After discovering the vastly dynamic and intricate game menus associated with the game, the driving experience continues on the same theme of intricacy and thoughtfulness. Many features of this game are unique to it, and make this a great driving game, that is hard pressed to become boring and repetitive like most others.
The idea of the game is that it samples from many genres of racing, including drifting, Le Mans, open wheel, and a myriad of others. The experience associated with each of these types of driving is very well captured indicating that hours of field research were done.
One of the more unique genres is drifting,
and Grid does an impeccable job at emulating what it is like to drift. Usually, racing games that include drifting as an option have poorly designed physics engines that make it difficult for a real life drifter to drift virtually, Grid does not. Grid’s physics engine does an amazing job at emulating how a car slides into and out of a corner. Also, the use of the emergency brake is comparatively realistic; and does not send the player sliding out of control into a wall, but rather just serves to initiate or prolong a slide. The drift cars are well selected as well, and show again that the developers pay attention to the real world of racing. The tracks that are selected to drift on are very well thought out as well. Included in the game are tracks that were previously never in video games and only remained existent on YouTube for those of us not fortunate to be able to drift in Japan. The tracks are sampled from the most famous drifting circuits in Japan and America, and there are multiple variations of each track available for play. There also exists the option to drift on road racing circuits, another ground breaking feature, because in the past games would allow the use of drift cars on road circuits, but would not provide the same drifting physics engine making for a dissatisfying experience.
The inclusion of the 24hrs of Le Mans race is another very cool feature of the game that makes for a different style of game play. Each hour is denoted by a minute of real time and the sun sets and rises very realistically, at times blinding the driver the same as real-life. The realness of the racing is maintained in the Le Mans race by including the race classes that participate in the race, grand tourer 2 (GT2), GT1, Le Mans Prototype 2(Lmp2), and Lmp1. Adding to the list of innovative design features is that each car class in the Le Mans race has its own subset of races to be completed. Each time that a Le Mans race is proposed by the game, that race serves to signify the end of the racing season, after which driver points, team points, and total earnings are summed up and posted on a leader board.
Open wheel racing in this game is as dynamic as one would expect it to be. There are different types of open wheel races in this game including everything but Formula 1, most likely due to legal issues. However, the lack of F1 does not detract from the intensity of the open wheeled racing. The open wheel racing is so exciting because the cars are snappy and very agile like a real open wheeled car, again, enough cannot be said to emphasize the magnitude of realness incorporated into this game.
The primary problem that many people have with driving simulators is the difficulty associated with driving the racing line properly, and the severity of crashes. Codemasters developers have acknowledged this gripe that many people have with the genre, and have added the flash back replay feature. This feature allows the driver at any time to pause and replay the last ten to fifteen seconds of game play, and resume the race at a point chosen in the replay. This flashback mode is so well developed because it allows for a cinematic replay of the past, but also allows the in game views to be utilized to analyze any mistakes that may have been made, and allow for correction. This feature is something whose availability varies according to the driving difficulty chosen (basic, normal, advanced, savage, and extreme).
In the event of a crash, if tragic enough, the flashback camera is automatically engaged, and time is drastically slowed down allowing one to see the individual parts of the car breaking and crumpling as they would. Its as if a real car crash was analyzed and incorporated into the design process. The crash scenes of this game are absolutely spectacular, and game achievements are associated with each of the types of crashes. It is possible to flip over, spin, and crash in anyway imaginable, making for a very cool scene.
Image borrowed from this link
