Graphically, Codemasters certainly seems to be on the way to its lofty goal. But the rubber doesn't truly meet the road, as it were, until you get your hands on the controller. As usual, we'd love for you to give the demo a spin and share your thoughts, that is if you can control your shaking hands long enough to type them out. You know. Because of all the excitement.
Demo for GRID races on to Xbox Live
Graphically, Codemasters certainly seems to be on the way to its lofty goal. But the rubber doesn't truly meet the road, as it were, until you get your hands on the controller. As usual, we'd love for you to give the demo a spin and share your thoughts, that is if you can control your shaking hands long enough to type them out. You know. Because of all the excitement.
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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It's too bad the only supported wheel on the 360 is the awful MS Wireless Racing Wheel.
The good news is Codemasters currently uses Sony's open-source PhyreEngine (awful name) graphics engine, so this game will likely show up on PS3 where you can use just about any USB steering wheel you like, like the Logitech PS3 wheels, Momo, G25 and new GT5P wheel, plus the Fanatec Porsche wheel.
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http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/05/08/european-psn-store-releases-for-may-8th/
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I really hope it's good.
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has codemasters essentially replaced the PGR series?
im gonna miss my PGR games. :(
but i shall give this a spin anyway.
i'm a sucker for a good racing game.
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horribly arcadey controls. rivaling NFS.
blah.
The only problem I have with Grid is that it looks like you will be forced into certain races. Hopefully the drift mode will work really well or the game will be terrible.
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If you think GT5P doesn't have effects, you're not looking very hard.
I agree DiRT looks great too. It's the first rally game to even come close to matching Rallisport Challenge 2 (an Xbox 1 game) for graphics. Why can I not play Rallisport Challenge 2 (or a sequel) on a next-gen system? Why? It's not fair.
Are you on drugs? Do you wear glasses? Please load up DiRT and play it for a bit. Then hook up your Xbox (no bc for RS2 on 360) and play that for a bit. It looks horrible compared to DiRT. I'm playing HD so xbox games don't hold up anymore...
And if you really want to see how good DiRT looks, you have to see it running on a PC with AA and AF enabled. I've got it running on a Q6600 3.4ghz and a 8800gt on a 22inch monitor and this game looks fantabulous and is the best looking racing game I've seen yet.
However, I still think GT5P looks good too but its more like the perfect showcar commercial look instead of the gritty realistic "holy crap" look.
Kind of like comparing a shiny Naboo Starfighter to Luke's carbon-scored X-wing.
Okay I'm getting carried away :P
And when I speak of how DiRT looks, I'm not talking about on your PC, I'm talking about on consoles (I tried it on 360 and PS3).
If you're crapping on how Rallisport Challenge 2 looks, I have to ask, have you played it? No, it's not high-res, but it's driving game. Crap is flying by super fast, does it matter if every blade of grass isn't resolved? You're supposed to be on the road anyway.
Go check it out, it's everything you could hope for in an arcadey rally game.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_related_immune_deficiency
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They do some interesting stuff with the camera, too. For instance in 3rd person view, when your car goes into a uncontrolled spin at a certain speed, the camera detaches a bit and lets the car do a quick 360 without spinning your view around. It took a few times for me to realize what was going on (I'm not quite used to the somewhat simmy controls, so I was skidding out a lot), but it's far less disorienting.
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GT5P is more trying to look real than real fancy, so it's not tough to make something that looks more spectacular.
Can't wait to play the demo tonight. Hope it doesn't make me do stupid drifting though.
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It does support the G25 gated shifter (w00t), but not the clutch pedal. However, the force feedback is misprogrammed (just like in DiRT) so that the steering wheel drives itself, weaving down straights unless you clamp hard on the wheel to stop it. This makes it tough to use the gated shifter, since you have hold two hands hard to keep the wheel straight, you can't get over to the shifter. The paddles work fine though.
Also, it has the same bug as DiRT where it doesn't even center the steering wheel at the start of the race. If you let your Logitech wheel go through its calibration and then start the first race, the wheel is 90 degrees to the right at the start. I do wish to give kudos that they give the option to turn off the 900 degree wheel, which is great as no race car has over over 300 degrees of lock. GT should offer this.
As to the driving model? Well, it's basically junk. Want to touch up your attitude in mid turn? Go ahead. Want to crank in a lot more lock and hammer the gas before the apex? No sweat. Want go trailbrake? Hell, want to hammer the brakes while your car is already crossed up? Have at it. And note I had all the aids turned off except ABS.
I couldn't keep up with the other cars, because I'm used to GT5P (in professional mode) right now, and I kept slowing down BEFORE the turn in like you're supposed to. If you want to win races, you need to trailbrake like made and hammer the gas before the apex, because oddly, when you hammer the gas the car often turns in more (in an RWD car!). The style required of driving requires you do often countersteer, which is tough since the force feedback is done wrong and it's very difficult to turn the wheel outward against it.
The graphics are pretty good. If you're looking at stuff off the track, it perhaps looks better than GT5P The trees, for example, look a ton better. The track itself (including curbs and braking markers) looks a little worse and the cars look a lot worse (which isn't surprising, GT5P perhaps overemphasizes the details on the the cars).
I think I'll try again with force feedback turned off, and then maybe with a Dual Shock 3 instead of the wheel, but I've mostly given up.
If you've ever said that you wish you could drive a road-racing game with arcade-rally physics, have I found the game for you.
I figure Codemasters probably needs the money, so going with a more casual driving model probably makes sense. But I know I'm disappointed. This is not a follow-on to TOCA Race Driver 2 or 3, it's something else.
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I was disapointed by the steering so went into settings
and increased the 'deadspot' some and that really helped. But I still found the steering difficult
and I think it's cause I've gotten used to GT5P
or maybe that there is just something not quite right
in the feedback? I'll try different settings and diff cars. I was impressed by the damage... you can wreck the car, crack glass.... press X to have a drivers seat view like GT5P.... I don't think they have as much detail but it's really good. after a few laps
you have some crud on the windscreen, my mirror was cracked, side window spidered. but as for the racing
I could not keep pace with the other cars because I just could not negotiate a turn very well....
I'll give it a few more tries another time.
one of the screens from the time trial says that
the top time trialers will get to compete for a new 3 series BMW.... only elible are EU residents :(.
straight away I'd say I enjoy driving GT5P better
but kinda wish that there was damage like GRID.
I'm not loving this game yet but if i can get the
stupid BMW around the track/ ON the track I'd be
having more fun.... and having to tweak the controls
so the wheel isn't swerving on it's own was kinda lame
to have to sort out.
the top time trialers will get to compete for a new 3 series BMW.... only elible are EU residents :("
There is a car on offer for U.S residents too. There are 2 time trials, one for the U.S and one for Europe (and to be honest, you yanks seem to get the better car)
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