[Originally written on 18th Dec 2019]
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 2nd or 3rd 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 1st to 12th.
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.
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