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When I got a chance to try out GRID Legends and its story mode a month ago, I wasn’t impressed. Sure, the graphics are well done, but the driving controls and the car’s feel are almost catastrophically bad. It was very disappointing that everything felt so jerky and choppy. It feels like driving a bumper car in any amusement park and constantly getting hit by others. Fast forward one month, and I got the code for the side-by-side evaluation of a ancestor. To be honest, I wasn’t very excited and felt like I was going to have to put up with it for a few more hours. But to my surprise, Codemasters has improved the game so much since then. Of course, the driving feel is still not as good as it should be, like in Forza Horizon 5, for example, but the biggest issues in the preview version have been ironed out. The problem that remains, however, is that it’s still not very fun to drive. For me, it just wasn’t realistic enough for me to get an analog feel, and it wasn’t fun enough to deliver the arcade-style racing thrills.
Also one thing I don’t quite understand is how Codemasters can appear to be so successful in small details, but fail in other important parts. They managed to do a really good job with the spectators at the track. At some races, instead of the static background panels that they used to feel, spectators would lean over the fence to cheer on the racers. These are the little highlights that make me happy. Meanwhile, Codemasters screwed up the part where the rain splashed on the car when driving in the rain. If you’re driving behind another car while it’s drizzling, you won’t see any extra water droplets on the windshield if you choose to drive from the cockpit camera’s view. In fact, there was hardly any splash. Driving across the pool made no difference — not at all. And I was very disappointed with the feeling of driving in the snow. Snow could be seen by the roadside, but it had never been bigger than a few small flakes slowly drifting to the ground. Driving in the snow leaves no ruts, making it feel like an old racing game from 2003. It’s a shame when different weathers (sun, cloudy, rain, storm or snow) actually look very pretty. The rain was fine and the roadside snow looked great, but that little extra was just missing.
However, there is one part of Codemasters that deserves high praise, and that is how they design the various tracks. We got 22 different tracks, each with many different variants (over 130). What impressed me the most was the city track. Places like London, Moscow, Paris and Chicago are all doing well. If you’ve been to any of these cities, you’ll immediately recognize the character. “Wow, I walked down that street!”, “Oh Oxford Street, now I want to go shopping at Primark” and “Look, the Golden Gate Bridge!”, these are sure to come to mind. Also, the different versions of the city track are sufficiently different that it shouldn’t feel like running a shorter version of the same track. Two races in a row in Story Mode take place in Moscow with completely different tracks. This is probably where the developers put 90% of their entire energy into, story mode.
They’ve done a really good job with the story mode “Braking Point” in F1 2021, and they’re trying to work their magic here as well. Instead of using computer-generated characters, they chose to invest in real actors and come up with a documentary-type story; the same kind of documentary as Netflix’s hugely popular “Formula 1: Survive” dramatic feeling. It all started with a crash that my character was involved in, and then went back in time to show what led to it all. From signing with Seneca Racing a few days before the debut because their test riders opted out. Seneca is a very problematic team, and of course things will change when Driver 22, my character, joins. But there are issues from time to time, but the story is okay. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a hard time empathizing with this story. In F1 2021, we play a racing driver with a strong personality and personality. But Driver 22 is never visible. He/she never speaks. Never show your face. It’s hard to resonate with a character like that. The actors did a good job overall, but overall the story quality of the 36 chapters has not reached the level of “Braking Point”.
If you want to play something else, there is also a career mode to choose from. The content is good, there are many different types of races, from electric cars to station wagons. We start with the Novice level, which has 8 different categories. Complete enough goals in 250 Pro events to unlock Semi-Pros, Pros and more. However, it feels like game after game, and nothing special. I know a lot of people will love it, but I would love to see something extra. You can create your own racing team logos and vehicle appearances. However, this decal and color look couldn’t be used on all cars, and I had to go into each car and manually change the look. Multiplayer allows up to 22 online racers to play together, where you can create the race you want. Friends can also join and drive with you in career mode. You see a friend come online and think it’s time for a competition? You can join in the middle of a race and take over a computer-controlled racer. Multiplayer games can also be played across platforms. GRID Legends just got better in just a month, and it’s really impressive in its own right. But the question is, how would I feel if I’m only playing now, not before? I might consider the whole game to be pretty mediocre, with some really impressive parts, but the driving doesn’t feel good enough to keep me here for long. Finally… Codemasters can do a lot better than this.
