Grid Legends – Crazy races, badass actors, and floor gassing cliches [PS Plus]

TEST – FREE for PS Plus in May 2023 Grid Legends is an amazing and fun racing game where you can race around the world with all kinds of cars. But is the variety enough to hold our attention, or are we waiting for a boring tour? And what about the story mode where we see real actors? It will be revealed from our testing!

Codemasters is not the first studio to experiment with a racing game full of story. The 2002 TOCA Race Driver was their first experience, which continues in F1 2021. However, Grid Legends has chosen a different path: it presents the story in the form of a sports documentary series, where we can see real actors against a digital background. And while playing, we can shape our destiny through various competitions. But is that enough to keep us glued to the screen, or is it just an unnecessary embellishment in a good car game?

Driven to Glory – A sports drama full of clichés

Grid Legends’ story mode, Driven to Glory, is about joining Seneca Racing as a rookie racer, and an underdog rival to the mighty Ravenwest team. During the grid championship we have to prove ourselves with different cars and tracks, while the action also takes place behind the scenes. The game tells the story with vivid scenes, where the actors are placed in a completely digital environment. This is an interesting solution that sometimes works amazingly well, but unfortunately it is not without bugs. The acting is often forced and inauthentic, the dialogue formulaic and riddled with clichés, and the characters are one-dimensional and forgettable. The story isn’t very interesting or twisted either, it’s just an excuse to try out different races. However, the biggest problem is that there is no consistency between the gameplay and the story: whether you win or lose a race has no effect on the story. So it is difficult to empathize with a situation when we feel like we have no control over what happens to us.

Grid Legends’ strength is undoubtedly the variety it offers players. There are more than 100 cars to choose from in the game, including classic touring cars, modern super sports cars, SUVs, trucks, racing cars and even Formula 1 cars. The tracks are also diverse: the game has 28 locations, including city roads, mountain roads and tracks Racing and off-road tracks. The gameplay also adapts to the nature of the cars and tracks: the controls are simple and fun, but not completely unrealistic. Players can also adjust the difficulty level and help find the right challenge for themselves. There are several racing modes available in the game: there are time trial, sprint, drift, elimination, and much more. So the gameplay is varied and fun, but not new or innovative. Grid Legends doesn’t offer anything we haven’t seen in other racing games. The graphics aren’t great either: although the game is nice and detailed, it doesn’t quite reach the level of Forza Horizon 5 or Gran Turismo 7. The sounds are also average: the sounds of car engines aren’t very realistic or varied, and the music is forgettable. So Grid Legends is a good racing game, but not great.

Single and multiplayer modes – everything that stimulates the eyes and mouth is here

Grid Legends offers players not only a story mode, but also many other options. If you want to compete more freely, you can choose custom modes in which you can set up the races yourself. Here you can select any car and track, set the weather and time of day, and even select the type of race you want. And if we want to compete with other players, we have to switch to the multiplayer mode, where we can play online or over a local network. Here, too, there are different modes: there are ranked and unranked races, as well as custom races. In multiplayer mode, we can also complete different challenges for which we get points and rewards. Multiplayer can be exciting and fun, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work smoothly. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a suitable competition or to join an existing one. Sometimes the online behavior of opponents is unsportsmanlike or fair. So multiplayer can be fun, but it’s not perfect.

Grid Legends – A good racing game for PS Plus, but not a great racing game

Grid Legends is a racing game worth trying if you love cars and speed. The game offers a variety of cars and tracks to compete in fun races. The gameplay is simple and fun, but not completely unrealistic. There are several modes in the game: there is a story mode in which you can be part of a sports documentary series, as well as single and multiplayer modes in which you can put together competitions on your own. However, the game does not offer anything that we have not seen in other racing games. The story is clichéd and boring, the graphics aren’t great and the sounds are mediocre. So Grid Legends is a good racing game, but not a great game. If we can get it up for free as part of PlayStation Plus in May, it’s worth swooping in, but if we have to buy it, we’d better wait for the sale.

-bad sector-

publisher: EA

Developer: Code Masters

style: Car racing

appearance: February 25, 2022