TOCA is a racing video game series developed and published by Codemasters. Initially created especially for the British Touring Car Championship, the first two games features only drivers and cars particularly from this championship. Beginning with the third part, Codemasters expanded the gameplay to cover a wide variety of motorsport disciplines. It also featured a story based career mode, the player taking control of Ryan McKane, a fictive driver. The next two sequels were pretty similar to the first TOCA Race Driver except the story-based gameplay. From 2002 the game became a multiplatform product, many times being compared with Gran Turismo series from the quality point of view. Unfortunately from sequel to sequel the game lost its simulation aspect, becoming a combination of simulation and arcade elements. Race Driver GRID comes after long expectations,with a gameplay emphasized more on the fun factor. Based on the Neon graphical engine present for the first time in Colin McRae DIRT, the game makes the first step into the next-gen era.

Race Driver GRID includes every type of races that was not included in Colin McRae DIRT. This means every asphalt race that can be found in US, Europe and Japan. Overall Codemasters decided to move away from official championships (such as DTM, BTCC, V8 Supercar, present in former Race Driver games). The only true official event is the 24h Le Mans Race which is compressed in 25 minutes and features day/night cycle. They created instead new events and tournaments inspired from the official ones with 43 official cars on real tracks such as Jarama, Le Mans, Spa Francorchamps, Donington Park etc. An original addition would be the imaginary track inside the city of Milan, a track that was created based on the real surroundings from the center of the city.

First time you make contact with the game you will be introduced to an interface similar in functionality with the previous one from DIRT. Extremely simple to use and represented in full 3D environment, the interface is not so dynamic this time, but still full of statistics during the loading times. From the beginning you can choose between the GRID World, Race Day, or Multiplayer options. Race Day is the substitute of the Quick race mode in which you can choose the track, car, number of laps, and then jump into the race. The assist mode is present here too like in the Grid World mode. So let's see what the GRID World mode can offer us, while the multiplayer will be left for later comments.

Team-mate

GRID World is the substitute for a Career mode in which you have to choose a name for your profile and additionally a nickname which will be used by your chief in his commentaries. Your so-called team and its manager will offer you an old car bought from a second hand auction, which has to be reconditioned in order to be able to run in official events. So all you have to do is to race for other teams. A good idea in terms of training mode, as you can race for the first time on the important tracks and learn them. After you earn enough money and reputation points you can start your first race as a member of your own team. After a couple of winnings, the team manager decides that is time to hire a co-driver (which like in Juiced will be controlled by the A.I.). This team mate can bring you additional income if you choose the right one. Every additional driver is represented by a statistic based on aggression, awareness, reactions, consistency, and skill, which are fundamental in hiring the right one for you. Let's not forget each ones specialty based on class events (don't hire a pro-muscle specialist if you compete in GT class, for example).

 

| Page 1 of 3 |  · 2  · 3  | Next Page »

Please log in to access this section.