GRID Legends Review by igamesnews.com

Enemies, jurors, crashed

To accentuate the quarrels of the paddock, GRID Legends integrates the Nemesis system into races, translated by sworn enemies. When you crash into a competitor, a small red helmet logo that says “Sworn Enemy” will appear above it. By the way, your nemesis’ AI, which is already well calibrated in this opus, becomes more aggressive when your nemesis is behind you, not hesitate to reach out or even give you a few treacherous punches. And when he’s ahead, dovetails or closed doors for overtaking are the order of the day. A good idea, and a trademark success, knowing that you can have many sworn enemies in a single event. This feature is not only available in story mode (some sworn enemies are automatically defined depending on the scenario), but also for all other solo modes of GRID Legends, with the additional online mode! The only difference is that when a human opponent becomes your nemesis, the red logo is simply a reminder to both of you that there was a big skirmish at the start of the race.

A great perspective battle set in racetracks, often very well modeled and animated, especially with the night weather effects or at nightfall: Need For Speed ​​​​​​Underground in the text, less cartoonish than the last DiRT. No surprise for driving, despite the asphalt terrain, GRID remains an arcade and inevitably less crowded than in an Assetto Corsa. Turns are automatically flung when tight turns are required, and collisions are fully arcade-validated, neither too hard nor too light: an improvement over Codemasters’ latest arcade game. We also appreciated the visible damage to vehicles and landscape elements with the debris that can disrupt the turns that follow.

Career Mode, a series of races of varying difficulty, actually supersedes Story Mode, and Player 22 finds himself on a brand new team that you can customize in terms of logo and livery. Unfortunately, The customization menu is not as extensive as other competing licenses, and one can simply select a predefined design without manually adding patterns or sponsors. On the other hand, this opus adds a system to improve the cars, mechanic and teammate to add skills to them to earn more virtual currency in the race and improve performance.

A legend that never dies?

But despite the lack of a deep visual customization system, GRID Legends content is very greedy in terms of gameplay possibilities, as evidenced by the number of more than 130 vehicles available at launch, divided into 9 categories. In addition to the classics Touring, GT, Tuner, Track Day, Others, Open Wheel, there are the more original classes Trucks (truck fronts), Electric (with special sound with portals that provide boosts) and Drift (promotes skidding). There is also a plethora of types of racesbetween drift contests, online races (no laps), time trials or the famous elimination mode where the last two participants are eliminated every 30 seconds until only one remains. This DiRT 5-like variant increases the lifespan of the game Thanks to the race creator, you can set up solo or online challenges by choosing the discipline, the class and the vehicles allowed, locations, tracks, weather conditions, laps or the number of participants.

As for online, we were able to measure it in the company of the development team and with the other testers of specialized PC sites. The latter is cross-platform, a very good point for the spirit of the title. In just over an hour of network races, we didn’t encounter any slowdowns or glitches despite the presence of 22 players in a single race. Access to the celebrations can be classic via a lobby, with all of the above types of races, or via a “hop-in” if you’re joining a friend. We then replace an AI member of the race in the middle of the test, which is also a great inspiration. In contrast, The online mode is missing an extra soul (Linking between events, leaderboards, lack of tournament system…) to fully score the title.

Conclusion

Points cont

• Huge number of locations and routes
• The modeling of racetracks and vehicles for the arcade
• Very good transcription of the damage
• AI attitude boosted by sworn enemies
• Variety in classes and types of races
• Online stable and cross-platform…

weak points

• …but lacks depth
• Career mode to deepen
• The story mode VF and scenario, cliché
• Limited customization options

Similar to the previous title released in 2019, GRID Legends isn’t going to revolutionize the history of racing games, but it’s still very good arcade entertainment. If it doesn’t go far enough in the depth of its career mode and the possibilities for customizing liveries, however, the title is very complete in its rawest form. The racing combinations are enormous thanks to the variety of cars, locations, tracks, rules and vehicle categories, especially since the well-calibrated AI adds depth to the gameplay. The sworn enemy system (Nemesis) is making a very good comeback for gripping combat amidst pleasant environments, especially since the damage and collisions on this terrain are at least significantly more convincing than Codemasters’ last pure arcade title, DiRT 5, which the GRID series remains in the Legend.

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