- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
- 12,062 (2.75/day)
- Location
- Gypsyland, UK
System Name | HP Omen 17 |
---|---|
Processor | i7 7700HQ |
Memory | 16GB 2400Mhz DDR4 |
Video Card(s) | GTX 1060 |
Storage | Samsung SM961 256GB + HGST 1TB |
Display(s) | 1080p IPS G-SYNC 75Hz |
Audio Device(s) | Bang & Olufsen |
Power Supply | 230W |
Mouse | Roccat Kone XTD+ |
Software | Win 10 Pro |
Introduction
Grid Autosport is the third game in the Grid series. It is both developed and published by Codemasters, and is created in the EGO 3.0 engine, developed in house by Codemasters. This particular iteration in the series introduces the separate racing disciplines, of which there are five. These include Touring, Endurance, Open Wheel (F1), Tuner and Street. It also features an improved damage model.
Storyline
The general concept of the aim of the game is to take part in the various seasons (choosing between different disciplines as you please), eventually earning XP for season objective completion. The obvious idea is to have your team come first in each discipline and class (A – D).
Gameplay
You start off without a sponsor, in a Touring car race. The objective is to finish the race in any particular position, but to finish it all the same. Once you’ve done these two introductory races, the game skips through an intro video (720p, I can see the pixilation), and then seems to set your race settings to what it deems fit. You have your various options, including traction control, braking assist, steering assist, automatic/manual transmission, tyre wear, and a fair few other gameplay options. The only things I turned on were automatic transmission, and traction control, the rest was left off. The truly interesting thing about Autosport is that it seems to bring the player between an extremely fine line of Arcade style racing and Simulation racing. It’s not as detailed or difficult as a racing sim, but also not as blasé as an Arcade style racer, like Need for Speed. Instead it seems to implement the interesting aspects of difficulties faced in a simulator, but has a large enough buffer to make the entry level players capable of learning a little easier.
One thing I learnt is that you shouldn’t expect to come first place unless you have all assistance options turned on. Driving with raw controls was actually slightly difficult, and it took me a while to learn how the braking and throttling worked for cornering correctly. Tip: let go of the throttle as you come towards a corner, and a few seconds after use the brakes. This seemed to be a crucial learning stage. If you kept your throttle on, and then slammed on the brakes before entering a corner, you’d hit all sorts of trouble. Removing the throttle while entering a corner, and then braking marginally, followed by accelerating into the sharpest turn of the corner was the ideal way to succeed. This is probably obvious to racing sim players, but the newer and less experienced arcade racer players would take a few races to discover this. I certainly did, and after a few too many 8th place finishes before shortly coming to this realisation, I started over and everything went swimmingly. I even hit a 1st place finish on one of my Street race seasons.
Each driving discipline is wildly different, but I must say as a new player to racing games it was refreshing and fun. If you had just completed a Touring season, and wanted a change, you were totally ably to switch to a different set of discipline races and cars. The swift change from Touring to Open Wheel to Street was great. It felt like I had mastered a few different styles, and every single race felt different. Even when I completed a track I had previously driven, it played out very differently with the different styles of cars. It also made me realise why Open Wheel races had more laps. Speed was king in those, and cornering was quite frankly beautiful. It was however dangerous, as damage played a key role in the experience.
Damage is a big thing to monitor in Autosport, it can break your 1st place pole if the steering or suspension is broken. On straight my car would wildly flail to the left constantly if my steering was failing and the suspension had taken a hit. It becomes even more scary when you’re doing that in an Open Wheel race, taking corners at speeds in excess of 100MPH. Each system seems to have special (horrifying) effects when they’re on a warning or altogether severely damaged. For instance I noticed that a shattered windscreen slows your overall top speed, which is realistic you might think, but the kind of thing a lot of games may miss out. There are multiple ways of damaging your car, many different issues that come with them, and they scupper your chance of finishing in pole. It is possible however to win with a couple of damaged systems, but that’s why this game is not for the hardcore simulator crowd. You can kind of use other cars as a cushion as you’re going round corners, but it’s not advised. It slows you down, damages your steering and engine, plus you get bonus XP for completing a race with no car to car contacts.
Beyond disciplines being introduced, the game makes use of existing systems in previous games, including sponsors and the flashback mechanic (very useful for new players, and general mishaps if you’re accident prone). Flashback is something Grid players will be familiar with. In a spot of bother you’d wished you had avoided? Flashback rewinds for a short period until you’re happy with the point at which you’d like to continue. It’s not eternal however, you have limited flashbacks, and they only go as far back as a few seconds of gameplay. You can set the number of flashbacks in your game setup. The game is quite punishing. If you spin off, you’re going to lose a lot of positions, and it’s going to take you a fair amount of laps to successfully get back to where you were. Rival cars will be better at different racing aspects than your setup. You have to choose between cornering stability and top speed before each race on your car setup. This means you have to capitalise on your advantages, and enemies will capitalise on theirs. Flashback makes for a useful tool if you lose a lot of ground in one giant mistake.
Sponsors play a key part, in that better sponsors allow a more specific customisation on your car setup, fine tuning suspension and downforce. They also demand different levels of success in order to maintain their sponsorship. Obviously the better the car capability, the higher their requirements are to maintain. Usually it involves having a higher team ranking after a season, or consistently beating a specific rival. They’ll also have their own objective requirements and rewards, awarding varying amounts of XP based on their difficulty.
Controls
Keyboard and mouse in not a wise decision. Not in the slightest. I tried and failed. I had to switch over to my Xbox 360 controller, which the game has controls mapped for, and made the experience vastly easier and superior. Obviously there are options for other forms of control, the most obvious being the racing wheel, a choice made by racing connoisseurs. Beyond all this, the control feel of the game is beautiful. Succeeded in taking a corner and skimming past a rival is glorious, but messing it up is crushing at the same time.
Video Settings
The game has a wonderful amount, just right in terms of options, and is fully DX11 enabled. The main issue I have is the immensely lacklustre effort for the internals of the car. When in driver seat mode, the ambient occlusion severely blurs everything that’s not in the view of the windscreen. I can understand wanting to keep focus on the track, but this really makes the inside of the car look like absolute crap, considering everything else looks so good. Outside of the track doesn’t look so great, but the cars themselves and the general track and skyline look pretty good. There’s also an interesting option for Intel iGPUs, a special kind of HDR rendering.
A super neat option in the game is the ability to use the second monitor. It can either display as a broadcast screen for online recording, or as a player stat/info screen in the middle of career mode races, showing rear car views and team position stats. Pretty awesome feature if you ask me.
System Performance
CPU: i5 4670 (Stock)
GPU: MSI GTX 970 (Stock)
RAM: 16GB 2133mhz
Storage: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Display: 2560 x 1440
Paired with the fact the port is actually extremely well done between consoles and PC, the engine is also vastly more optimised since the last game. Totally and utterly maxed out, the game performs extremely well, no pop in issues, and everything looks good. Frame rates are great, and the game is sponsored by Intel Integrated Graphics, so I assume it can run rather well on iGPUs with the HDR option enabled.
1440p
1080p
Conclusion
I started racing games back when TOCA racing was a thing on the Playstation, and dabbled in the Xbox 360 version. I even played a fair amount of Need for Speed and Burnout, along with about 3 or 4 hours of Test Drive Unlimited. Basically most of my racing game history has been with largely arcade style games, but I got bored of them quite quickly. I also never really had the chance to get to grips with racing simulations, the most recent F1 being my only experience. Grid Autosport is a beautiful mesh between the two worlds. It’s not quite as easy and forgiving as NFS, but at the same time doesn’t suffer the woefully inaccurate car stability and turning capabilities either. While it teeters closer and closer to the edge of simulation, it doesn’t quite make it all the way. This was probably designed to be approachable by the more arcade accustomed players, and I feel like the Flashback option breaks them in at the beginning. The learning curve isn’t that steep, and with a few pointers it’s easy to get the hang of.
Overall the experience was extremely satisfying. It felt more skilful than predecessors, but not as scary as the likes of more seasoned simulators. I felt happy with not being first, as I felt working hard for a 2nd 3rd or even 4th place position was a success in itself, as team position is what matters most. It makes you work hard on your driving skill, and rewards you for your minor successes, while giving players the option to make mistakes as they go along. It also offers some great driving styles if Touring or Open wheel isn’t your thing. Find Endurance boring? Hit up the street discipline for a few seasons, and then wander onto the Tuner side of things. It really does have everything for everyone, for all types of skill levels, and all types of driving preference. While it might not be accurate, and more of a broad and shallow representation of each driving experience, it’s still a great contender with games on either side of the skill curve.
Grid Autosport is available on Steam for £24.99/$39.99
Last edited: