“Why you can trust Digital Trends – We have a 20-year history of testing, reviewing, and rating products, services and apps to help you make a sound buying decision. Find out more about how we test and score products.“
Like a taut action thriller, Grid Autosport effortlessly shoos you from one race to the next, with high-speed thrills that keep your focus locked on the stretch of pavement right in front of you. It’s hard to shift your attention when you’re struggling to hang on to third place with only three tight turns left in the final lap.
It’s when you slow down and catch your breath between races that you notice — something’s off about Grid Autosport. There’s no garage, no elaborate upgrade system. You can’t float a disembodied camera around in a showroom to admire your ride from every angle. You’re not concerned with the business of managing a virtual racing career. It’s not about car porn. It’s not about car culture. Grid Autosport pulls away from the pack thanks to a laser focus on competition.
This is a true-blue racing game.
It’s not about car porn. It’s not about car culture. This is a true-blue racing game.
There are some concessions in the name of accessibility. A limited-use rewind feature allows players to take a mulligan on a botched turn or passing attempt, in solo play only. Guide lines teach players to economize movements and where to accelerate or brake. Other difficulty settings automate elements such as traction control and tweak the AI of opposing racers. They’re familiar features for fans of racing games, but none of the switches or sliders break the authenticity of Autosport‘s purring simulation engine.
There is a career mode, but like everything else, it’s designed to emphasize getting players out on the road as quickly as possible. Grid Autosport breaks down racing into five separate disciplines: Touring, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner, and Street. Each has its own level progression, with stronger performances leading to better sponsors and bigger XP rewards for completing an assortment of objectives.
The individual disciplines tap into different sets of skills. Touring is the most traditional, with players fighting to break away from the pack on multi-lap tracks that offer an even mix of turns and straightaways. Street tightens up the surroundings considerably, demanding more gas/brake micromanagement as you weave through walled-off urban roadways. Open Wheel emphasizes speed in F1-style cars. Endurance is largely a test of managing tire wear during 8-minute races. Tuner is perhaps the most challenging; its drift-focused races and time trials are tough to master in a game that’s built for simulation rather than arcade play.
The beauty of Grid Autosport‘s multi-disciplinary approach is it never locks players into following a particular path. Each one has its own, separate level progression – complete with discrete sponsor, car, and upgrade unlocks – and it’s entirely up to the player to choose which discipline to pursue at any given moment. The endgame’s Grid Legend Series requires some mastery in all five categories, but you’re never outright forced to compete in one type of race or another.
Codemasters doesn’t attempt to make the spaces between driving around in circles interesting.
This lean framework is a nod to all the players that just want to get behind the wheel and hit the gas. Instead of worrying about which paint job to apply or how you’re going to respond during a post-race press conference, you’re running pre-race practice laps to better prepare yourself for the qualifier time trial, in the hopes of landing a better position at the starting line on race day. Codemasters doesn’t attempt to make the spaces between driving around in circles interesting.
Just don’t go in expecting photorealism. The lean design extends to Grid Autosport‘s visual execution. The PC version is naturally more of a looker than the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 releases, but none of them are on the level with recent or upcoming competitors like Forza Motorsport 5 and Driveclub. Codemasters wisely included a cockpit view – a response to its widely criticized absence in Grid 2 – but presentation clearly wasn’t the key design pillar that it is in so many other modern racing games.
That’s not to say Grid Autosport is ugly. It looks good enough in motion. Again though, the game’s strength isn’t how much stuff it has, how many bells and how many whistles; it’s about what’s not here. Like a rebuilt engine, Codemasters tore down the notion of what constitutes a modern racing game, examined and polished off every part, then reassembled it piece by piece. The result is a like-new experience that’s all about revving engines and burning rubber.
This game was reviewing on a first-gen Alienware X51 gaming PC using a code provided by Codemasters.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.