Driving a car – GRID a LOT of personalities (Picture: Codemasters)
A reader is angry that racing games have lost their ability to character and personality and looks back to the glory days of Race Driver: GRID.
I recently got an Amazon Prime free trial and since I had a few things to order in the coming month, I finally found the deal at once.
I spent the following weeks using my new Prime Video Access to watch new shows such as Invincible, Jack Ryan, and Good Omens. I just needed something to turn off and tune. So I turned up the British racing show Grand Tour, completely hilarious, and started doing that in the background. Inevitably, it generated an urge for a racing game.
It turns off the track a few laps apart. However, I can’t turn it off until some time ago.
When did racing games lose all their character?
Many years ago I often sat down in order to play one of my favorite games as a kid: Road Rash. This is a game that I play on my Dad’s Mega Drive console and was very popular in the 90’s.
That premise was pretty simple: it was simple: the result was the death of the victim.
Drive a bike between point A and point B, so you can avoid traffic, the police and other motorcyclists with weapons. Use the cash to buy a better bike and get more and more challenging.
This would not have had a story. Some of the cyclists trash talk and scoff (Biff often received a swift left jab on my way past) or even give you encouragement (and that will always be the one biker I clobber with a pipe)
Some people would increase your ranks. Even the monstrous early level bosses Viper and Shiva rose, settling in the middle of the pack to show the difference between the new competitors and the tougher ones.
It was a simpler time.
In the following years racing games split between story/arcade and simulation racing. Huge series like Need For Speed took a story-hit approach, and Project Gotham Racing took a unique approach to race. Then you had giants for the simulation fanatics Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport.
You’ve got cartoony circuit racers like Mario Kart, Formula 1s with licenced teams and cars and future racers like F-Zero and WipEout. There was a lot to play. The saturated market, a thing like this, didn’t have much to do, but in 2008 I played a thing that was unique.
The codemasters released Race Driver: GRID. He had an arcade like many of his peers. It had some bonded cars. It had some reputable tracks such as the LeMans 24s Circuit de la Sarthe. She was unique, too.
Start up the game and fill out your details (say that your name is Ashley). Once you enter the main menu, the games female AI voice will say Hello Ashley Your car is ready and waiting. You started up working in the team.
You pick your favourite event type (Track, Touring, Sport, Drift, even Destruction Derby if that’s your thing. Buy a second-hand car and work impressing enough people that a sponsor will drop you a line.
Soon enough you will have a fleet of custom-painted cars. A shiny sponsor adorns every part of the vehicle. You have enough room to work together.
You can’t afford to pay them much and they can’t drive much, but you make complete with everything you pay. You’re a rival team (Arnonwest) with a scarily aggressive team, and you’ll find that you and your team had a solid tiger like the bottom of two very long leaders.
The goal is simple: win races. That’s it. Go fast and win races. There are very few things to consider.
How much does the race pay? Does the sponsor have special requests for the competition? Can my team-mate even finish a race?
During the races your team-mate and team leader give updates and plans for the competition. Many times you will stay in the 24 hours of LeMans endurance and hear, sorrymate, sorry. The cars were gone.
The time rewind token is the last one of your limited flashbacks so you can save your unhelpful partner. It’s difficult to find your own 200mph supercar, so why can you try the finish with one or two seconds?
In fact, GRID has a story. He has won all his victories and washed a heart. It has had both tension and emotion. I didn’t take lightly letting my first teammate, Gaz the Welshman, hire the Scottish touring car monster David The Coop Cooper. When Coop started to shake me up in the tour, and hit me first in the season, I took the dreadful action to show him who he was.
It wasn’t just a check list of tracks that were in different conditions to race on. It wasn’t a 3,000 real-looking, sound-and-handling cars and 10 tracks to play on. That’s my team, my story, my name.
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Come back to today and I could play a racing game like Forza Horizon 5 and see the vistas of Mexico in all its splendor, driving a handsomely rendered 1960s Ferrari worth 30 million. I can do that but I’ll always find it nagging that no matter what I do.
The other cars in the race don’t care Im there. The race has no continuity, there is no stakes. I drive about a mile on my own and gain the same experience and rewards as racing another hundred other cars. That’s beautiful, yes.
Give me 10 car and 300 tracks, or have 300 or more cars or even 10 tracks every day. Give me a racing game with an environment that cares I a part of it.
Please?
Jay, reader of the books.
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