Holy hell, this game is so fucking fun.
Basically, I think it's one of the most accessible, instantly fun racing games I've ever played. Sure it's arcade, and it drives like a dream. Thought around controllers or simply mouse and keyboard, it allows for lots of mistakes without looking ridiculous. All the cars have very different behaviours and drift a lot but they are all very responsive and reactive so everything comes out super spectacular. The whole game is extra crips, it feels good in all departments. But this is no Gran Turismo, it's an arcade racing game to the max, so don't expect real physics to apply, even though the fake ones are so fulfilling and satisfying that you'll often find yourself running one more race simply for the pleasure of driving.
Another interesting aspect is that they built some sort of a story around your character, so while you are just progressing through races of increasing difficulty, there's a narrative all around you which tells the traditional zero to hero story in a compelling and reasonably believable way. It definitely keeps the interesting up for me more than the usual "get one more car" approach. And it doesn't sacrify the real racing aspect, which is very well integrated with internet records, youtube replay uploads and even time comparing with your Steam friends. I am really loving the career mode. It goes on over 5 seasons and you win and lose "fans" with every race, a trick to hide experience point but that has a lot of consistency with the
mise en scène they came up with. Especially when you steal fans from your opponents after winning against a sworn rival. With enough imagination you really end up feeling the rivalries with certain annoying pilots and every race is a war with sparkles and crashes. The visual feedback on all that with flying parts and real damage is a lovely bonus. It helps that there are cutscenes and live commentators keeping the "world" alive and calling you by the name you have chosen at character creation.
I know f13 isn't big on racing games, but if you have even a mild interest on arcade racers, this is a must buy. The visuals are insanely good if you can crank all the stuff up, especially the light effects (California, OMG), and the car crashes and impacts are another delicious thing you almost find yourself going for when there's a tight road ahead and an obnoxious opponent is closing in. Framerate seems to be another big plus as the game runs at very high FPS on all machines I've tried it on. We are talking about 200+ FPS on my main rig and 80+ FPS on my laptop. Seems like they really built it with "speed" in mind.
They also introduced a mode I call "Diablo racing" both in multiplayer and single player where the track gets built in front of you while you race, basically giving you a different one every time you race and providing an interest platform for multiplayer races where it's all about being good at adapting more than just having ran more races on a given course.
I don't really wanna go the "review" way cause I haven't played it enough and ultimately I am sure none of you cares, so take this as my usual excited blurb about a new game I'm having fun with,but this is really, really satisfying. Forget the criticism you might have read around, about the lack of cockpits and the supposed dumbing down from GRID 1. It sounds like watching Game of Thrones and having someone telling you'd agree it sucks if you've read the book. Shush. Take this for what it is, forget about everything else and just race. I keep feeling a bit high, it is just proving to be
that fun.
It's worth mentioning that the cars range from Muscle Cars to open wheels to European GT to Japanese drifters. There's actual drift wars too, and a
very good recreation of the Initial D night races on Mount Akina. Granted, that was in Grid 1 too, but what's not to like?
It's
on Steam for about 40 moneys. Should anyone get it please let me know so we can be race buddies and you can have me bite your dust.
EDIT: Getting the game by tomorrow, official launch date, gets you about 4 €/£/$ worth of DLCs you'd have to pay for later eventually, on top of a weird discount on the full price.
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