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This thread has been linked to the game 'Race Driver: GRID'.
Racedriver: GRID was developed by Codemasters and was released in the EU May 30th 2008. It is hard to believe it was only released last summer, as it has already become a gaming classic. Released for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Nintendo DS, GRID was far beyond its competitors. Depending on what you’re looking for, racing is taken to the next level. It is an arcade style racer, suited for those who want to have fun, keep control and leave tyre marks on the tarmac. It is not for those who are looking for a realistic driving experience, since GRID doesn’t tackle this area. This is not to say that GRID isn’t realistic; graphically, in terms of audio and physically, GRID is a solid driving game, but in aspects of a ‘real’ driving experience, stick to Forza or PGR, or better still; drive a real car.
I haven’t played this game long enough to chastise it to gaming heaven or gaming hell yet, but I’d like to go through some of the features, some of my favourite parts and what you can expect from it.
You've gotta start from somewhere
Let’s begin from the starting point of the game (no pun intended). You’ll begin by filling in a driver profile; putting in your name and nationality. A cool feature has been added where you can choose an audio name, which you’ll be called throughout your racing experience. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a nice extra that adds to the fun.
So after filling in your details, you’ll come to the main menu. The menu is nicely presented, simply clickable bars, with a garage themed background. You’ll have a variety of modes to choose from, such as Race Day, Test Drive and Career. I'll start with the most vital mode of the game, Career Mode.
Career Mode: The Beginning of my Success Story
You start your racing life with a 1970 Ford Mustang. You must first earn your rookie licence at a licence qualifier. Don’t worry, you don’t have to win this first race, you just have to finish it, so don’t destroy your car, and you’ll be fine. Once this race is completed, you’ll be able to participate in events across 3 different areas of the world: Europe, Japan and US. Within in each area is 3 different licences that can be unlocked with reputation.
Reputation is a sort of currency that is rewarded for completing races or tasks in each area. With this reputation, you can unlock higher licences, enabling you to participate in higher licensed races, giving you a chance to go for the big money and big reputation points. Remember though, participating in a US race for example will only give you reputation in the US. To raise European and Japanese reputation, you must gain it in them areas.
The reputation in each area is then totalled together, giving you a global reputation. Your goal of the game is to achieve a global licence, so you can participate at elite international level, and become the world’s best racer.
Once you’ve gained some reputation, you will eventually be able to hire a team mate, who will race in every event with you. A team mate will have a one-off signing fee, and you’ll also be told how much of the winnings they will take. The way it usually works is the higher the signing fee, and the higher the demand of winnings, the better the driver will be. Although, this isn’t to say that you won’t be able to find a cheap, and skilful driver, you just have to look. Team mates will also have an area of expertise, so keep that in mind, and your cash balance may become a lot more healthier.
Hiring team mates and buying cars will of course require some money. You’ll be playing with dollars in this game, so get used to it quickly and learn what is cheap and what is expensive. There are many ways to earn money, from winning races (the higher you finish, the more money to play with), signing sponsorship deals (putting adverts over your car and achieving specific goals) and racing for other teams.
Bundles of races are waiting to be played, from European Circuit Racing (including Touring Cars, GT and Open Wheel Championships), Japanese Street Racing (Drift Championships, Pro Tuned Series and Touges) and American Power and Speed Races (Stock Car Racing, GT and Muscle Cars).
For all these races, you’ll require a specific type of car. You wouldn’t want to take a F1 Car on a drift track now, would you? You can buy cars straight from the market, brand new, or you can go to eBay Motors, and purchase a second hand car. Second hand cars can either be cheap, trophy winning cars or crashable heaps of junk. Make sure you check the car history, and relative price before buying. You can also sell cars in the same manner, either selling straight for cash, or putting it on eBay Motors, which takes longer, but can get you more money, especially if the car has won a lot of trophies with you.
At the end of the racing season, you’ll be offered a place in “24 Hour of Le Mans”, taking place at “Circuit de la Sarthe”. In Le Mans, all that matters is that you beat your car class. Within the race, there are 4 classes, from high speed open wheel, to touring cars. All you have to do is beat cars of the same type, and if you’re really good, even beat cars that have better specifications than you (and trust me it’s possible, I’ve beaten an F1 car with a BMW 5 Series, due to the fact the F1 car got mashed up). You can win a lot of money and reputation from winning Le Man, so always give it your best.
Enough of that, back to basics
So that’s the basics of the career mode. Now for the simple arcade style mode; Race Day. Set up your rules, such as number of laps, grid position, number of cars; choose your car; choose your track, and off you go. You have all the same racing modes as career mode; GT, Open Wheel, Pro Muscle, Touring Cars, which all take 20 people in a race. Then you have the more challenging drift races, sliding your car sideways at high speed. On each apex of the track is a flag, the closer you are to the flag, the more points for the drift. You can also link drifts to get a massive combo going.
Here are the outlines of the modes.
Drift GP
Knockout Racing, Opponents Paired off, Win and qualify to next round.
Drift Battle
Drifting and Racing combined, Higher place you are, the more points for your drifts.
Freestyle Drift
You’re given a timed run in an open arena to score as many points as possible.
Downhill Drift
A drift up and down Mount Haruna, Japan.
Touge
Narrow Mountain Road Racing
Pro Touge
Daytime Racing on mountain roads, closed public roads, one lap up, one lap down, strictly no contact, fastest over 2 laps wins.
Midnight Touge
Night Time Racing on mountain roads, open public roads, contact allowed.
Endurance
Longer Races, Four classes, beat the cars in your class.
Demolition Derby
No rules apply, first to cross the line, or last one standing.
What does this button do?
Time to take a tour of what you’ll actually see whilst racing. On screen you will have the following:
Lap Indicator,
Current Race Time,
Current Lap Time,
Flag Indicator,
Mini Map,
Position Indicator,
Position of Rivals and current First Place,
Damage Indicator,
Speedometer,
Gear.
Your Speedometer is very handy as it tells you how much damage your car has received. Damage to gears reduce your top speed and give slower gear changes, wrecked suspension makes it harder to corner; steering response becomes less and you may pull to one side if you damage your steering system, damage to the engine will result in a loss of acceleration and reduction in top speed, and broken wheels will reduce your stability and handling. Now, imagine all of that happening at once. To be quite honest, you’re not going to finish the race. The cars do seem to take a ridiculous amount of battering, but when they are damaged, it’s hard to continue, so be careful when your hurling into a corner.
Xbox Live - A Living Hell of Moaning Kids
The last thing I want to talk about is multiplayer, specifically for myself, Xbox Live. You have 4 options; Quick Match (finds the first match available and puts you in it), Custom Match (you can define what type of race you want to participate in), Create Session (create your own game) and Private Match (where people can only join if invited). Events are chosen by voting, the race type with the most votes being the game to be played. You can gain experience from winning races, enabling you to rise in the ranking system, and have a pretty rank next to your name. The more people in your race, the more points are on offer. There is of course the standard leader board as well, so you can see if you’re the next Michael Schumacher.
Finale
So, there you have it, I’ve laid out pretty much all the main features of the game. Personally, I enjoy it, it’s a fun arcade style racer, that’s not to hard to control, but still provides a challenge for the serious racer. As I said at the start, if you’re looking for a simulator, do not buy this game as you will be disappointed, but again, as I said at the start, if you want realistic, don’t get any game, just drive a real car.
Overall Rating:8/10
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I haven’t played this game long enough to chastise it to gaming heaven or gaming hell yet, but I’d like to go through some of the features, some of my favourite parts and what you can expect from it.
You've gotta start from somewhere
Let’s begin from the starting point of the game (no pun intended). You’ll begin by filling in a driver profile; putting in your name and nationality. A cool feature has been added where you can choose an audio name, which you’ll be called throughout your racing experience. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a nice extra that adds to the fun.
So after filling in your details, you’ll come to the main menu. The menu is nicely presented, simply clickable bars, with a garage themed background. You’ll have a variety of modes to choose from, such as Race Day, Test Drive and Career. I'll start with the most vital mode of the game, Career Mode.
Career Mode: The Beginning of my Success Story
You start your racing life with a 1970 Ford Mustang. You must first earn your rookie licence at a licence qualifier. Don’t worry, you don’t have to win this first race, you just have to finish it, so don’t destroy your car, and you’ll be fine. Once this race is completed, you’ll be able to participate in events across 3 different areas of the world: Europe, Japan and US. Within in each area is 3 different licences that can be unlocked with reputation.
Reputation is a sort of currency that is rewarded for completing races or tasks in each area. With this reputation, you can unlock higher licences, enabling you to participate in higher licensed races, giving you a chance to go for the big money and big reputation points. Remember though, participating in a US race for example will only give you reputation in the US. To raise European and Japanese reputation, you must gain it in them areas.
The reputation in each area is then totalled together, giving you a global reputation. Your goal of the game is to achieve a global licence, so you can participate at elite international level, and become the world’s best racer.
Once you’ve gained some reputation, you will eventually be able to hire a team mate, who will race in every event with you. A team mate will have a one-off signing fee, and you’ll also be told how much of the winnings they will take. The way it usually works is the higher the signing fee, and the higher the demand of winnings, the better the driver will be. Although, this isn’t to say that you won’t be able to find a cheap, and skilful driver, you just have to look. Team mates will also have an area of expertise, so keep that in mind, and your cash balance may become a lot more healthier.
Hiring team mates and buying cars will of course require some money. You’ll be playing with dollars in this game, so get used to it quickly and learn what is cheap and what is expensive. There are many ways to earn money, from winning races (the higher you finish, the more money to play with), signing sponsorship deals (putting adverts over your car and achieving specific goals) and racing for other teams.
Bundles of races are waiting to be played, from European Circuit Racing (including Touring Cars, GT and Open Wheel Championships), Japanese Street Racing (Drift Championships, Pro Tuned Series and Touges) and American Power and Speed Races (Stock Car Racing, GT and Muscle Cars).
For all these races, you’ll require a specific type of car. You wouldn’t want to take a F1 Car on a drift track now, would you? You can buy cars straight from the market, brand new, or you can go to eBay Motors, and purchase a second hand car. Second hand cars can either be cheap, trophy winning cars or crashable heaps of junk. Make sure you check the car history, and relative price before buying. You can also sell cars in the same manner, either selling straight for cash, or putting it on eBay Motors, which takes longer, but can get you more money, especially if the car has won a lot of trophies with you.
At the end of the racing season, you’ll be offered a place in “24 Hour of Le Mans”, taking place at “Circuit de la Sarthe”. In Le Mans, all that matters is that you beat your car class. Within the race, there are 4 classes, from high speed open wheel, to touring cars. All you have to do is beat cars of the same type, and if you’re really good, even beat cars that have better specifications than you (and trust me it’s possible, I’ve beaten an F1 car with a BMW 5 Series, due to the fact the F1 car got mashed up). You can win a lot of money and reputation from winning Le Man, so always give it your best.
Enough of that, back to basics
So that’s the basics of the career mode. Now for the simple arcade style mode; Race Day. Set up your rules, such as number of laps, grid position, number of cars; choose your car; choose your track, and off you go. You have all the same racing modes as career mode; GT, Open Wheel, Pro Muscle, Touring Cars, which all take 20 people in a race. Then you have the more challenging drift races, sliding your car sideways at high speed. On each apex of the track is a flag, the closer you are to the flag, the more points for the drift. You can also link drifts to get a massive combo going.
Here are the outlines of the modes.
Drift GP
Knockout Racing, Opponents Paired off, Win and qualify to next round.
Drift Battle
Drifting and Racing combined, Higher place you are, the more points for your drifts.
Freestyle Drift
You’re given a timed run in an open arena to score as many points as possible.
Downhill Drift
A drift up and down Mount Haruna, Japan.
Touge
Narrow Mountain Road Racing
Pro Touge
Daytime Racing on mountain roads, closed public roads, one lap up, one lap down, strictly no contact, fastest over 2 laps wins.
Midnight Touge
Night Time Racing on mountain roads, open public roads, contact allowed.
Endurance
Longer Races, Four classes, beat the cars in your class.
Demolition Derby
No rules apply, first to cross the line, or last one standing.
What does this button do?
Time to take a tour of what you’ll actually see whilst racing. On screen you will have the following:
Lap Indicator,
Current Race Time,
Current Lap Time,
Flag Indicator,
Mini Map,
Position Indicator,
Position of Rivals and current First Place,
Damage Indicator,
Speedometer,
Gear.
Your Speedometer is very handy as it tells you how much damage your car has received. Damage to gears reduce your top speed and give slower gear changes, wrecked suspension makes it harder to corner; steering response becomes less and you may pull to one side if you damage your steering system, damage to the engine will result in a loss of acceleration and reduction in top speed, and broken wheels will reduce your stability and handling. Now, imagine all of that happening at once. To be quite honest, you’re not going to finish the race. The cars do seem to take a ridiculous amount of battering, but when they are damaged, it’s hard to continue, so be careful when your hurling into a corner.
Xbox Live - A Living Hell of Moaning Kids
The last thing I want to talk about is multiplayer, specifically for myself, Xbox Live. You have 4 options; Quick Match (finds the first match available and puts you in it), Custom Match (you can define what type of race you want to participate in), Create Session (create your own game) and Private Match (where people can only join if invited). Events are chosen by voting, the race type with the most votes being the game to be played. You can gain experience from winning races, enabling you to rise in the ranking system, and have a pretty rank next to your name. The more people in your race, the more points are on offer. There is of course the standard leader board as well, so you can see if you’re the next Michael Schumacher.
Finale
So, there you have it, I’ve laid out pretty much all the main features of the game. Personally, I enjoy it, it’s a fun arcade style racer, that’s not to hard to control, but still provides a challenge for the serious racer. As I said at the start, if you’re looking for a simulator, do not buy this game as you will be disappointed, but again, as I said at the start, if you want realistic, don’t get any game, just drive a real car.
Overall Rating:8/10
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There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Racedriver: GRID was developed by Codemasters and was released in the EU May 30th 2008. It is hard to believe it was only released last summer, as it has already become a gaming classic. Released for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Nintendo DS, GRID was far beyond its competitors. Depending on what you’re looking for, racing is taken to the next level. It is an arcade style racer, suited for those who want to have fun, keep control and leave tyre marks on the tarmac. It is not for those who are looking for a realistic driving experience, since GRID doesn’t tackle this area. This is not to say that GRID isn’t realistic; graphically, in terms of audio and physically, GRID is a solid driving game, but in aspects of a ‘real’ driving experience, stick to Forza or PGR, or better still; drive a real car.
I haven’t played this game long enough to chastise it to gaming heaven or gaming hell yet, but I’d like to go through some of the features, some of my favourite parts and what you can expect from it.
You've gotta start from somewhere
Let’s begin from the starting point of the game (no pun intended). You’ll begin by filling in a driver profile; putting in your name and nationality. A cool feature has been added where you can choose an audio name, which you’ll be called throughout your racing experience. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a nice extra that adds to the fun.
So after filling in your details, you’ll come to the main menu. The menu is nicely presented, simply clickable bars, with a garage themed background. You’ll have a variety of modes to choose from, such as Race Day, Test Drive and Career. I'll start with the most vital mode of the game, Career Mode.
Career Mode: The Beginning of my Success Story
You start your racing life with a 1970 Ford Mustang. You must first earn your rookie licence at a licence qualifier. Don’t worry, you don’t have to win this first race, you just have to finish it, so don’t destroy your car, and you’ll be fine. Once this race is completed, you’ll be able to participate in events across 3 different areas of the world: Europe, Japan and US. Within in each area is 3 different licences that can be unlocked with reputation.
Reputation is a sort of currency that is rewarded for completing races or tasks in each area. With this reputation, you can unlock higher licences, enabling you to participate in higher licensed races, giving you a chance to go for the big money and big reputation points. Remember though, participating in a US race for example will only give you reputation in the US. To raise European and Japanese reputation, you must gain it in them areas.
The reputation in each area is then totalled together, giving you a global reputation. Your goal of the game is to achieve a global licence, so you can participate at elite international level, and become the world’s best racer.
Once you’ve gained some reputation, you will eventually be able to hire a team mate, who will race in every event with you. A team mate will have a one-off signing fee, and you’ll also be told how much of the winnings they will take. The way it usually works is the higher the signing fee, and the higher the demand of winnings, the better the driver will be. Although, this isn’t to say that you won’t be able to find a cheap, and skilful driver, you just have to look. Team mates will also have an area of expertise, so keep that in mind, and your cash balance may become a lot more healthier.
Hiring team mates and buying cars will of course require some money. You’ll be playing with dollars in this game, so get used to it quickly and learn what is cheap and what is expensive. There are many ways to earn money, from winning races (the higher you finish, the more money to play with), signing sponsorship deals (putting adverts over your car and achieving specific goals) and racing for other teams.
Bundles of races are waiting to be played, from European Circuit Racing (including Touring Cars, GT and Open Wheel Championships), Japanese Street Racing (Drift Championships, Pro Tuned Series and Touges) and American Power and Speed Races (Stock Car Racing, GT and Muscle Cars).
For all these races, you’ll require a specific type of car. You wouldn’t want to take a F1 Car on a drift track now, would you? You can buy cars straight from the market, brand new, or you can go to eBay Motors, and purchase a second hand car. Second hand cars can either be cheap, trophy winning cars or crashable heaps of junk. Make sure you check the car history, and relative price before buying. You can also sell cars in the same manner, either selling straight for cash, or putting it on eBay Motors, which takes longer, but can get you more money, especially if the car has won a lot of trophies with you.
At the end of the racing season, you’ll be offered a place in “24 Hour of Le Mans”, taking place at “Circuit de la Sarthe”. In Le Mans, all that matters is that you beat your car class. Within the race, there are 4 classes, from high speed open wheel, to touring cars. All you have to do is beat cars of the same type, and if you’re really good, even beat cars that have better specifications than you (and trust me it’s possible, I’ve beaten an F1 car with a BMW 5 Series, due to the fact the F1 car got mashed up). You can win a lot of money and reputation from winning Le Man, so always give it your best.
Enough of that, back to basics
So that’s the basics of the career mode. Now for the simple arcade style mode; Race Day. Set up your rules, such as number of laps, grid position, number of cars; choose your car; choose your track, and off you go. You have all the same racing modes as career mode; GT, Open Wheel, Pro Muscle, Touring Cars, which all take 20 people in a race. Then you have the more challenging drift races, sliding your car sideways at high speed. On each apex of the track is a flag, the closer you are to the flag, the more points for the drift. You can also link drifts to get a massive combo going.
Here are the outlines of the modes.
Drift GP
Knockout Racing, Opponents Paired off, Win and qualify to next round.
Drift Battle
Drifting and Racing combined, Higher place you are, the more points for your drifts.
Freestyle Drift
You’re given a timed run in an open arena to score as many points as possible.
Downhill Drift
A drift up and down Mount Haruna, Japan.
Touge
Narrow Mountain Road Racing
Pro Touge
Daytime Racing on mountain roads, closed public roads, one lap up, one lap down, strictly no contact, fastest over 2 laps wins.
Midnight Touge
Night Time Racing on mountain roads, open public roads, contact allowed.
Endurance
Longer Races, Four classes, beat the cars in your class.
Demolition Derby
No rules apply, first to cross the line, or last one standing.
What does this button do?
Time to take a tour of what you’ll actually see whilst racing. On screen you will have the following:
Lap Indicator,
Current Race Time,
Current Lap Time,
Flag Indicator,
Mini Map,
Position Indicator,
Position of Rivals and current First Place,
Damage Indicator,
Speedometer,
Gear.
Your Speedometer is very handy as it tells you how much damage your car has received. Damage to gears reduce your top speed and give slower gear changes, wrecked suspension makes it harder to corner; steering response becomes less and you may pull to one side if you damage your steering system, damage to the engine will result in a loss of acceleration and reduction in top speed, and broken wheels will reduce your stability and handling. Now, imagine all of that happening at once. To be quite honest, you’re not going to finish the race. The cars do seem to take a ridiculous amount of battering, but when they are damaged, it’s hard to continue, so be careful when your hurling into a corner.
Xbox Live - A Living Hell of Moaning Kids
The last thing I want to talk about is multiplayer, specifically for myself, Xbox Live. You have 4 options; Quick Match (finds the first match available and puts you in it), Custom Match (you can define what type of race you want to participate in), Create Session (create your own game) and Private Match (where people can only join if invited). Events are chosen by voting, the race type with the most votes being the game to be played. You can gain experience from winning races, enabling you to rise in the ranking system, and have a pretty rank next to your name. The more people in your race, the more points are on offer. There is of course the standard leader board as well, so you can see if you’re the next Michael Schumacher.
Finale
So, there you have it, I’ve laid out pretty much all the main features of the game. Personally, I enjoy it, it’s a fun arcade style racer, that’s not to hard to control, but still provides a challenge for the serious racer. As I said at the start, if you’re looking for a simulator, do not buy this game as you will be disappointed, but again, as I said at the start, if you want realistic, don’t get any game, just drive a real car.
Overall Rating:8/10
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I haven’t played this game long enough to chastise it to gaming heaven or gaming hell yet, but I’d like to go through some of the features, some of my favourite parts and what you can expect from it.
You've gotta start from somewhere
Let’s begin from the starting point of the game (no pun intended). You’ll begin by filling in a driver profile; putting in your name and nationality. A cool feature has been added where you can choose an audio name, which you’ll be called throughout your racing experience. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a nice extra that adds to the fun.
So after filling in your details, you’ll come to the main menu. The menu is nicely presented, simply clickable bars, with a garage themed background. You’ll have a variety of modes to choose from, such as Race Day, Test Drive and Career. I'll start with the most vital mode of the game, Career Mode.
Career Mode: The Beginning of my Success Story
You start your racing life with a 1970 Ford Mustang. You must first earn your rookie licence at a licence qualifier. Don’t worry, you don’t have to win this first race, you just have to finish it, so don’t destroy your car, and you’ll be fine. Once this race is completed, you’ll be able to participate in events across 3 different areas of the world: Europe, Japan and US. Within in each area is 3 different licences that can be unlocked with reputation.
Reputation is a sort of currency that is rewarded for completing races or tasks in each area. With this reputation, you can unlock higher licences, enabling you to participate in higher licensed races, giving you a chance to go for the big money and big reputation points. Remember though, participating in a US race for example will only give you reputation in the US. To raise European and Japanese reputation, you must gain it in them areas.
The reputation in each area is then totalled together, giving you a global reputation. Your goal of the game is to achieve a global licence, so you can participate at elite international level, and become the world’s best racer.
Once you’ve gained some reputation, you will eventually be able to hire a team mate, who will race in every event with you. A team mate will have a one-off signing fee, and you’ll also be told how much of the winnings they will take. The way it usually works is the higher the signing fee, and the higher the demand of winnings, the better the driver will be. Although, this isn’t to say that you won’t be able to find a cheap, and skilful driver, you just have to look. Team mates will also have an area of expertise, so keep that in mind, and your cash balance may become a lot more healthier.
Hiring team mates and buying cars will of course require some money. You’ll be playing with dollars in this game, so get used to it quickly and learn what is cheap and what is expensive. There are many ways to earn money, from winning races (the higher you finish, the more money to play with), signing sponsorship deals (putting adverts over your car and achieving specific goals) and racing for other teams.
Bundles of races are waiting to be played, from European Circuit Racing (including Touring Cars, GT and Open Wheel Championships), Japanese Street Racing (Drift Championships, Pro Tuned Series and Touges) and American Power and Speed Races (Stock Car Racing, GT and Muscle Cars).
For all these races, you’ll require a specific type of car. You wouldn’t want to take a F1 Car on a drift track now, would you? You can buy cars straight from the market, brand new, or you can go to eBay Motors, and purchase a second hand car. Second hand cars can either be cheap, trophy winning cars or crashable heaps of junk. Make sure you check the car history, and relative price before buying. You can also sell cars in the same manner, either selling straight for cash, or putting it on eBay Motors, which takes longer, but can get you more money, especially if the car has won a lot of trophies with you.
At the end of the racing season, you’ll be offered a place in “24 Hour of Le Mans”, taking place at “Circuit de la Sarthe”. In Le Mans, all that matters is that you beat your car class. Within the race, there are 4 classes, from high speed open wheel, to touring cars. All you have to do is beat cars of the same type, and if you’re really good, even beat cars that have better specifications than you (and trust me it’s possible, I’ve beaten an F1 car with a BMW 5 Series, due to the fact the F1 car got mashed up). You can win a lot of money and reputation from winning Le Man, so always give it your best.
Enough of that, back to basics
So that’s the basics of the career mode. Now for the simple arcade style mode; Race Day. Set up your rules, such as number of laps, grid position, number of cars; choose your car; choose your track, and off you go. You have all the same racing modes as career mode; GT, Open Wheel, Pro Muscle, Touring Cars, which all take 20 people in a race. Then you have the more challenging drift races, sliding your car sideways at high speed. On each apex of the track is a flag, the closer you are to the flag, the more points for the drift. You can also link drifts to get a massive combo going.
Here are the outlines of the modes.
Drift GP
Knockout Racing, Opponents Paired off, Win and qualify to next round.
Drift Battle
Drifting and Racing combined, Higher place you are, the more points for your drifts.
Freestyle Drift
You’re given a timed run in an open arena to score as many points as possible.
Downhill Drift
A drift up and down Mount Haruna, Japan.
Touge
Narrow Mountain Road Racing
Pro Touge
Daytime Racing on mountain roads, closed public roads, one lap up, one lap down, strictly no contact, fastest over 2 laps wins.
Midnight Touge
Night Time Racing on mountain roads, open public roads, contact allowed.
Endurance
Longer Races, Four classes, beat the cars in your class.
Demolition Derby
No rules apply, first to cross the line, or last one standing.
What does this button do?
Time to take a tour of what you’ll actually see whilst racing. On screen you will have the following:
Lap Indicator,
Current Race Time,
Current Lap Time,
Flag Indicator,
Mini Map,
Position Indicator,
Position of Rivals and current First Place,
Damage Indicator,
Speedometer,
Gear.
Your Speedometer is very handy as it tells you how much damage your car has received. Damage to gears reduce your top speed and give slower gear changes, wrecked suspension makes it harder to corner; steering response becomes less and you may pull to one side if you damage your steering system, damage to the engine will result in a loss of acceleration and reduction in top speed, and broken wheels will reduce your stability and handling. Now, imagine all of that happening at once. To be quite honest, you’re not going to finish the race. The cars do seem to take a ridiculous amount of battering, but when they are damaged, it’s hard to continue, so be careful when your hurling into a corner.
Xbox Live - A Living Hell of Moaning Kids
The last thing I want to talk about is multiplayer, specifically for myself, Xbox Live. You have 4 options; Quick Match (finds the first match available and puts you in it), Custom Match (you can define what type of race you want to participate in), Create Session (create your own game) and Private Match (where people can only join if invited). Events are chosen by voting, the race type with the most votes being the game to be played. You can gain experience from winning races, enabling you to rise in the ranking system, and have a pretty rank next to your name. The more people in your race, the more points are on offer. There is of course the standard leader board as well, so you can see if you’re the next Michael Schumacher.
Finale
So, there you have it, I’ve laid out pretty much all the main features of the game. Personally, I enjoy it, it’s a fun arcade style racer, that’s not to hard to control, but still provides a challenge for the serious racer. As I said at the start, if you’re looking for a simulator, do not buy this game as you will be disappointed, but again, as I said at the start, if you want realistic, don’t get any game, just drive a real car.
Overall Rating:8/10
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