Really nice arcade/sim game made by Codemaster that was the sequel to the toca racing series and i love the direction that they take at the time and now is still a good game with a lot of content, but unfortunately there are some problem that the other title sequel to this improve about it.
For example, the difficulty, yeah is selectable but is really easy until you put like the last two difficult setting, the car selection is not that big and most of them are in the same category and ah the track list is really short.
But other than that is a really and solid game that create not only a really good series but created mechanics that are still in racing game to this date.

Nowadays, when people think about great racing games of this era, they think of forza, PGR, Dirt, Gran Turismo. The race driver series, the sucessor to the TOCA series, gets somehow forgotten. Racedriver Grid is the first in this series, and while it's not the best raceing game on the system, it's one of my favourites. Starting with the negatives, it's not a game full of different game modes, infact it feels a little sparse and you are basically left with 3 modes, campaign, single race and online mode. The campgain is quite confusing at first also. You start off doing random events for other teams taking part in a variety of different types of races, then suddenly you have your own team, it's not explained very well and there's little story and no training to get you up to speed. Despite these flaws, the racing itself is excellent. Your enjoyment of racing games probably largely depends on how well it aligns with your preference of Sim to Arcade style, and Grid rides this perfect balance of very difficult and competative arcade racing, which is helped by the excellent AI. Every race feels like a challenge, but not impossible, and the inclusion of rubber banding means that you are never laps ahead on you own like in some simulation racers. The races are fun and competative from start to finish. That's not to say it's fully arcade, you will need to use your break wisely and there is an excellent damage system which can mess up your stearing if you take too much damage, but you won't need to tweek your car too much each race. The campaign also features a huge variety of racing styles to keep you entertained. I really enjoyed the drifting events akin to Dirt 3, and the one on one races were really intense. For me it's some of the best racing to be had on the console, and I highly reccomend it if you enjoy hard but fun racing, of course this style is not for everyone.

Excellent variety of tracks, modes and cars in the first half, but by the end of the game it turns into the most annoying thing in the world due to the overuse of annoying tracks, extremely strange car physics (where opponents always don’t care about collisions and your car always flies off like cardboard) and incomprehensible jumps in difficulty (like Le Mans, where you are literally always behind a couple of rivals in speed and the track doesn’t really provide opportunities for overtaking). Well, or is it all just a skill issue of a layman in the racing genre. But at least in general, the concept of a career, variability in setting up your team and competitions are really not bad.

Finally, I get to play the game I most wanted to play. The opportunity to confront my own nostalgia once again and see if a game I love holds up to my memories. I've done this before, and it has turned out rather poorly almost every time. I am pleased to report that this is not the case for GRID.

Moment one, the interface the game presents to you fully sets the tone for the rest of the game. Its visual style, audio style, and musical style all perfectly encapsulate the atmosphere of the rest of the game, and being a 3D menu, it's a joy to look at. Then it sends you to the main menu instead of dropping you straight into a race like so many other games, which I hugely appreciate since it allows me to actually set up my controls before seeing a car on screen. Press the button to start the game, then it drops you straight in, as all games should.

The first race has you in a gray Viper on the streets of San Francisco, a fast car on a technical track, but not too fast or too technical. The game wants you to feel afraid, like you're barely in control, which is further aided by the fact that there are several jumps on this track. One lap, and you're done. It doesn't matter where you finished, you just needed to finish for the game to open up to you. After that, you're introduced to your garage - which is actually the main menu - and the ability to race for other teams, which you need to do so you can make enough money to restore a classic Mustang that's been set up for you. These offers from other teams immediately demonstrate the variety on offer in this game and give you a chance to get a feel for some new things, but before too long, you've made your money, you've got your Mustang, and now you have your own team with your own livery and sponsors.

Once you have your team, you gain access to the real game. You see all the different leagues - USA, Europe, and Japan - open up for you, and your Mustang qualifies for one event in each. The paychecks for these events are much higher than you got before, allowing you to quite quickly build up a large garage and be able to race in more and more event types. Win enough races in a league, you unlock the next level of that league. Win all the races in a league...

In one of these leagues, you are introduced early to Ravenwest. The team behind that sleek gray livery on the Viper you got to drive in the beginning of the game, the livery that looks so much more imposing than any other team. Over the radio, unlike every other race, you are told with a reluctant, even slightly fearful delivery to simply do your best, because that's all you can do against them. They're world class. Sure enough, they are far more difficult than any other opponents you've faced, entirely in a league of their own. When a racing game creates difficulty by making one or two opponents way faster than the rest, it usually sucks, but when you frame that gap as an actual in-universe skill gap, it becomes compelling. If you win all the races in a league, you unlock a one-on-one race against a member of this team, and the reward for winning is astronomically high compared to any other event. They have been firmly established as the rivals to beat, their cars stand out compared to any other in the game, they are ever-present from start to finish, and they make you work to win. But of course, they never speak, they have no faces, the only personality you can assign to them is what you see on track. This is why I call them iconic. If you've played this game, particularly if you played it when you were young and less than a perfect driver, you remember the fear of facing the most difficult opponents in the game and how amazing it felt every time you managed to beat them. You remember Ravenwest as an icon of glory. A name that stands above all the rest. Maybe you even remember them as something above you, despite being second place by the time you finished. I know I did, I projected a lot of admiration onto that faceless team when I was young.

This is all excellent presentation, but that's not the end of it. Every single opponent is a consistently reoccurring name, and they're all members of their own teams, many of them based on real teams, and each with its own unique and good looking livery. They all have their own specialties, many of them have identifiable driving styles, and they all exist on the same leaderboards as you, always reminding you that they exist during your quest to reach the top. Not only that, but you also have the ability to hire all of them to drive for you instead. Every name on the leaderboard can be hired if you have the money they want and the reputation they expect, and they all have different skill sets. In races, when someone spins out or crashes, you're also very likely to hear their names spoken verbally to you, either over the radio or by an announcer. It may not be much, but combined with the rest of the game's presentation and atmosphere, it really ties the bow on top of the immersive package. And that's before considering the great soundtrack, or how tense races begin to feel whenever the in-race music kicks in, or the fact that the crowd noise actually makes sense and only comes from places where there are crowds. Also, mercifully, there are no air horns in the crowd here.

But for me, the best part of the presentation by a humongous margin is the fact that this is a racing game about racing. That's all. Just racing. Motorsport is the draw, motorsport is the cool factor, motorsport is the thing that you're playing for, and motorsport is the only thing you're getting. No clout chasing, no media breaks, no interviews, no public image, no fans, no corporate interest, nothing. Just. Racing. And it's enough! GRID isn't just a driving game to pick up and put down whenever and not think about, it's a genuinely compelling single player experience, without adding any extra maddening nonsense, because surprise surprise, racing is cool, and it doesn't need to be juiced up with gimmicks to be compelling. The only thing close to a gimmick here is the money, because you have to keep earning more and the woman in the menu always talks about how much money you're making, but I don't mind that, because it's your money for your team that you earn by winning races, there is no extra nonsense putting undue focus on the money.

I haven't even talked about the gameplay yet, and we've already identified the biggest problem with every GRID game that came after this one. This is what made us love GRID. Nobody was playing GRID because they wanted to feel like they're famous, or to pretend they're playing with the rich kids, we all played GRID because we enjoyed the feeling of being an up-and-coming independent racing driver, and that's all. No nonsense, it's a compelling single player experience that delivers the independent racing driver fantasy, and nothing else. This is the identity that the later games abandoned. This is the identity that GRID 2 threw away so it could poison the franchise with all the gimmicks that GRID was better off without.

So, the gameplay then. The pattern continues, because not only does this game present itself completely differently from the rest of the franchise, it also feels completely different. Cars are still prone to oversteer and they feel a bit floaty, yes, but the cars also all have weight to them, and in spite of the slipperiness, tons more grip than any of the later games. The handling here is tuned specifically for thrills, because the fast and loose handling combined with high grip, high slip angles, and weighty cars, makes for races where you feel like you're on the edge of control all the time. It's one of the most mechanically satisfying handling models in any pseudo-realistic racing game I've ever played. Sure, hardcore simulators will be more satisfying in their own way, and wild arcade racers where the vehicles may not even have wheels and travel at 500 miles an hour will definitely be more satisfying in the fast fun factor, but GRID, I think, is the best combination of those two extremes. The cars still handle like cars and come with all the same challenges, but with just enough silliness on top to keep you on your toes and smiling all the time, while also being simple enough to avoid being taken seriously and taking away from the pure fun of it. Only adding to that fun factor is that every car has its own unique driving feel, so picking your favorites is more than just a cosmetic choice. Some people, both past and present, complain that the car selection is a bit sparse for this game, but considering how good they all feel and the fact that they're all actually unique unlike so many other games, particularly from this time, I can't accept that criticism.

There is only one caveat to the handling model. Don't turn the assists off. It doesn't make the game more challenging, driving without assists in GRID will not make you faster, and it will not make you look cooler or feel better about yourself. Turning the assists off makes the game feel downright awful. The options shouldn't even exist, if you ask me. My first reflex in most racing games is to turn off all assists, because usually I prefer that, but all it did here was spoil my first few races, and had me thinking that something was deeply wrong.

The track variety in GRID is also excellent, having a lot more actual race circuits than the sequel, better race circuits than the sequel, vastly more variety within those circuits than the sequel, and vastly more interesting street circuits than the sequel due to the fact that each one is actually hand crafted and has extremely distinct character to differentiate them from each other instead of being built out of generic blocks in a sea of boring architecture. Who would have guessed that a racing game about racing would focus more on, you know, good race tracks? One of the circuits happens to be Circuit de la Sarthe, which GRID will make you very familiar with as you are given the opportunity to compete in a condensed, 12 minute version of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the end of each season, complete with a day-night-day cycle on fast forward and a wonderfully over the top piece of music that starts playing near the end of the race and builds tension until finally reaching the crescendo when the race ends, which is great fun... but it does happen a lot, so I'm happy the option to skip that race is also available.

The fact that a 24 hour race is condensed down to 12 minutes should also make abundantly clear just how fast paced this game is. Aside from that admittedly frequent event, it is very rare to have a race last more than four minutes in GRID. Each event in a league consists of multiple rounds, so the very short races keep things quick and varied, never giving you the chance to get bored as you are continuously rapidly shuffled across regions and car types. The only way to stagnate is to specifically seek out the same race types over and over again. A few event types do last a bit longer than others due to having more rounds, like the knockout tournament events, but to compensate, each round is shorter, so the total event time is only slightly longer if that. And even with all of that said, you can still choose to quit at any time in the middle of an event, then resume later. The whole game is designed to keep things moving with fast action at all times, always keeping the fun factor maximized while delivering the racing fantasy in an effective way, while also truly respecting your time and allowing you to put it down whenever you want without consequence. You bought the game, and the game is here simply to please you, not to monopolize your attention. Refreshing.

There are more positives I could talk about, but I don't think they're particularly important, and I could probably go into more depth about a lot of what I said, but I believe my point is made. The game is great, unquestionably the best in the franchise. But that's not to say it is without its flaws. There are a lot of little things that could have been better, small details that could have added more, nitpicks here and there, but I'm not going to bother talking about any of those because none of them are important either, they didn't detract from my experience at all. Only two major flaws did, so that's all you get.

Obviously this game has an intense yellow filter, because of course it would, every game from this time did that. I hate it... but not nearly as much as I thought I would. Yellow filters make games look worse and cause environments to blend together into a bland indistinguishable mess, sure... but in GRID, they didn't just put on a gross filter, they leaned all the way into it. The filter in this game is actually part of its style, and it's treated as such, so all of the different environments still manage to stand out from one another despite being forced to share such similar colors, which I think is a testament to excellent design work on the tracks themselves. It would still absolutely look better without the filter, all games do, but I can live with this one considering how much work went into making this game work with it.

The biggest problem I have with GRID in the present day is definitely the difficulty. This game is very, very easy. Even against Ravenwest, I had pretty much no trouble. Growing up and getting good at things took a little bit of fun away. Now, I am definitely pretty good at racing games, but I'm nowhere near pro level, and I struggle to imagine my skill level being considered much more than "decently above average" at the best of times. My skill level is one shared by many, many people, quite the sizable audience I'd like to think, and the hardest difficulty in GRID is nowhere near enough to challenge it. I do appreciate the availability of easier options, and in this case, the lowest difficulty likely makes this game accessible to even the most casual of racing fans... but I wish there were more options higher up. It's a lot of fun to simply play the game thanks to how mechanically satisfying it is, sure, but I must admit that I sometimes miss the feeling of actually racing in a racing game. This complaint probably sounds like a humble brag to someone, and to that person I say play the game and see for yourself.

And that's the conclusion. Play this game. I don't care whether or not you've played GRID in the past, I'm telling you to play it now. Pick it up, download it by any means necessary, do whatever it takes to get this game and play it. Not only do I wish for more people to experience this game and see what a good, well crafted, well thought out, very well presented racing game - not a sim, a game - should be like, or because I want to prove that a racing game doesn't need annoying gimmicks to be compelling... I just think it's a good game and you deserve to have fun with it.

(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/i-played-every-codemasters-racing-game-to-prove-a-point/#grid)

Primeiro título da série GRID já vai fazer 15 aninhos mas ainda impressiona.

Lembro a primeira vez que vi esse jogo em meados de 2010 e não sabia se era um filme ou um jogo. Obviamente já existem títulos com gráficos e físicas melhores, mas não considero esse datado de forma alguma (exceto a fumaça).

A jogabilidade é o casamento perfeito entre simulação e arcade, com diversas funções de assistência pros jogadores mais casuais. É bem bacana e ao mesmo tempo puxa pro lado realista. O drift nesse jogo é um dos melhores e mais divertidos que já vi.

A seleção de carros varia bastante e conta com veículos desde JDMs até Concept cars, tudo dependendo da categoria do evento que você entrar.

O modo carreira não é tão complexo mas conta com diversas variáveis relacionados à equipe, como branding do seu time, parceiros de pista, temporadas com ranking, eventos reais como o 24-hour of Le Mans (que dura 24 minutos reais), etc.

Em suma, é um título que ainda tem bastante a oferecer apesar da idade.

É uma pena o jogo ter sido delistado na maioria das plataformas...

Recomendo fortemente para fãs de circuito.

An atmospheric journey through an international racing scene that needs to be played. While the game lacks a textual story, the slow progression from being a driver-for-hire on behalf of other teams to eventually creating your own team and dominating several different disciplines gives the game an arc even without characters or dialogue. Watching your garage transform from a ratty, sun-lit single-space to a massive, sleek vehicle bay manufactures a sense of career satisfaction that many other menu-based track racers completely fail to emulate. The way features are slowly drip-fed as you progress through the world stage (such as sponsorships and the ability to hire a second driver) helps the game feel like a directed experience rather than tool where you can test car-and-track combinations at the game's leisure.

And as if that wasn't enough, the Garage Music theme is enough to justify the game's score alone.
Take a listen: https://youtu.be/sTYFkHzaOuI?si=YEYjFB9C_xjQi9UW

True rating:
Gameplay & Mechanics: 10/10= ⭐️1
Graphics & Visuals: 8/10= ⭐️0.7
Sound & Music: 10/10= ⭐️1
Quality & Polishing: 7/10= ⭐️0.8
Setting & Campaign: 10/10= ⭐️1

1 + 0.7 + 1 + 0.8 + 1 = ⭐️4.5

Experience the adrenaline & dangers of professional racing with this inmersive banger of a game. The music and presentation are incredible, and while races have no music the majority of time, when it kicks in is utterly perfect, the soundtrack is definitely between my all-time favorites. The handling it's hard at first, but once you get use to it you will even be even better in other racing games, because this game will give you precision and sensibility at the wheel, but don't get it twisted, this game is still an arcade racer, you will be going at the same speed of a Need For Speed around the corners, sometimes I feel that is even faster with driving assists on. The physics are truly remarkable, specially in colissions, were you can even damage the car til' the performance is affected or there is terminal damaged, all of it being visually stunning and realistic. The game in general it's pretty simple, but effective, with a modest amount of vehicles compared to its predecessors but with a list of tracks and events pretty complete and varied.

The multiplayer mode is incredible for league racing, all battles are hard fought and there can be a good amount of chaos if an accident occurs. I have so many fond memories from playing with my friends via Gameranger. Still, the game is not available online and redeem codes are pricey (Not even mentioning that those reedem code stores are fishy as hell), physical copies have better prices if you have an external disc drive. I had to borrow a DRM-Free digital copy that a friend bought when it was available in GOG, a copy that ended up sharing with all of us. I definitely don't know if downloading a DRM-free game (meaning that it can be shared) that complies with the definition of Abandonware from a page online is piracy or not, if not I suggest you to download it LOL

I've played GRID quite a lot over the years, but I've never actually completed it. Cheers to me!

Race Driver: Grid is arguably Codemasters's best game, and a benchmark for what makes a great racing game. From a stylized aesthetic, to a fleshed out career mode, to driving physics that aren't too arcadey or too sim-like, this game delivers a satisfying experience from start to finish.

There are multiple event types (in addition to regular circuit racing, you have drift events, touge, and endurance racing), you can hire a teammate, apply some sponsorships which award money for finishing above a certain position, and customize your racing team's name, colours, and branding.

Your main objective, much like other racing games, is to climb the ladders in three different regions of the world, eventually coalescing into a global championship. Your rival team is Ravenwest, and they are genuinely tough to compete against.

The game does require a few tweaks to work properly on PC, and apparently wheel support is hit or miss (I played on a standard controller), so it's not a perfect game on a technical level. But if you can work around it, Race Driver: Grid is absolutely worth experiencing.