checked.
So now back to disliking it again.
I was hoping for it to be a bit more like racing in TOCA with a proper braking zone at least. I’ll not be getting my hopes up for next years F1 game.

Anyone else tried the Euro challenge? Or got anywhere near a 1:14.00 lap because I just cant find a way of cheating the course any more.

@qwerty123

If formula 1 is developed as an arcade game, I'll drive up to Codemasters and put em all in the ground.

Maps said... "Figure of 8 with cars colliding in mid air? SOLD!"

Ever heard of FlatOut?

@themorganator

same here - f1 on the ps3 was great and still good for a quick blast online

I tried the demo the day it was released and hated it because of it's ultra arcadey physics, but the thrill of the actual racing started to grow on me during my third Mustang race.
I tried the demo again last night, and hated it again (and then I tried the drifting and hated it even more :)).

I don't think I'll really know how I feel about this game until I'm playing the full version.

The actual racing is fun, no doubt it - and the damage modelling is spectacular. My biggest problem is the driving physics. I'm perfectly fine with arcade physics - I enjoy a wide range of racing games from hardcore sims on the PC to console arcade racers like Burnout and PGR - but I really feel that the arcade physics in GRID have a particularly shoddy feel to them, and I think it's the pivot point physics that's threatening to ruin it for me.
I think that particular problem is much more pronounced here than it's been in any of the previous Codemasters game (and they've obviously entirely forgotten - a long time ago - how to code a proper physics engine like they did for the excellent original TOCA games). Cornering (after braking from 200 to 20 in a few meters) just feels plain wrong to me in this game. Not arcadey - just wrong.

I'm just hoping the thrill of the racing in the full game can make me overlook the severe shortcomings in the driving model.

Edit: Oh, and since other people have brought it up - obviously I've been playing with all the driving aids off and manual gears. And I tried them on as well just to see if that might actually make things better. It didn't.

For those of us who don't have access to PGR and Forza this is still looking like a good choice.

Miths, i completely agree with your opinion.

I posted in the xbox 360 forum, in the GRID thread .

I love forza for its accuracy and realism.
I love PGR for the addictive 'arcadey' car handling.
.


The cars in GRID just feel boring, dull and lifeless IMO.
The way a car handles, or feels is the bread and butter of a racing game.

I think it rocks.
Arcady with driving aids on, that's true.
But pretty real and hard when you turn all that stuff off.

Can't wait for the release.

Thought the handling was appalling: it seems to have that 'turning from the centre of the car' that has afflicted a lot of other racing games. It just doesn't feel like a proper car - and, surprisingly, made me realise just how well-implemented the car physics in Forza 2 are.

Man, we could really do with a new track pack for that game. It's been out for almost a year, so fingers crossed they celebrate the anniversary with a little gift for the faithful...

its hell to handle on PC

you'll have a BMW and end up with a cooper at the end of the bloody race :P

"But pretty real and hard when you turn all that stuff off."

It's nowhere near real with the aids off - but arguably somewhat hard. Hard doesn't always equal real though - driving the race cars in GTR2 (a full blown PC sim) is rather easy in fact, supposedly even for beginners, driving them fast and consistent on the limit of their performance and traction is not.

The most obvious comparison would be the 320si touring car in GRID (without any aids on) against the same car in RACE 07 (based on the same game engine as GTR2, as a number of other PC racing sims).
The former feels almost weightless, it brakes from high speeds in an utterly unrealistic instant - without the tires locking or a loss of grip of you're turning into a corner at the same time - and it generally has very little grip and slides around corners in a completely unrealistic fashion, punctuated even further by the pivot point physics that not just makes it feel unrealistic but also in my opinion, plain odd.

The 320si in RACE 07 has weight, you don't brake from 200 km/h to cornering speed in a few meters, and it doesn't slide around corners, because its racing tires give a lot of grip - and on top of that it's obviously using a proper physics model, so even if road tires were used instead (as in the small freeware M3 Challenge game based on the same game engine), it would still behave in an entirely different and much more realistic way than the cars in GRID, it would just break traction much easier than a race car.

This wasn't a post to say that one type of game is better than the other (they are vastly different anyway, and as already mentioned, I actually enjoy many arcade racers as well), but I'm most definately saying that the car physics in GRID - with or without aids - are not even remotely close to simulating the feel of a real race car (or any kind of car). It's a pure arcade racer - and unfortunately one with a physics model I personally don't seem to like very much, as to me it seems more strange than entertaining.
I'm still gonna give the full game a shot though.

"It makes me laugh the amount off criticism for the shit handling here. None of you obviously bothered to turn all of the aids off. You can make the game as realistic or as arcadey as you want."

I turned them all of straight away, which is what I always do. I think most people that play a lot of racing games (especially semi-sim Forza style racers) would do that too.

And still I hated it! I think those used to Arcade racers (nothing wrong with that at all) think Hard=realistic. I tend not to agree.

Sorry :D

I think that most of you who dont like the handling have become so used to NOT using the brake and blame the handling when you can no longer corner @ 150 mph!

GRID doesnt claim to be a sim but an easy pick up and play racer - and it delivers on that. Racing is intense, fun and players will experience dramatic crashes - something missing from current racers out there. Its a case of having to re-adjust away from the mundane racer to something close to real racing again.

Jigglybean, absolutely not - there's nothing real about the racing in GRID. While Forza 2 isn't perfect, it's infinitely superior to this demo...

"I think that most of you who dont like the handling have become so used to NOT using the brake and blame the handling when you can no longer corner @ 150 mph!"

Are you kidding? It seems like many of us are complaining about the physics in GRID being too arcadey - and if there's anything you need to use consistently and often with a great deal of care in particularly proper PC sims, but also console "pseudo sims", it's the brakes.
And along with the pivot point turning, the brakes is definately one of the most unrealistic things in GRID, as you go from high speed to cornering speed in an instant, a bit like you were deploying an anchor rather than stepping on the brake pedal :).

Yeah lets hope theres a bit of a racer in there with reasonably serious handling. NOT something rounded up and dumbed down for the massed ranks of skilless wonders that more and more of codies games seem to to 'set there stall out for'

AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CODIES >>>fucking road test ALL the tracks so that its not quicker for ppl to straightline chicanes and drive over huge areas of grass taking short cuts than proper races using the racing line etc. (on tarmac grippy stuff)

The negative posters sound like all the whiney posters who slagged off Dirt which went on to sell a million copies. They are all on the CM forum telling us how cars should handle in real life & how cm have sold out etc etc

Thought the demo was great, the handling is pretty damn perfect for what i want in a racing game. I'm not a fan of Forza or PGR, I was a big fan of MSR however which PGR never matched.

The drift mode is awesome, and knocks spots off PGRs style kudos gameplay. Nothing better than swinging the car side on into a 90 degree corner at stupid speeds, hitting the handbrake, and fighting successfully for some grip to avoid smashing into the barriers as you accelerate towards the next corner. Great fun!!

The instant replay / flashback feature is dare i say it, revolutionary in a racing game and will save so many fastest laps from disintegrating into that 120mph crash into that barrier!!

This game will not sell on how realistic the driving is, it will sell on how exciting the racing is and from the demo it's sold me :D

@zakrocz

I think you're being a little harsh there.

Yes, I like sims like forza but I'm constantly looking for something that can supplement my games library. Grid looks fantastic but it's got the same central pivot system they used in Dirt and its completely unrealistic. I would love to see you play Forza back to back with either of these titles and then reiterate your previous statement.

You want arcade and thats fine. Some of us would like something with realistic physics.

I quite liked the demo for Dirt (360) but never bothered with the full game (I'm not so interested in that form of racing). GRID to me just seemed wildly wrong. I don't quite know what market they were aiming for. Its quite difficult getting the handling right on any race game and I think this showscases my point.

Downloaded the PC version and using a 360 controller with it.

Graphics - amazingly smooth. Running at 2560x1600 on an 8800 GTX and it is the smoothest I have seen at that resolution

Handling. Pants. Absolute and utter pants. The cars inertia is all wrong so you just dont get a feel for the it. Now I own and love Gran Turismo Prologue, Forza 2, RR6 and 7 PGR4, Burnout etc so I can adapt to a wide range of handling but this just feels wrong.

Such a shame, this has gone from must buy to ignore :(

I played the demo of this and was very impressed. This definitely wasn't on my radar, with all the talk of arcadey controls, but after taking off the assists in the demo, I thought the handling model was great.

Even though it's not my cup of tea, I even thought the drift race was fun - if a little hard at first...