GRID Autosport GRID Autosport

[Bram Hengeveld]

Things are moving at Codemasters

 

[Rob]

When the AI was being a little more competent, they were constantly trying to run me off the track. I appreciate a bit of door banging because it's one thing you don't see in a whole lot of racing sims, but the AI is literally trying to kill you at every moment in Autosport. It's to an extent where it's not even fun

Braking is the *only* issue I have yet to figure out. You have to work with the settings to get open wheel to feel right.

But the A.I. are great. Ever played against NASCAR'14 A.I.? How about Race pro? The former actually steam roll you like a locomotive. It's like you are caught in a tornado. The latter are just pussies. These A.I. wreck, brake early, get bold with inside moves on you, block you, and race clean for the most part. It's like they all have little personalities. CM was right about that. None of them react the same way...and that's, well, intelligent. Just go watch a real race.....

 

[Peter Hooper]

In what way are the cameras so bad? Hadn't noticed anything like that from the videos I have seen so far. The cockpit view has been panned a bit which is a real pain as I only use that view but I would appreciate some clarification on what the problems are you refer to.

 

[Rob]

Camerawork could be better on the replays, but the ability to upload your race, T.V. style, instantly to youtube, is GREAT! for us console users.

 

[Peter Hooper]

There are a few concerns for me in there Robert… any assists required for me are a no-no so are you saying it is not playable without ABS? Maybe more of a worry though is this ‘floaty’ feel I have read about several times now. Unfortunately on the MS wheel we have no independent settings to play around with to eliminate this in the way you seem to have been able to do. The only adjustments we have are those in the game. If you remember I had some real problems getting things to a level I was happy with after the patch for F1 2013 but this ‘floaty’ feel seems to be more of an issue than that.

Short races are not really what I want to experience here, you know my feelings on that front.. I can go the Forza route for that ;-) so I hope this isn’t an indication that for longer race addicts like me the game is not quite there.

I assume that you can at least assign a button to glance back? If not the lack of mirrors (which I thought had been resolved) is another issue to consider.

Somebody has said that the cars have a feeling of the F1 2013 classics, would you agree with this?

 

[Rob]

In some ways the cars are more realistic than F1 (even the classics) and in some ways they are not. I can't really get inside your head to dissect your personal preferences, but I think you know where I stand...realism and feel of racing over certain checklists. Of course, if this make the game unpopular, at least I will have something to do until project cars comes out.

But I raise my right hand and tell you that the "floaty" feeling is not there in Touring, unless it is supposed to be (unlike Forza, where all cars drive the same). I owned a Mini Copper S for five years. There was virtually no difference between this game and race pro in that respect (have you ever driven it on Forza?...it's a joke) -- quick but not muscle, great brakes and handling, and the feeling like you can be in a "big boy" setting (the graphics are tremendous) and race this wonderful car and feel like you are in it. I just hope real people pick it up, but I fear the F1 and PC snobs have taken over the expectation game here. Like I said, the biggest flaws are no pits combined with a well developed damage model (both internally and externally) and the ability to not lock your brakes in open wheel. Of course, it may be my settings or my pedals. We shall see. (By the way, this does not apply to non open wheel). The little detail is unlike anything I have ever seen. Like a movie. But hey that's just my opinion (I actually looked up at one point to see two pretty distinct birds flying over me at Brands). But I'll never convince you if you just don't like it. Only way to know is to play it. What else do we have? F1 is getting old. It's great, but it's the same thing over and over. NASCAR is unplayable on line but it's fun too.

Well, how about some reviews from actual people

 

[Rob]

I love it.. I'm not that fast with the wheel yet, but so far I've run two career races and I'm having a blast. I got the feel that I want CSR Fanatec wheel with pedals and its fun to drive so far. I like that there is a feature to make the races longer. Which really makes it worth getting a wheel for. I ran my Career races up to x5 which means the first two races were 20 and 25 laps. Plenty of time to pass. Right now the AI is on medium but they put up quite a fight. I may reduce the laps a little and leave the AI where they are at or Increase the AI and leave the laps in there. There is also a split screen so you can have fun with other family members. Good Job Codies. And I was able to Change the configuration of buttons on my wheel.

Edit: I love also that you can get 10:00 worth of practice in before you race on a track with a car you've never driven. Gives you plenty of time to learn gear selections and braking zones.

_______________

So far, the game is excellent. Of course there are some flaws, like the AI being too planted when you make contact. Or personal pet peeves like the clutch setup (doesn't engage a gear if you don't have the clutch engaged all the way - Forza's way is far superior. Miss a shift, damage your gear box and take a bit longer to engage the gear, but still go into gear.
Then you have the other stuff, like the cockpit cam being poor, due to the dashes on cars being useless (no rev counters or gear indicators) and mirrors not working at all (on 360 anyway)
Definite room for improvement, but a definite vast improvement over grid 2. Definitely headed in the right direction, and this boosts my hopes for DiRT4.

_____________________

Im just starting my open wheel career and Im very pleased with the feel of the driving. Alot like the classic cars in F1 2013.Im on the 360 using a Fanatec csr with elite pedals. Everything just feels right so far. I could never get that right feel in Grid 2 with the Indy car. So I was a bit worried, but very pleased with this. Decided to go against Ravenwest to begin, so I dont have tuning options as of yet. Cant wait to play around with those. Its awesome to be able to change the race length, 3 or 4 laps goes to quick in my opinion. I feel like this game was made for its hardcore fans. Well spent money in my opinion.
_____________________

You probably saw these.

Mirrors? Why did you play so much F1 2012?
Gauges? Why do you like Race Pro so much?

It's the feel man....Of course, I was one of the only ones who thought that Shift2 was a decent game. But this is much better.

 

[Tomaz Selcan]

Is anyone having problems with accelaration input while playing on keyboard? It's identical bug as in Grid 2 and i hate it. In the middle of the straight i loose power and i need do press acceleration again.

 

[Lancey]

So I've got g27 wheel with Fanatec clubsport V2 pedals, are these going to work as mentioned here that only one USB port supported. Hopefully coodies will fix this.

 

[Peter Hooper]

That's sounds brilliant Robert, Forza had a similar facility on the XBO but it seemed a bit limited. Does this one allow full race uploads and can you save replays to you're HD too?

 

[Peter Hooper]

I love it.. I'm not that fast with the wheel yet, but so far I've run two career races and I'm having a blast. I got the feel that I want CSR Fanatec wheel with pedals and its fun to drive so far. I like that there is a feature to make the races longer. Which really makes it worth getting a wheel for. I ran my Career races up to x5 which means the first two races were 20 and 25 laps. Plenty of time to pass. Right now the AI is on medium but they put up quite a fight. I may reduce the laps a little and leave the AI where they are at or Increase the AI and leave the laps in there. There is also a split screen so you can have fun with other family members. Good Job Codies. And I was able to Change the configuration of buttons on my wheel.

Edit: I love also that you can get 10:00 worth of practice in before you race on a track with a car you've never driven. Gives you plenty of time to learn gear selections and braking zones.

_______________

So far, the game is excellent. Of course there are some flaws, like the AI being too planted when you make contact. Or personal pet peeves like the clutch setup (doesn't engage a gear if you don't have the clutch engaged all the way - Forza's way is far superior. Miss a shift, damage your gear box and take a bit longer to engage the gear, but still go into gear.
Then you have the other stuff, like the cockpit cam being poor, due to the dashes on cars being useless (no rev counters or gear indicators) and mirrors not working at all (on 360 anyway)
Definite room for improvement, but a definite vast improvement over grid 2. Definitely headed in the right direction, and this boosts my hopes for DiRT4.

_____________________

Im just starting my open wheel career and Im very pleased with the feel of the driving. Alot like the classic cars in F1 2013.Im on the 360 using a Fanatec csr with elite pedals. Everything just feels right so far. I could never get that right feel in Grid 2 with the Indy car. So I was a bit worried, but very pleased with this. Decided to go against Ravenwest to begin, so I dont have tuning options as of yet. Cant wait to play around with those. Its awesome to be able to change the race length, 3 or 4 laps goes to quick in my opinion. I feel like this game was made for its hardcore fans. Well spent money in my opinion.
_____________________

You probably saw these.

Mirrors? Why did you play so much F1 2012?
Gauges? Why do you like Race Pro so much?

It's the feel man....Of course, I was one of the only ones who thought that Shift2 was a decent game. But this is much better.

Good to see those reviews Robert,

Also, good to see some positive Youtube reviews.

The mirrors are only an issue for me if there is no option to glance behind but I assume this is not the case? Mirrors did work in 2012 just not that well, 2013 I find them a big improvement and enough that I don't need the glance back that much so I thought they would have been easy enough to implement in the newer game.

Not overly fussed about the gauges although working ones would be nice, is that all that is effected by this blurriness that is mentioned? Thats the part I am not getting as I have not notriced any bluriness in the videos.

I guess the fact I have no reference points for this, never having driven the other two Grid games, makes it more difficult for me to work out some of what is being said when it is compared to Grid 2.

Unfortunately I can't look at the page one post as my work is marking up that page as containing profanity :/

 

[leffty]

After i close - open the game, the settings for the gamepad are default, and i have to remap them again.
Do you have any idea how to fix this annoying problem ?
Thank you

 

[Karl Fuss]

Camerawork could be better on the replays, but the ability to upload your race, T.V. style, instantly to youtube, is GREAT! for us console users.

i didn't know about this feature....

I had a quick go last night and was frustrated (as expected) right from the start.
The menus are unfamiliar and the settings are unfamiliar. The FFB seems uninformative (but i might need to change the settings to get a feel)
The steering deadzone goes up in increments of 5... so 0% or 5% is your option. 0% makes the car zigzag left to right on the straights, and 5% seems too much of a deadzone, but it still doesn't completely get rid of the zigzaging.

Online was torturous to try and figure out, and when i did finally get to join a race i was bumpercared into a crash that did so much damage i had to constantly steer to the left in order to go straight.

I'm sure it will get better after i can get some more hours on it and figure out all the menus and cr@p. Hope the FFB was just a setting issue, and i hope the steering can be sorted out with settings as well.....

 

[JoelGL]

I'd like to know as well what settings work well w/ the G27. Do I set Profiler to 900 deg? In-game, I don't see a way to set steering angle.

 

[Karl Fuss]

i didn't try the open wheel cars last night. I was in the touring class B cars at Hockenhiem for about 40mins of fiddling around and maybe 15 mins of actually driving - I think i had a 1:47 as a best time (and i have no bloody idea what car i was in, a Mercedes i think./i hate this crap, i have no knowledge of cars and what-not, and i honestly could care less)

I hope it gets better.... but i've not got much time to screw around with it before vacation

 

[Peter Hooper]

i didn't know about this feature....

I had a quick go last night and was frustrated (as expected) right from the start.
The menus are unfamiliar and the settings are unfamiliar. The FFB seems uninformative (but i might need to change the settings to get a feel)
The steering deadzone goes up in increments of 5... so 0% or 5% is your option. 0% makes the car zigzag left to right on the straights, and 5% seems too much of a deadzone, but it still doesn't completely get rid of the zigzaging.

Online was torturous to try and figure out, and when i did finally get to join a race i was bumpercared into a crash that did so much damage i had to constantly steer to the left in order to go straight.

I'm sure it will get better after i can get some more hours on it and figure out all the menus and cr@p. Hope the FFB was just a setting issue, and i hope the steering can be sorted out with settings as well.....

Good to know another MS Wheel user with the game . Have you found this 'floatiness' feel that has been referred to Karl? hat seems crazy to have deadzone at 5% increments, I usually have mine set to about 1 or 2% I think. @Railer Cantrell has a Madcatz FFB wheel that he has managed to find a nice feel with apparently so maybe he can offer some advice on the best settings to use.. not sure how comparable our wheels are but worth a shot.

 

[Karl Fuss]

Good to know another MS Wheel user with the game . Have you found this 'floatiness' feel that has been referred to Karl? hat seems crazy to have deadzone at 5% increments, I usually have mine set to about 1 or 2% I think. @Railer Cantrell has a Madcatz FFB wheel that he has managed to find a nice feel with apparently so maybe he can offer some advice on the best settings to use.. not sure how comparable our wheels are but worth a shot.

I found the "feel" not there. FFB setting prob need to be changed, but i couldn't feel the road at all unless i was locking the brakes. I could feel the kerbs when i hit them, and i could feel the zigzag while i was trying to steer...
Maybe it depends on the FFB and the car tuning settings... I don't know yet.

I have my FFB at 60/80/60 right now.

Let me know if you can feel the road when you get the game and also if you have the zigzaggy thing. Maybe my wheel is just getting worn out.... or maybe there is a glitch that will be sorted out (like the Race Pro "sign in with a controller then sign in with the wheel in order to get the FFB to work properly" thing)

 

[Peter Hooper]

I think thats also a concern for me at the moment as like you Karl I have no great love of cars as such just racing. Forza was off putting for me because of the overload of cars .

It would be nice to know what a decent time is in each car at any given track but I guess once people start getting times down on Racenet that will give some idea.

I really want this game to be something like I was hoping and some things I have read \ seen have been really positive and I value Roberts input from the persepctive of someone who knows these series more than I do. I just hope the little issues do not get in the way of what seem slike it could be a tremendous amount of fun.

Getting to grips with a new menu system, etc does take some time so once you have more time to settle into it hopefully you will find more positives

 

[Peter Hooper]

Cheers Karl, always good to get some insight from someone with the same wheel. If you remember I had some serious issues about the feel of F1 after the patch so I am guessing this is similar. The deadzone is likely to be more of an issue though and moreso for those of us with no independant wheel / pedal settings so this appears to be something that really needs looking at by CM.

I'll let you know what I find once I have it but like I said it's probably not going ot be until next week sometime...

 

[Karl Fuss]

I think organized races will be a lot more fun than random online lobbies (as always). The "earning money online to buy cars for online" thing is a little offputting atm. I had no idea where or how to buy a car last night.

 

[Rob]

No worries here. So ,any buttons are free because of the engineer talking to you via the D-pad that I have assigned the X, B, and A buttons to glance back left and right. Works well. And the arrows are there if you need them.

No visuals on the gauges. You have the HUD.