Announced during EA Play Live 2021, Grid Legends is the tenth installment of the acclaimed Toca car racing series, and the fifth installment of the Grid franchise. The simulation game took a few steps back on the one hand, and instead expanded the existing sections.
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One of the steps back is certainly the return to the single-player career, which in Grid Legends is double: there is a cinematic story, Driven to Glory, and a standard career. The story is the cinematographic transposition of the tale of two racing seasons in which Driver 22, the main character, is asked to start driving for the Seneca Racing team which is in the last positions of the ranking. The driver will have to deal with various types of challenges, on very different circuits and above all with very different cars in terms of driving style and characteristics. There are a total of 36 challenges to overcome, and the whole story can be completed in about 5 hours if played on medium difficulty.
Play the cinematic story, which was shot in the same technique used to shoot the Disney + TV series The Mandalorian, help unlock the first cars in the garage and the first races in the standard career. It makes little sense, however, to pause the story to move on to the career: the story is built to be a film of the struggle between Seneca Racingwhich climbs the rankings race after race, and Ravenwest, which instead remains high in the rankings with the excellent (but questionable) performances of Nathan McKanethe historical antagonist of the series.
The story, although very short, is not trivial, and also features moments of ‘action’, such as a fight that ended badly between McKane and Manzi, one of the youngest drivers. To see and play the story, it seems that this competition is true, and this is perhaps the concept of realism that with this chapter Codemastersthe developer, wanted to achieve.
The story serves as a flywheel to hook the player and make him continue playing even after: the Pilot 22, in fact, is precisely the avatar of the single player, which once the story is completed can be customized together with the details of the team, the sponsor and to the characteristics of the stable mate. And the points and credits that you earn are used to finance the purchase of cars and skill upgrades for the teammate.
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If in history cars are provided automatically, in the standard career the choice of the best car comes into play: there are over 100, and upgrades can be added after unlocking them with objectives to be achieved with the car itself. For example, after covering 10 km or running 5 races there. The career is not completed in a linear way: there are 4 categories, from beginner to Gauntlet, through Semi-Pro and Pro, for a total of 63 competitions, each of which has at least 6 races, some with more than one round. There are therefore approx 250 career events in total, each with different car and driving style requirements. The modalities are back Elimination e Driftalong with the classics Circuit, Backlash e Point to point. The races are unlocked in a transversal way: a race of one competition will unlock one in another competition, and this is a bit confusing, if only because the player has to switch from one competition to another by buying different types of cars in moments. close together, when it would be better to buy a car for a competition, complete it and then move on.
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The novelty, however, is the multiplayer mode, which is cross-platform and includes support for the entry ‘on the fly’ of new players in an already started session, to reduce waiting times in the lobby, making sure that the player on arrival take possession of a car previously driven by an artificial intelligence.
The game is enjoyable from the first race, and there are some tricks that make the experience more interesting: on Playstation 5, for example, the adaptive triggers R2 and L2 which control acceleration and brake respectively harden when the car is under or oversteer, and this happens with different intensity levels, depending on the car you are driving. Weather conditions can cause driving problems, as in real life: the sun can be strong enough to blind and diminish the visibility of the cars in front, or the rain can beat so hard that it wets the windshield or the camera from above, as well. enough to prevent you from seeing well if you don’t get close to the screen to focus on the scene.
Grid Legends is a simulation game that doesn’t want to take the place of Gran Turismo: it doesn’t offer granular car customization, nor pre-race tuning. It doesn’t even want to be an arcade game, because it aims to offer an ever higher level of realism and in various forms. It’s a driving game that holds comfortably glued on the screen for dozens of hours, potentially without ever getting tired. It is fast, but not casual: not very rich, but complete and varied.
Grid Legends is available since February 25, 2022 per Windows tramite Steam e su Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One e Xbox Series S/X.