General Gaming Grid Legends is incredible and seemingly nobody has played it

[ShreddieMercury]

I'll preface this with saying that I've almost exclusively been playing racing games for the past few months.  Ever since my wife and I had a baby in November, my game time has been limited and I've stuck with stuff that I can hop into and out of very quickly.

 

Racing games fit this bill perfectly.  I've gotten really into the genre, and primarily focused on arcade racing games that are immediately satisfying and fun (the piss poor state of modern racing probably is threadworthy by itself).  It's been a blast to master the mechanics of older stuff like Sega Rally, Daytona USA, Hydro Thunder, Virtua Racing, etc.  Most of these games strike a perfect balance between accessibility and depth and have been incredibly satisfying to learn and play.  But I've started to recently also dip into modern racers.

 

That brings me to Grid Legends, which was boneheadedly released at the same time as Elden Ring.  Understandably, it's been fairly forgotten from what I can tell, but it is not deserving of having to struggle in the shadow of bigger releases.  This is a phenomenal racing game in almost every respect.  On the negative side It has a very cheesy FMV story mode directly ripped from Drive to Survive (still enjoyable though), and the main menu seems to have been EA-ified, though thankfully there do not seem to be any MTX.  This is primarily a single player focused, non open-world, sublime racing game that puts almost anything else in the genre in recent years to shame from my perspective.

 

It is arcade focused, but you can tune it to be realistic in very fun ways if that's what you fancy.  Playing from the cockpit view, the racing itself is exhilarating, and the handling is about as perfect for this type of thing as I think you could get.  The AI system is fantastic - the races are rough and tumble, and certain actions during races will make other drivers your "nemesis", which then affects how they race against you.

 

I have never played a Grid game before, so maybe they're all this good and I'm just out of the loop.  But if you like racing games, and miss the days when pure, adrenaline filled fun was the priority for the genre, you would do well to check this game out.  From my perspective it's been very critically underrated, and unfortunately released at about the worst time I could think of.

[Mr.Vic20]

I’m torn, on the one hand the reviews do paint a rose picture,  but on the other hand I question how impaired your judgement is as new parents rarely get enough sleep! 

[Keyser_Soze]

Now you know why EA bought them!

[Dodger]

Will play once it hits games pass 

[GameDadGrant]

No Switch version, no buy.

[XxEvil AshxX]

On 5/17/2022 at 5:54 PM, Mr.Vic20 said:

I’m torn, on the one hand the reviews do paint a rose picture,  but on the other hand I question how impaired your judgement is as new parents rarely get enough sleep! 

 

19 hours ago, Dodger said:

Will play once it hits games pass 

 

If you have Game Pass / EA Play  it comes with a free timed trial. There's really no reason not to give it a go.

 

I played it and it's good, just not amazing. I honestly think the Live Acton cutscenes hurt it though. They're not horrible, but they're definitely not good. And for god's sakes you'd think game companies by now would realize that mock-interview footage will never not be cringe.

 

[5timechamp]

Crap, its a good reminder to go find Grid for the Switch..

 

Love Forza and Horizon, but as nice as open world racing can be...it is nice to drive around in nice focused tracks.

[vaxick]

You have my interest.  After enjoying Wreckfest, I've been wanting to play another racer that has an arcade feel to it.

[ShreddieMercury]

16 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

 

If you have Game Pass / EA Play  it comes with a free timed trial. There's really no reason not to give it a go.

 

I played it and it's good, just not amazing. I honestly think the Live Acton cutscenes hurt it though. They're not horrible, but they're definitely not good. And for god's sakes you'd think game companies by now would realize that mock-interview footage will never not be cringe.

 

 

I agree that the live action stuff is very awkward, but I actually didn't mind having a bit of reasoning for the races, and the scenes are really short.

 

I'm curious what you'd consider better gameplay wise than this - what other racing games do you like more?

[XxEvil AshxX]

On 5/19/2022 at 10:31 AM, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

 

I agree that the live action stuff is very awkward, but I actually didn't mind having a bit of reasoning for the races, and the scenes are really short.

 

I'm curious what you'd consider better gameplay wise than this - what other racing games do you like more?

 

That's just it... GRID (the original) was one of my favorite racers ever (and I've played a LOT of racers). Then GRID 2 was okay.. but it had that randomized track bs that almost completely defeated the purpose of precision racing. GRID Autosport was... boring. The GRID reboot was better, but still lacked the overall presentation that the earlier games had. 

 

GRID Legends is a good game, but it just can't quite grab onto what made the original special. The tension in a race just isn't there. The "woah" moments when a car goes airborne in front of you and you narrowly escape a head-on collision was special to the original GRID, and the cutscenes that occurred if you initiated a rivalry on the track gave the other opponents a sense of identity and personality. Maybe that happens in GRID Legends but I never experienced it during the ten hour trial. 

 

As far as arcade-leaning racers go, GRID is still one of my favorites, but the series seems to have been struggling to recapture its identity with the last few entries. Everything about the game is technically great, but it has no soul.

 

To be fair, I think DIRT 5 is just the opposite. That game was overflowing with personality but the racing just sucked. Probably my least favorite out of all of the DIRTs. Also Gymkhana can go f*** itself.