Written by Richard Winstone
I’m going to do a quick write up on the developer’s
introduction to the game before we get into the interview portion of the event.
He introduced the game as a mix not a sim not an arcade and explains that Grid
lives somewhere in between, the rules are limited to cutting corners and
“rubbing is Racing” allowing you to get on with it, out of the 12 tracks there
are 8 circuits 4 road courses and a total of 82 layouts, giving the more sim-style
track racing and the more street fight style city tracks. The AI on there
hardest setting has been competitive against the sports racing team and their
professional racing driver contracted for testing.
The assist gives the arcade style player the ability to
control the car in a simulation manner giving everyone the tools to enjoy the
game, and turn all the assist down provides a challenging race for the sim fan,
the principle for the game is the sim drivers will play it for fun, and the
arcade player will come to Grid for serious fun.
Your driving accolades will unlock Apex Style player cards
giving you the option to show off your prowess and your play style, and a
livery editor allowing some decent level of customization. This is joined by
the skill points gained through racing nailing a slick drift, of holding high
speed through corners.
The game is based on a three-pillar system, Accessibility
covered by the assist and AI adjustments, additionally you don’t need to
complete every race and every series to get to the final championship 7 out of 10
races per championship will unlock the final showdown 7 out of 10 showdowns
will unlock the final series so you can skip a series you don’t like. Pillar 2
is unpredictable Motorsport Stories, some days some drivers will perform
better, some are better in the wet AI cars can be affected by random failures,
spins, crashes all controlled by the games inbuilt choreographer that will
randomly adjust 8 AI racers per event and enhance 3-4 of them. The third pillar
is progression and rewards mention earlier with the player cards and accolades
including leveling up and a prestige levels for resetting at level 100, and
super rare gold accolades for extremely challenging driving skills.
The overriding philosophy is it’s your game, you paid for it, play it how you want. The unpredictable Motorsport stories are what really makes the game stand out, motorsport is unpredictable, and that’s what makes motorsport compelling to watch, you don’t know what is going to happen. Its not a parade of cars like many current titles there too predictable, 400 AI in the game and individually tuned, 72 partner AI that has loyalty, a loyal teammate will be compliant to orders, but may not be very aggressive and requires commands to push, or you could hire a top driver, very good, very aggressive but he may dislike you, they can and will ignore your race manager. In addition to this you have the rival feature, in a series within the first few races a rival will select you based on your position, and their goal becomes to beat you recreating some of the epic motorsport rivalries we all have seen and loved like Hunt-Lauda, Schumacher-Hill, Loeb-Ogier, so on and so on.
The lead developer Chris Smith is super passionate about
this game and I really had to cut down his into because I can’t and simply
don’t want to write a novel on a Tuesday evening, I hope I have given his
passion justice with this edit. So on to the Interview much like my other
review’s and steams I hold no punches.
Hive: its been 5 years since we saw a GRID title why
is the franchise making a comeback now,
Chris: Honestly I don’t know, we looked at the market
and with all the great arcade and sim games out like NFS, GTA, Horizon, GT Sport
there no place for the two styles of players to come together and have fun, a
new bread with the unpredictability of motorsport. You can add assists and hoon
around or turn them all off and go almost full sim.
Hive: The original Grid sold over 2 million copies
back in 2008 and was a great success, Grid 2 and Grid Autosport seen a pretty
large drop in sales, What is it about GRID 2019 that is going to bring back the
old fan and entice the horizon and GT Sport fan over?
Chris: I think its Grid going back to its roots the
game people remember, the rough and tumble mix with a sim, Grid was loved so much
because it was so different it changed the perspective on what a racing game
could be, the 400 AI, the teammates, the rival system the nemesis system the
unpredictability created by the choreographer the 82 routes 4 cities with 8
circuits, all put in a pot making every race different each time, much like
motorsport you don’t know what will happen, this also adds the fun of online
racing you never know what is going to happen. Its motorsport at its truest
form. You played it yourself and your
smiling.
Hive: that’s True it really is reminiscent of the
original, I played it as a sim looking for the best lines then I began to have
some fun hooning the car around and still making progress, the difference
between the street and race tracks add a lot of variety to how you play.
Chris: it’s a street fight vs a ballet. (plenty of
chuckles)
Hive: I couldn’t have said it better myself, the line
between sim and arcade we have seen is pretty blurred how have you managed that
balance>
Chris: were not 100% sim and were not 100% Arcade,
the reason is of your 100% arcade your compromise the sim, we are edged more
towards sim without the rules and regulation, ok if you keep cutting corners
you can get disqualified, but that’s the only rule, and we have street courses
and no one in the world will sanction a Porche 911 RSR racing around the hill
of San Francisco, that will never happen in the real world, but we have
authentic circuits authentic handling characteristics, you can turn all the
assist off, put the AI up to very hard and get that sim experience. We wanted
to make the sim experience as accessible as possible, as that how we looked at
it and how we could give them that without being masters of control if I can’t
pick up a game and have fun I’ll go play something I can, so we looked at the
assist put them up to 5 and the game helps you handle the handling, you won’t
spin out, you can get around corners, and you can drive and have fun, it allows
you to drive a sim in automatic mode essentially, its important to note we haven’t
got and arcade mechanics, it allows arcade/casual playstyle to play a sim
almost teaching how to play a sim, it’s a gateway into sim racing where casual
player can slowly up the AI or Reduce the assist to challenge yourself and
become a better driver.
Hive: so how is the racing format going to be,
Autosport made you practice, qualify before you race?
Chris: well as you have seen you can jump straight into the
race or if you want to qualify you can do a hot lap and repeat it as much as
you like, in Autosport you had to do 3 laps that a lot of effort, you can do a
quick lap and if your position improves great, you can just race its all about
how you want to play the game.
Hive: It’s nice to see Ravenwest making a comeback?
Chris: Ravenwest are waiting at the world series as
your rivals, you have several series again the likes of hammerhead, etc, we
have only just announced the return of Ravenwest, I was Can we please tell them
in our earlier preview, as it was a question fans have been asking since we announced
it.
Hive: How will multiplayer be handled, with so many
games adding skill-based matchmaking, huge penalties, etc.
Chris: nope we have kept it simple, you can create
your own races and invite who you want or make it open to anyone, hit a quick
race button where the matchmaker will put you in a random event on a cycle of
maps. Giving you control of how and what you want to do.
Hive: So I could be sitting at home jump into a
random race and play against Alonzo playing on his home console, or you bashing
into me.
Chris: I don’t know if Alonzo is booked for any
event, that would be awesome I hope we can get him in a live event if he does I
will let you know, but essentially yes it’s completely open just random on who
hit the matchmaking when you do.
Hive: Well thank you for inviting us down its been a
great day and I’m genuinely looking forward to the release after what I have
seen today.
Chris: no thank you, getting the feedback on our games and its people like yourself getting the word out about our game it sounds like we are doing what you want, and that so great to hear.
You can check out our other article on Grid here and keep watch for more news here at Stoffel in the next coming months
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