While the handling errs towards the arcade end of the spectrum, the tight courses and mechanical damage still conspire to keep players thinking two corners ahead at all times. It’s a one-size-fits-all model, with no driving aids, but it still clings to one or two of its sim-like characteristics. Grid 2’s handling has a foot on each side of the fence grippy, with a good sense of weight – particularly under heavy braking – but honed to emphasise drifting. However, missteps with how it approaches its track content will harm its long-term appeal, and further shedding of its sim-based roots will continue to alienate fans of the racing games Codemasters made back in the late ’90s and early 2000s. It’s well executed and easily the measure of the award-winning original in all but a couple of areas.
Grid 2 is a confident, aggressive, good-looking racer that boasts a level of focus last year’s Dirt: Showdown didn’t have. Fortunately, Codemasters seems to agree, unleashing Grid 2 from the paddock just in time for the final few laps of this generation. It would’ve been a shame, considering you can trace the lineage of the series back to 1997’s TOCA Touring Car Championship. With the Dirt series and the F1 license sucking all the oxygen out of Codemasters HQ ever since, until recently it seemed the fire for a follow-up had gone out.
It’s been five long years since Race Driver: Grid.
