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Preview: GRID Autosport

As I was handed a controller to play GRID Autosport, I had a touch of confidence (or was it arrogance?) about me. I remembered the preview event I attended last year for GRID 2; I completely bombed in the first few races as I tried to get the hang of its steering wheel peripheral, but went from last to first place in the next race when I used a controller. I was committed to learn from my past mistakes. It’s funny, cause in the same way, it seems like Codemasters was trying the same thing, trying to get Autosport back to GRID‘s roots.

On the morning of Autosport‘s announcement, I remember reading about the changes to its physics model and that the game would be a touch more realistic. About to play at the preview I asked myself, “how hard could be?” Media were about to play a multiplayer race with five human racers and seven AI racers. I selected my car, a Honda S2000 and waited for the race to start.

Before each race you’re able to change your difficulty by toggling different racing assists. Being the seasoned racing gamer I am, I turned all assists off, apart from an automatic transmission. The race was ready to begin and I found myself in the middle of the pack on GRID‘s familiar Dubai streets. The green lights flashed and the race was underway. I floored the throttle, easing off only slightly to begin with to combat the wheelspin I remember getting used to in the last title. In the short space before the first corner I had managed to claim a position or two. The corner opened up, I applied the brakes a little, then turned in, holding down the power as I’d normally do in a race. Things were looking good, then a second later, half-way through the corner, the rear slid out and I had spun out of control.

There went that confidence I just spoke about.

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From the middle of the pack I dropped down to last; immediately, the game’s physics engine bothered me. It’s one thing to play a simulator, brake too late and then drive off the track from understeer, but it’s something different to turn into a corner and just spin out because you’re turning while having your foot down on the gas. I remained confident that I could claw my way back. For the next series of turns I broke a little harder, turned in and feathered the throttle both during the corner and on the exit. With each lap I felt I was getting a little better, but I’d spin out and lose control each time. I ended up finishing the event in last.

Moving on to the next event, it was time for a race on a circuit track to showcase GRID Autosport’s return to the roots of the original Racedriver GRID. My result on the last race was unacceptable — embarrassing, even — and I was determined to do better. This time around we switched to touring cars and I selected a BMW M3, deciding to keep the assists as they were from the last event. The race begun and things were underway.

Approaching the first corner I applied the brakes a little late and as a result entered the run-off area, but managed to re-enter the track without spinning out like I did in the previous event. For the rest of the lap it was a close battle for first until I took a corner a little too quickly and managed to spin out again. I had repeated the same mistake in the last lap as well and had to settle for fourth. Despite Autogrid feeling a lot like GRID 2, it was good to see that despite the handling issues with the S2000, the M3 felt a lot more stable and composed during corners.

After completing another event using the touring cars on the Hockenheimring circuit, we switched to Indy cars for one final race on one of my [sarcasm] favourite tracks [/sarcasm], the Yas Marina circuit. As I expected, the cars were a lot more responsive to the elevation and camber changes in the track, and as a result, I spun out multiple times throughout the event. Regardless, it was a nice change to jump into a totally different class of car, and Codemasters should be thanked for including so many different kinds of vehicles in the roster.

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While I wouldn’t say that the racing in GRID Autosport isn’t fun, there’s something about the game that just fails to properly impress. For the past few months I’ve been playing Forza Motorsport 5, and as such, was constantly thinking of Forza throughout this preview. The first problem with GRID Autosport is that graphically, the game just doesn’t compare with the likes of the recent racing titles we’ve seen lately. Even if we take FM5 out of the equation, the signs that GRID is running on old hardware is noticeable when if you compare it to games like Need For Speed Rivals or just the pre-release footage we’ve seen from The Crew or Driveclub.

Sure, bumpers and other body parts from the cars come off with damage, but the game just isn’t visually impressive. Distance markers on the side of the track break into noticeable blocks when driven into rather than tear apart as you’d expect them to and this just further shows the limitations of producing a game exclusively for the last generation consoles. It’s of course important to note that this wasn’t the final build, but I just couldn’t appreciate GRID’s potential knowing that a game like FM5 which came out almost a year ago has exceeded it in this department so significantly.

My other major gripe with Autosport is its physics, and this further show signs of a game that just doesn’t seem to belong in the new era of gaming. I can recall playing the first GRID game and absolutely loving it. The physics model was taken off the back of Colin McRae DiRT and it made for both an enjoyable and rewarding off-roading game, and a solid track-based racer too. When DiRT 2 was released though it didn’t quite stand up to the game that preceded it, and GRID 2 suffered much the same fate when I reviewed it last year.

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While Autosport is being described as going back to its roots, and its physics are described as being a mix of both simulation and arcade (let’s be honest though, there’s nothing simulation-like about it), something just doesn’t feel right. The light and floaty physics that made GRID popular in 2008 might have worked then, but they feel outdated and irrelevant in a racing game today.

I’ve always believed that a good racing game should have some weight to the vehicles, and that doesn’t mean it needs to feel like a simulator. Sliding or throwing a car might be fun for a while, but eventually it lacks that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction because it feels like almost no skill is involved in winning or finishing the race.

I can respect Codemasters’ decision for trying to go back to the series’ roots, but I fear that what they’ve done is attempt to re-create an experience that doesn’t quite work anymore. It’ll be interesting to see whether the final build represents a true return to form for Codemasters, or if it ends up another mediocre game that doesn’t hold up to the great games of the last generation.


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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.