Grid Legends preview career mode: First impressions

SponsoredA Tribe Called Cars merch

Grid Legends preview gameplay coming at you, courtesy of full access to the career mode – real actors and all. Here’s the written version taken from the YouTube video.

With Grid Legends nearly upon us, the developers let me look at the entire career mode. The story, like in F1 2021, takes a Drive to Survive documentary approach. Except here you get real actors standing in front of green screens for CGI purposes.

It is a technique video games make surprisingly little use of, but then it made sense during a time when filming on location would have been difficult at best and impossible at worst. Not to mention it ticks the nostalgia box for anyone who remembers the Command & Conquer series.

Now this video is not a full review or even a full preview. The Steam executable I was given only let me play each career race back-to-back. There was no menu system, no multiplayer and I was told to avoid critiquing the AI and other fundamentals. Which I failed to do.

In any case, the main thing is that the gameplay should speak a thousand words. Hence why you will see me chuck various cars from various racing disciplines around like car damage is optional. Which, in Grid Legends, it is.

I am using a controller to drive the game because steering wheel support is not yet fully implemented and I would rather wait for the review copy. I have seen other YouTube folk making it work nicely though.

Grid Legends preview: A visual treat

In the Grid series this is the fifth game and – when running on my RTX 3080 and 3900X-equipped PC – a very pretty one. This is probably how developer Bizarre Creations pictured Project Gotham Racing back on the original Xbox if hardware limitation was not a thing.

Consider me impressed by how well the game performs – 60FPS was consistent even with super heavy rain making the track wetter than an otter’s pocket while sharing the track with 22 fellow racers (six more than before) in dense cities such as London, Tokyo and San Francisco.

This bodes well for both lesser and fancier PC gaming systems because it means that, in theory, the door is open wider for 120FPS gaming even at that pixel-heavy 4K resolution.

As you can hopefully see, locations take a realistic approach. Well, just short of seeing the Queen and her Corgis in the window. (Not a euphemism.) Streamers and fireworks add vibrancy and life, making each event more of a spectacle.

Plus you get little details such as burnt rubber on the roads, excited crowds, flags that sway in the wind (well, some of them) and other details to make everything more believable.

Grid Legends: Career mode

Because spectacle and theatre is, quite noticeably, the aim of the game. Between each race is a cutscene that pushes a dramatic story along. You are driver 22, someone brought in to replace a fellow racer who liked testing the structural integrity of crash barriers and roll-cages.

The story begins 16 months in the future as you witness a crash that would make an insurer wince. We are talking Destruction Derby, Twisted Metal and Carmageddon levels of mangled metal, cracked carbon fibre and no win, no fee whiplash.

Here we get our first glimpse of Grid Legend’s villain, booo, Nathan McKane, who shows little remorse after punting your teammate, Yume Tanaka, into a wall. It’s Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen all over again. Minus the appalling mid-race rule change.

Then we go back to the present day to see Seneca team principle, Marcus ado, bringing an Ikea peace lily into his office while taking a rather obvious position on whether some racing drivers pay their way in.

“Hey gorgeous.” Hey.

Some of these exchanges, earlier on in particular, are clunkily written and fall flat. Serving as examples of modern-day Netflix scripting, when the writers care more about shoehorning in a popular political theme than the actual story.

However, the good cutscenes build anticipation and add interest while giving Grid Legends a unique vibe. You end up feeling something for each character. Particularly the bad guys over at Ravenwest.

McKane being a show-off does make you want to win more, but the actor delivers his character in a weirdly likeable, charismatic way. He embodies that Aytron Senna ‘if there is a gap, go for it’ racing mantra.

Meanwhile your teammate, Tanaka, who does not like a rookie like you and I crashing the Seneca party, quickly became my nemesis. A little because I found her initial abrasiveness annoying, but mainly because I used her car to get round corners.

Ncuti Gatwa, of Netflix show Sex Education fame, plays one of your other rivals. In one scene he is joking around about being a ten-times Grid champion. He then breaks the fourth wall (House of Cards pre Kevin Spacey disgrace style) to tell you, in a way that is simultaneously jokey and menacing, that he did nearly win once.

Then there is Seneca’s lead mechanic, who comes across as knowledgeable but is most easily characterised by the fact he is simply happy to be there.

Without giving away any spoilers, what I have seen so far has been mostly compelling. That is not to say I find racing without dialogue dull or any less meaningful, it is just that most motorsports are defined by the racers, their highs and their lows, the rivalries, their charisma. Adding that in, as opposed to text names on screen, is a nice change of pace.

The not-so-good stuff

Undoing some of that immersion, however, is the pre-race dialogue, which ranges from spot on to cheesy and oblivious of your current racing form. Despite a string of comfortable victories in my opening season, the commentator made it sound like I was a mid-pack, out of contention ghost.

Races usually end with a chequered flag, but you also have lap tests and other challenges to add variety. Elimination being one of them, where the last two racers are removed every few seconds until a 1v1 showdown and subsequently a winner emerges.

Another interesting addition to Grid Legends is the electric car racing. Appearing later in the game, these races are weirdly silent yet the ability to go wide for a temporary speed boost opens the door to tactical experimentation.

What about the handling?

The racing itself is what we would call in the business ‘arcadey-ish’. There are consequences for late braking and braking at an angle, for example. Understeer and oversteer are a thing. But then you can feel Grid Legends gives you a slight helping hand.

There appears to be Max Verstappen brake test levels of engine braking when you ease off the accelerator and acceleration out of corners feels subdued until facing the right way. To stop you from spinning out. A drift option in the menu exists that could be to blame, but it was unchangeable.

It just feels like there is some autopilot trickery going on, perhaps owing to the fact this is a pre-release version and I am using a controller. Within two seconds I was chucking these cars around as if I was a seasoned veteran.

And yet the need to maintain speed while trying to get as close to the barriers as possible and avoid spinning out with all assists off, coupled with seemingly human AI racers, makes things exciting.

Perhaps it is merely that the natural intuitiveness and fluidity of the handling physics just makes sense. To me, anyway. Hopefully to you too.

Codemasters has been thoughtful in other areas. There are multiple cockpit views, for instance, and you can remove the steering wheel for added immersion when using your own wheel. Also it is nice the AI makes actual mistakes – sometimes hulking great whoppers.

Everything sounds great, too, from the engines and music to the environmental sounds as you drive over certain surfaces or into barriers. Or Yume Tanaka. Sorry about that.

But then I did also notice some oopsies. The rain physics feels a little too close to normal tarmac as things stand, while I did find the medium level AI was more akin to easy mode in other games.

Or maybe it’s just that aforementioned intuitive handling making me unusually awesome.

Grid Legends preview: The verdict

Honestly, Grid Legends reminds me of older ‘simulator’ (in inverted commas) racing games that were, quite honestly, pretty arcadey yet rewarded driver skill and were just fun. Grid Legends feels fast, intense and it does a great job of making each car a unique driving experience.

Where a lot of games try to keep players around by chucking every car under the sun at them, Grid Legends wants you to get behind Seneca and work your way up the ranks. Savouring each victory and loss along the way as you go from rookie to legend.

All that cutscene effort does make me wish there was more involvement from a team management and technical basis, but then most people want to focus on the driving. A driver trying to prove himself – and make enough money to buy lavish items such as Ikea peace lilies.

It may not always hit the mark from a dialogue perspective, nor is the gameplay revolutionary or even that big on variety, but I commend Codemasters for trying to shake up a genre long overdue some innovation beyond aesthetics.

At the very least, the Grid Legends preview shows it to be a fast-paced racer with numerous locations, predominantly satisfying handling, great visuals, realistic sounds and a touch of drama. Will all that be enough though?

And that is it for this video. Subscribe and like if you enjoyed it. The Grid Legends release date is the 25th of February 2022. It will be available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, PS4 and PS5. Hopefully I can give you my full review soon. Take care, bye.