GRID 2

GRID 2 is a fine racing game on the track, but it's a questionable package when taken in its entirety.

I enjoyed Grid 2, but much like its predecessor, little about the experience was remarkable or noteworthy when compared to other racers. This is hardly a title that you'll need to drop what you're currently enjoying to check out, but it's something that I'd suggest purchasing when it drops in price. It's certainly worth a rental or demo, just to give you a taste of what Grid 2 brings to the table.

The cars never felt "right." [Issue#99, p.67]

Racing die-hards may find GRID 2′s schizophrenic approach to driving physics an interesting curiosity, but you can find any angle of GRID 2′s experience executed more successfully in other games.

Codemasters' down the line look at racing doesn't quite make it to the final podium. [July 2013, p.74]

We loved GRID and it is still our favourite racer of the generation, GRID 2 is a competent follow up, but doesn’t quite reach those new heights we were hoping for.

A good game that's classic and modern at the same time, that knows its place but often forgets that spark that makes racing fans tick.

No man ever steps in the same cockpit twice, but if they do, the step will be a very hesitatant one. Codemasters have managed to return with honour, however, they've brought nothing new to the table, and by messing about with the time-proven mechanics they are losing their chances to win. This instalment is going to have a hard time in the hands of the original title fans, who still wear their rose-coloured glasses. However, if you are hungry for some racing, GRID 2 serves much better than you think.

In spite of all the youtube-nonsense and the useless frame of a story, Grid feels like a game from another time. It just didn't really evolve all that much from its predecessor, which fit its era much better. The generation was still young back then, but today, Grid 2 has to ask itself, where its place should be, between Shift 2, Forza, Most Wanted, Hot Pursuit, Gran Turismo, iRacing and all the other ones. This field of gaming has great titles for every type of player and the high quality that's on display all throughout Grid 2 has become sort of the bottom line expectation.

A slightly disappointing sequel, that sacrifices too much in pursuit of the almighty dollar, but this is still a great all-round racer with something to please almost every kind of petrolhead.

Grid 2‘s racing once again succeeds at offering a nice balance between true simulation and accessible arcade handling, but the lack of depth offline and a repetitive, punishing second half wind up holding it back.

Grid 2 is a technically competent game with 70 lovely cars and nice physics. Still, it fails to live up to the previous game because of worse online features and uneven difficulty.

A strange backwards step, one that manages to retain some of what made the original great while getting lost in its own peculiar sense of drama and never adding enough worthwhile of its own. What should have been the return of a racing great instead feels like another curious offshoot, leaving Dirt now clearly Codemasters' premier brand.

When the dust settles, Grid 2 serves as a solid enough racing game with generally strong opponent AI. What it does not serve as is a worthy successor to the first game -- instead offering a stripped-down version of itself that is filled with lazy design, unfair AI opponents, special ESPN 'live' broadcasts that no one really asked for, and to top it all off, its bizarrely irritating narrator and loudly drunk or completely apathetic fans.