To preface this review: I'm not really an avid racing game player nor have I ever even heard of this series beyond mindlessly scrolling past it on the storefront. This is from the perspective of a complete noob. When I play racing games I usually go for the more arcade-y stuff like Burnout or Split/Second and the Need for Speed Games. Basically the less focused it is on being a simulator the more fun I have. Driving around is always my favorite part in open world games and so nothing bores me more than a dozen mechanics and driving around some sterile track. That seems to be a lot of racing games these days though and so I usually avoid them. Much like fighting games they're a genre I don't particularly like but every now and then I just randomly decide to play one and get hooked on it and too addicted to play anything else until I get tired of it. I was starting to crave that for a racing game and then as I was scrolling through all the games that came out this year I saw this! Something that came and went this year seemingly without much buzz or recognition and didn't get many good reviews, but had a short story mode. It was perfect.

I do need to confess to a terrible thing I had to do to play this though. I wasn't just gonna pay its full price for a game I knew very little about so I had to make a deal with the devil. Don't condemn me, I feel bad about it enough. But I bought a month of EA Play. A terrible, horrible thing. I tried to justify it saying "ill use it to get a discount on the Dead Space remake or Need for Speed Unbound" but the truth is I just really fucking wanted to try this random ass racing game because it would make me feel better about not beating enough 2022 games this year. And what I got was well, pretty surprising.

This game actually has a very interesting mix between the two different types of racing games. On one hand its a very forgiving game not muddled with a bunch of different mechanics, but still gives you a bit of a challenge in the way you control your vehicle and that classic organized racing kind of vibe. It's not particularly what I like but if you're someone who loves the feeling of being in big (mostly) formal races without a whole lot of technical junk thrown at you you might get a good kick out of this one. I did find the lack of explanations for a lot of its mechanics to be a little frustrating but as mentioned the game is still pretty forgiving. A sort of easy to learn hard to master kinda deal.

The story, for a racing game, was enjoyable. Obviously things are really limited when its a game you are entirely restricted to your car in but what it does is nice. It uses live action scenes (much more effectively than a certain other series, thank god for the rebranding with Unbound) in a documentary like way. A tv crew is filming the characters. It's pretty nice actually. The acting is solid for the most part and some of the characters are pretty enjoyable, particularly Valentin. The actual story itself is basically nothing and the
"villains" are weaksauce however they do succeed at being extremely unlikeable. Legends does actually have a certain bit of charm to it however and Id say I liked it. Where the story fails however is that it has a really huge disconnect from the gameplay itself. Let me explain.

Difficulty balancing in racing games has always been a bit of an issue for me. Rubberbanding when used right can make every race feel tight and like a close one but more often than not it just makes the game feel cheap and unfair. Conversely if the game is too easy it becomes far more boring at a really rapid pace, which is a huge issue for this game. Most of the difficulty comes from navigating the tracks themselves and getting used to the different type of vehicles you drive. The AI is total garbage and you'll likely pass each and every one of them with relative ease. This means a lot of the game didn't feel like a racing game at all and more just a driving game where you try to turn tight corners all sad and alone. This is amplified even more when some races decide they want to be an agonizing 4 to 6 laps long and sometimes upwards of 10 minute levels that just feel like they're stretching the campaign length as much as they can. Where this comes into the story is that even for a shitty driver who bumps into everything like I, I basically never once lost a race. But the story doesnt change at all with that. So there were multiple cutscenes where despite the player character absolutely crushing everyone in every single match, you have a teammate bragging about being the number one of your crew or the villain characters saying they've been slam dick dunkin' all year and aren't worried about any competition. You could count this as arrogance but even in some scenes the sportscasters announce all the villains win yet again or how your character apparently had a crash inbetween levels. Its basically the racing game equivalent of whittling the boss down to 1HP like a pro and then the cutscene after showing your whole party crying half dead on the floor. I'm not gonna pretend to know jack fuck about game development but considering all the cutscenes are on the same small handful of steps surely it would be worth filming at the bare minimum slightly alternate scenes to reflect how well you're actually doing in the story mode. As is I really wanted to enjoy the story for what it was but stuff like that made it very hard to take seriously or get invested in.

Overall, I'd feel bad for giving GRID Legends a harsh score. While its true that its underwhelming and too easy to be exciting, It was the perfect little distraction to hold me over for a few hours and I really appreciate the attempt at making a hybrid of the two big racing game subgenres. Maybe next time guys. If you like this type of game, it's worth your time. Just get it at a steep discount and definitely not from EA Play lol. Thanks for reading <3

Trophy Completion - played on alt account huehue
Nancymeter - 55/100
Game Completion #134 of 2022
October Completion #11

Reviewed on Oct 30, 2022


4 Comments


1 year ago

Great review! I didn't realise grid was your favourite franchise of all time huehue

1 year ago

Best part of a new nancyfly review is seeing what kind of colorful language you come up with next

1 year ago

GRID Legends they should try to GRID some bitches next time huehuehue

1 year ago

DON'T YELL AT ME