In recent memory, the GRID series has had its fair share of the ups and downs over the years as they sat beneath the shadows of their sister series like F1 and Dirt. And after the EA acquisition, Codemasters thinks it’s time to return back to its rather interesting and linear routes for this long-running racing title.
So is it a good racing title? Yes (and not at the same time) Grid Legends might have been overshadowed by a certain release of another famous title, but you shouldn’t sleep on this one too. Because GRID Legends perhaps could be the underrated racing title of 2022, albeit with some letdowns along the way.
Presentation
The first thing to note is perhaps the story mode, “Driven To Glory”. This not only references that one Netflix show about open-wheel cars, but it doubles as a callback to the series’ older routes, which was the TOCA Race Driver, especially the characters that you meet during its 20 ish chapters.
The graphics have seen quite a bump from the 2019 release, with the Current-Gen versions playing at a solid 60fps, and it does look a lot sharper than before and its color palette looks more striking than the rather drab-looking previous entry.
The sound also gets a good buff as well, with cars sounding meatier than ever before. Especially for those vehicles that have distinctive tones like the Ford GT or Holden V8 Supercars. And though the background noises are reused, it’s nice to fill the atmospheric feel of a race weekend.
However, the Menus and UI are quite a mess still. It feels disjointed like before and to change both your team and driver names, it still needs to navigate to the Profile menu before you are able to change anything, when compared to both the original GRID and GRID 2, this one feels more of an afterthought once again, which is a shame since this Team aspect takes a major backseat this time when comparing to older games in the series.
Gameplay
For the GRID series, it usually straddles along the lines of a simcade racer and Legends has made some good improvements on the handling to be as smooth as its 2008 counterpart, with powerslides from the last iteration being a bit nerfed for better driving. Basically, it won’t drift everywhere now (unless you’re doing the Drifting events).
And besides the story mode, it also sees the return of the game’s career mode, where your own team goes racing in six different categories and be the best team within the GRID series (also an old staple).
But this time, the team aspect takes more of a back seat with how it is structured. For once, you can’t change teammates anymore and your sponsorship feels half-baked in all honesty (like who wants to drive ONE category for 95km, which is basically 3 hours of driving one car type). This is rather disappointing considering how tedious these races feel can be even on Hard, which makes playing this mode pointless than before.
It’s as though they tried making the career pathing similar to their older TOCA Race Driver titles but really, it takes away the personal aspect of the team which GRID players are more fond of. Which is a shame really because you can see characters from that story mode being rivals in your career mode but you can’t hire them anymore and that’s a dang shame, really.
Content
Grid’s new story mode will get you around 5 hours of gameplay following its Netflix style cutscene and challenge series racing approach. It’s a pretty good story, mind you and although it won’t win any best story category (bar us in Gamermatters.com), it’s rather intriguing to see story beats that perhaps might be similar based on real-life motorsport stories.
In short, the game might be a 10 – 20 hour affair if you take into account the bare-bones Team’s Career Mode. But there is a plus side of the Codemasters game having a year’s worth of DLCs coming after launch, which will see more new races for the team’s career mode, which will see that time to beat might be different within next year.
Personal Enjoyment
It seems to me that the GRID series is now at an impasse due to its developers now under the helm of their new owners that values profit over quality. And sadly, this game is another flawed racing title that’s within Codemaster’s release window of one other racing game before the yearly F1 release (Onrush for F1 2019 and Dirt 5 during F1 2021).
But that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy my time with Legends, it is a fun racer with great handling and feel of speed (especially for the Pro level cars like the IMSA Cadillac or BMW M1 Procar), but it doesn’t have anything to prop it’s pretty good story mode since both the Team’s career mode and even multiplayer feels barebones.
I just wished it still followed the 2008 game’s style of team management but touched it up a bit to make it modernized, and I don’t think I’m alone in that sentiment.
Conclusion
Grid Legends is a great simcade racer with a pretty engaging story mode, that of which embodies the Netflix Style Docudrama to a perfect T. But other than that, its content isn’t exactly worthy for a full game release due to its rather bland nature when compared to its 2019 counterpart.
But if you get the game on sale later in the future, this might that underrated racing game fix that you just might need.
Played on Xbox Series S, Review copy purchased by reviewer.
Grid Legends
A great simcade racer with a pretty engaging story mode, but other than that, its content is rather bland in nature.
- Presentation 8
- Gameplay 7
- Content 6
- Personal Enjoyment 7.5