Grid: First play of Codemasters’ “rebooted” racer

After an especially unremarkable grand prix in France, F1’s visit to the Red Bull Ring was a triumph for one reason: With a handful of laps to go it was still hard to predict who would win it.

Motorsport at its best can be thrillingly unpredictable. And it’s that which Codemasters believe can set their rebooted Grid franchise apart from a crowded field of rival car racing games.

“The reason I love watching motorsport on the TV is I don’t know what’s going to happen,” enthuses game director Chris Smith. “There’s mechanical failures, there’s personalities. Some days some people are just better, some days the conditions favour a particular team.

“When I look at the market these days there’s casual games – great, amazing games like [Forza] Horizon, Need for Speed, Burnout – which are casual but they’re not motorsport. They’re great racing in nice cars but they’re not motorsport.”

On the other end of the spectrum are the games with more of a simulator feel. “It’s very dry for my personal taste and it doesn’t truly represent what I see on TV,” says Bird. So, is there a niche for a game with a strong motorsport angle which puts the emphasis on racing action – and does Grid fill it?

‘Real’ racers

To have great racing you need some opponents. Grid is populated with a roster of 400 individually-tuned AI rivals, some of which are unlocked as you proceed through the game. They all exhibit differences in their ability, racecraft and driving styles, to the extent that in the game you should regularly find yourself in close competition with computer-controlled drivers of a similar sill level to your own.

On top of this you can select ‘partner’ drivers to join your team. This is an idea familiar from its five-year-old predecessor Grid Autosport, which the team believe has now been implemented more successfully.

“When I play Autosport, as much as I love it, whenever I told my partner to do anything invariably he crashed and came last,” says Smith. “We really want to make sure that the partner meant something this time around.”

Not only do these ‘partner’ AIs vary in their skill levels, but also their loyalty. One could turn out to be “a guy who hates you”, says Smith. “He’s a great driver and he’s very aggressive and he’s very successful. So when you ask him to do something in the game the engineer’s going to go ‘no, he’s turned off his radio…'”

When the race begins, the hand of the game’s ‘choreographer’ helps keep things interesting. This influences how the race evolves around you, Smith explains.

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“The choreographer looks after three things. Mechanical issues: Anything from an engine having a fault for a couple of laps to a wheel coming off, an engine blowing, or mechanical failure that takes the driver out of the race.

“The second thing it looks after is mistakes. Any driver can make a mistake from really subtle mistakes that you might not notice – a driver just taking a corner badly – to a car spinning out, crashing. The most obvious one is that you’ll see rolls.”

The third major variable is that, as Smith pits its “sometimes people are just better”. The AI drivers can therefore have ‘off-days’ when they’re not quite on it, or better races where they eat their porridge, trim their beard and perform at a level they may not necessarily reach the rest of the season.

Red mist

On top of that, your driving can also influence the behaviour of your rivals. Get too physical with an opponent and they become your ‘nemesis’.

“What the nemesis means is they’ve had it,” says Smith. “They’re done with you making contact and their goal in life is to beat you. One hundred percent. They just want to get in front of you and they will do anything they can to do that. We give them a boost to their skill, they will take bad lines in the corners to block you and they are the only AI type that will initiate car-to-car contact.”

Up to five drivers per race may become a nemesis, but it lasts only until the chequered flag, after which all is forgiven. Previous Grid titles were criticised for having AI drivers which were a bit too keen to initiate contact, but Smith is confident this has been addressed. “They don’t ‘PIT manoeuvre’ you because that’s annoying,” he explains, “but they will initiate ‘rubbing is racing’ because you did it to them.”

That philosophy extends to the regulations too. “We throw most of the rule book out because we want people just to have fun with the game,” says Smith. “We do have corner-cutting rules a few in there just to stop complete abuse of the game. But really rubbing is racing which we say we don’t encourage it but we don’t discourage it.”

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Career driver

The sprawling career mode contains over a hundred events and more will be available to download after the game launches. Events are grouped into 13 different series, including one themed around the star real-life driver who appears in the game as his Fernando Alonso Racing Team (did no one stop to think about that acronym?).

“All you need to do is complete seven of the 13 to unlock the showdown and finish four of the six showdowns to unlock the Grid World Series,” says Smith. This is a response to another criticism of Grid Autosport.

“If you’re a ‘completist’ you can do all 104 events, get trophies, get rewards, get achievements, there is something for you if you do put the time in,” Smith adds. “If you don’t have the time or you don’t particularly like GT or you don’t like stock cars you don’t have to play them.”

All the tracks and cars in the game are unlocked from the start. Codemasters say they want players to have the flexibility to play the game the way they choose. “You paid the money,” Smith says, “it’s your game, play it the way you want to and have fun with it.” Smith confirms this will also extend to DLC, where the tracks plus one suitable car for each course will remain free so players don’t get left out.

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At the wheel

Despite the game’s emphasis on entertainment, the team want to offer a convincing driving experience for hardened players who crank up the difficult and switch off the driver assistance.

“We don’t dumb down the handling,” Smith promises. “We haven’t got an arcade handling model and a sim model. What we have is assists which can be turned fairly heavily on. What they do is allow the player to control that handling easier.”

Based on our time playing a pre-release build of the game, players of any skill level can pick up and play Grid with a gamepad and immediately find yourself in the cut-and-thrust of a midfield scrap. And immensely enjoyable it is too, with parts flying off the cars, spectacular aerial crashes and some downright sneaky AI rivals.

While Alonso’s input as a consultant has inevitably been restricted by his limited availability, the team have enlisted another professional racing driver and a pair of Esports aces to help tune the driving model.

How stern a challenge Grid will present to more seasoned racers is something we’ll wait to pass judgement on until the finished thing arrives. The team is still tuning the AI to suit the game’s 12 different circuits and 82 available routs configurations.

The game was originally due out in September but that has been pushed back by a month, which Codemasters say is to avoid going up against blockbuster rival titles. This year’s less than unpredictable Formula 1 championship may well be decided by then, so we may welcome the injection of racing adrenaline Grid hopes to offer.

Video: First play of Codemasters’ Grid

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