My Thoughts on GRID 2 [PC Version]

 [Originally written on 18th Dec 2019]

 Usually I write my thoughts on a game after I finish it, but in this case I had to make an exception, not because GRID 2 is fantastic, but because it sucks. Well, either that or I am a terrible racer (although if I were it wouldn’t explain why I went through NFS: The Run so quickly or completed NFS: Most Wanted on a laggy 1 GB RAM PC or finished NFS: Carbon with its deadly canyon races).

No other racing game has made me so exasperated as this one. Come to think of it, this is the first racing title I’m playing outside of the NFS franchise. Are NFS games too easy or is this one too difficult? I don’t know.

First off, this game should have been titled DRIFT 2, not GRID 2. Every single car in this game will drift. Write that in stone and bang your head with it. You will when you get to season 4 of the WSR in GRID 2. It’s a paradise for a racer who knows how to drift or more correctly, who knows how to control his drift. For others it’s simply hell. You cannot win one race in here without drifting.

It’s all good for the first couple seasons, but after that the game with its wobbly tracks and cars whose tyres feel like they’re smeared with oil makes you want to rip your hair off.  I am at season 4 now, and my patience has finally run out. I Alt+F4ed the game. I was so pissed off I didn’t even want to look at it anymore.

Let’s go through the major elements specific to a racing game and I’ll tell you how each played a role in bringing me to this stage:

1.      The Tracks: Frankly, the ones in season 3 and 4 look like they were drawn by a kindergartner whose fingers were shaking due to a panic attack at a drawing competition. Pardon me, there are some that don’t look like that, but that’s probably because they were drawn by an architect in love with perpendiculars and 90-degree curves. These tracks are so full of non-negotiable curves that a guy will begin hating curves after racing on them. For a game that has speed as its main feature, these tracks are there to teach us to be slow. I hit the brakes more often than the accelerator, if you can believe it. For someone stuck in traffic, yes, that statement is truly likely, but is it so for someone who’s racing? Apparently, that’s what GRID 2’s motto seems like.

 

2.      The Cars: Drifting machines, the whole lot of them. When you race, you accelerate, you gain speed. Perfect. Then you turn. Nuh-uh, wrong call, now you drift, spin out of control, make wild 360-degree turns in both xy and xz planes and eventually, crash. This happens invariably once in every race in GRID 2. Why so? Because you forgot to brake before turning. Sure, as far as sharp turns are concerned it’s only logical to slow down a bit before turning, but would you really brake at wide turns and risk losing a rank or two? Not me, at least. Unfortunately, GRID 2 leaves no option for you. Either slow down and watch other cars (who seemingly know the perfect combination of braking and speeding to safely negotiate the turn without colliding with boundaries) zoom past you or keep on speeding until you hit a fence or stone and somersault away. There’s still a narrow window between these two alternatives. This can be achieved through sheer practice. And patience. Remember, you are racing. Be patient.

 

Even if you somehow mould yourself to brake sufficiently at corners and are crawling your way through it at, say, 150 kmph (compared to other racers on the track this actually feels like crawling), even a minor brush with the side lines will send you flying and screw your focus. Turning corners in GRID 2 feels like threading a needle, docking a spaceship, walking a tightrope, performing a surgery. If you enjoy all those, you’re welcome to GRID 2. And not just side lines, if you happen to so much as brush a car while turning, the result will be same, and what’s even more frustrating is the other car will race ahead, unscathed.

Eventually you’ll learn to resort to dirty practices such as blocking the path of the car behind you, because you’ve been victimised so much by these bullies of GRID 2 who top the charts regularly while you, who once sought the topmost spot on the podium so eagerly, settle for a 2^nd or 3^rd place just to end the current season in hopes of a more manageable next season. It never happens.

 

3.      The Physics: As I said, cars (your car, to be precise) will fly around for no fathomable reason. After a 5-second-long stretch of clean, successful driving you might start thinking – “Hey, I might actually see this race through!” when BOOM! Your car has veered off track and the next moment it’s lost somewhere in the trees lining the road. You didn’t even hit anything but might have brushed against something. In any case the crash feels too exaggerated for just a brush. By the time you are reset back on track with zero speed, you have already dropped from 1^st to 12^th. There’s no chance of a podium finish and no option but to restart it all over again as even Replay (rewinding to the last few seconds) won’t help now.

 

So yeah, the physics is pretty messed up. Of course, there is every chance that these are the words of an amateur racer who played the too easy NFS games and pooped his pants when an actual racing game like GRID 2 came along. This might be the case, I won’t deny, a bad workman blames his tools and all that, but I also think that if this game frustrated me so much after having played so many other racing games, then there must be a reason for it.

 

That was all my frustration for the game. Oh, and one more thing. The graphics are pretty good, and cars look fabulous in Vehicle Challenges, when they’re in their original form, because they are not yet owned by the player. After they are won in the Vehicle Challenge, they are turned white and shrouded in sponsor logos, and that’s how they appear in subsequent races. And no, you cannot customize your cars in GRID 2. Not the color, anyway.

 

That’s GRID 2 for you.

I’m abandoning this game for now; I’m so done with it. I may give it a shot sometime in the future, but if the result turns out to be the same, which it probably will, it’s going beyond the Recycle Bin. That’s for sure.