![]() ![]() Grid Autosport succeeds because it doesn't over-stretch itself. Of course, I feel for them particularly because now I have to explain its mercurial qualities too. Back to the drawing board, marketing person. Er, the racing feels really, really real? No dice. But you have to feel for whoever was in charge of penning Grid Autosport's back-of-box brags it's a fantastic game, but its strengths lie in perfectly nailed fundamentals rather than new features. They use portmanteaus like RealFeel or TrueDrive when they mean handling, and talk about that sweet spot between arcade and simulation like it's a slider on the dev's toolset that no-one thought to include before. It'll be released to the public on 27th June.Ordinarily it's hard to feel sympathy for games marketing folks. We'll bring you our verdict soon when we get our hands on the full version of the game. For less hardcore gamers who want a relatively realistic racing experience without the difficulty associated with sims, it could be the perfect happy medium. The interior view quality is a blow, but overall it looks as though Grid Autosport has brought the series back towards sim racing, without the steep learning curve. What we've seen so far is promising indeed. A hefty off during our efforts to drift like a boss resulted in numerous panels flying off and the driver's door flapping open precariously. The drifting in Tuner mode is challenging but good fun, and oddly, seems to have a higher degree of cosmetic damage than the other parts of the game. The Formula Three cars we tried in the Open-Wheel mode sounded a little weedy meanwhile, and the Audi RS5 we took for a spin in Street mode didn't sound quite right. The most realistic seemed to be the Endurance and Touring modes, the latter featuring lots of delicious pops. Sound realism - a big deal for many racing gamers - varies from each mode. Sepang International circuit looked particularly exquisite during our test of that game mode. Endurance racing introduces tyre wear, so you'll need to be thinking about strategies, and involves lots of night-time driving. The different modes give a good variety to the gameplay. The cars do receive a reasonable degree of damage, both cosmetic and mechanical, but as with most driving games, a 100mph+ head on crash into a wall doesn't result in quite the carnage it would in real life. ![]() The graphics looked impressive on the PC version we played, with the cars themselves beautifully modelled, and some nice details in the background such as planes flying overhead. What's going on outside the car is a little more aesthetically-pleasing. You're much better off sticking with the dashcam-style view. It's not a great look, and doesn't seem like a great compromise. The developers say that it was a relatively late addition to the game, and as such, there hasn't been time to sort out proper textures for all the different cars before release, leaving you with a blurred out dashboard and steering wheel. It was absent in Grid 2 and is back for Autosport, but not how you might want it. Something that'll come as a big disappointment to many, though, is the in-cockpit view. At the same time, it's still relatively realistic the game's physics don't allow Project Gotham-style full throttle cornering around every bend. ![]() All are very accessible, letting you pick up a controller for the first time and enjoy yourself instantly without the steep learning curve sim racing games tend to have. We tried all five different modes the game has to offer: Touring, Open-Wheel, Street, Endurance, and Tuner. The good news is that it seems to have done that. Grid 2 came under fire for being further towards the arcade spectrum, but Grid Autosport is supposed to be bringing the series back to a happy middle ground. Grid has always been intended as a sort of 'half-way house' between unrealistic arcade-style racers, and tricky full-on simulation games. A few weeks ago we had our first good look at the latest game in the Grid franchise in this trailer, but today we had the chance to try the game out for ourselves in the form of a pre-alpha test version. ![]()
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