GRID (Xbox 360)

Race Driver Grid is the 4th installment of the TOCA series, and is also the best! While having less cars than Gran Tourismo 4, PGR4 and Forza 2, It has better Game play than all 3, Better Graphics than all 3 and better controls than PGR4.

Also they have properties that other games don't have. These include having a boss, working through all the racing rankings, buying and selling cars on ebay, having team mates and also Having Flash Backs. (Being able to go back in time around 20 seconds when you crash.)

When you enter Grid World, you start off working for someone else's team. Then you get a car and start earning money to buy new cars. Once you do you can race for your own team in many different championships, which earns you respect and money. In different areas you can do different races.

Usa: Demolition Derby, Touring Cars, Pro Touge and more

Europe: Tourick Cars, Open Wheel Le Mans series and more

Japan: Pro Drift, Drift Freestyle and Pro Touge

Controls...... 9

Graphics..... 10

Gameplay... 10

Features..... 10

Overall ....... 9.75 / 10

With the xbox 360 not only is the game great, but the control setting with xbox steering wheel is wild there are setting I've never seen .

real cool!

grid on the ps3 is just fantastic i love it . great game with lots of different cars .i love this game online you met some really good people online and some real bad sports too lol. dont miss out, go get grid its a great racer for all , who knows might be racing you online soon byeeeeeeee.

GRID is a great game with lots of choice. hard to stop playing once you get started . good fun online. Over all this is a very good racing game with loads to do. I'd recomend grid to all ps3 gamers. Bad points are people can kick/vote you out of the race which is a bad feature. online that is . the ranked players hate rookies coming online and beating them , well some times lol. .ps wacth out for the dittyman lol.......

Here is the truth about this game for those who take their racers seriously- It does not deserve the 8. 0 score, promoters scratching developers backs for £ £ £ £ £, same old story.

This is an enjoyable, addictive, game to extent with fantastic graphics and variation of game play. Only problem is, that ' s as deep as it goes. The actual game just isn't as advanced as predecessors. For some reason, the games been stripped down to bare arcade essentials. At best it offers an exciting cinematic experience which quickly becomes dull as you realise its shallow limitations. Unfortunately, I can list more wrong or absent from this title rather than right.

For example:

Regardless of settings, all the tracks weather conditions are the same (aside from a few night tracks in Japan), That means sunny dry days, always the same perfect driving condition on nearly every track. Pleasantville. Forget skidding around wet tracks and thunder storms overhead.

No customization feature means you can't have any fun getting the edge on competitors having upgraded your car. There ' s only a choice of sponsors and superficial paint jobs to make your car all pretty.

The poseurs drift sections I personally can't stand; it ' s not even a realistic handbrake emulation. After years of avoiding drifting to keep up speeds, I find they ' re frustrating and tedious. A rally section, rather than Jap cars circling around in abundance, would have been so much better. There's not a splot of flying mud or dust to be seen in this game, It's all smoke & tarmac (hence the title I suppose).

But finally the most important aspect this racer lacks- discipline and race rules. I felt one of the most successful features of TOCA race driver 3 (same development team responsible for this game) was the optional black flag system and warnings. Race rules felt like the way forward, they felt fair. This game is devoid of such things, anything goes... In single player mode, race rules aren ' t necessary and spoil the fun. However when you're racing multiplayer online, they ' re absolutely essential to keep order. They also add to the realism of competition.

Online:

It becomes annoying being shunted by players who are obviously more akin to playing Mario kart. There ' s no penalty for players being intentionally disruptive. I ' m not talking about simple accidents or misjudgement. I ' m talking about players who drive dangerously or drive the wrong way up a track on purpose. Adding salt to the wound is the fact the damage collision system is ineffective. Although the physics are good, crashing your car hardly involves punishment. Basically, the car only reacts if you smash into a wall at high speed or if someone takes you out, typically- just as you ' re nearing the finish line in 1st place. This also makes it possible for reckless players to risk collisions several times. The race menus online are also very poor. Although you can customize a game, a host can't really control the match or kick disruptive players. There ' s a vote system in place but several players need to vote a player out. If you get a group of dirty racers intent on destroying a session, there ' s nothing you can do short of quitting. Neither can you invite friends to play in ranked matches. This all makes sense (to avoid friends bumping each others scores) but surely some more sophisticated method could have been used without ruining the possibility of quality gameplay with friends. Also, if developers have gone to this extent, other areas of cheating should have been addressed first. So the online multiplayer feature gets a massive massive fail from me. Good old TOCA 3 is still better in this respect (lag and all).

In conclusion, this all detracts the skill needed to play this title. Two skills you ' ll definitely need to master, 1> avoiding idiots and 2> The ability to argue with other gamers on headset. Basically it's a very restricted childs game with flashy graphics and advanced handling. It ' s not the real racing package which was hyped and lacks depth. The single player grid world is fun at first but the limited amount of cars, weather and tracks make the game seem repetitive. Yes the graphics and frame rate are amazing. The physics are spot on in accordance with enjoyable gameplay. The tracks are great and the variation in control of cars is excellent 'but it still doesn ' t hold up if older predecessors are actually better games. The hype of this being the best racing game ever is disgraceful. Okay and addictive for a week, then becomes hollow, frustrating and boring. You ' ve seen a million Original Xbox games with this level of playability before. Rent it first.

As above!

Different from PGR4 which I consider to be the best racing game on the market but Grid is a different experience. Destruction Derby mode is great, win by any method!

The game os VERY hard, even on the easy setting but once you get to grips with the handling (which is excellent) you'll find it very entertaining. *Based on the XB360 version*