The original GRID was great. The second one was okay, too, but it was geared more towards the racing sim crowd. The third iteration, known as GRID Autosport, had tried to bring back that great “balance” inherent to the original 2008 version; unfortunately, it also failed to create that experience.
Codemasters had to take a refresher course and the result was GRID 2019 (or just GRID). This new GRID starts off well the first few laps. It has great control and amazing visuals! The game has you driving off in various disciplines and in different classes. The career mode is probably where you are going to have the most action since the multiplayer aspect is practically dead.
Choosing your races in career mode have never been easier. The list of events are all visible in one scrollable screen. The best part is that all crucial content is unlocked including cars and tracks. The problem, however, is that the number of locations are limited.
The game lacks diversity (no Le Mans, Derby or Touge) to make racing an upbeat experience or at least make it an interesting one. The races are short, anything longer than three laps would just be tedious. The handling is great and the new nemesis mechanics provide rivalries between you and other drivers. The AI still needs work; at the medium difficulty, they are impossible to beat.
Codemasters has added a new feature called Teams. You can hire a team mate but he has no purpose, unfortunately, other than to show up as part of a race result on the menu. There is no team sponsors or team liveries whatsoever! Despite these shortcomings, the new GRID is actually a solid racing game.
It has great graphics, good sounds, and very tight controls. But, it just didn’t live up to the original version due to lack of car selection, vibrant tracks and bad AI. The original GRID had a sense of progression – I just didn’t feel it here.
The original also had a good reward system; this game feels like I was just grinding for points. Nevertheless. I like how the races are short, giving me just enough buzz to get my need for speed fix. GRID is DX12 only. That means it will not work unless you have Windows 10 with GPU’s running at least DX11.
