Race River: GRID PC review

Now that a couple of overclock reviews are out of the way, it's time to look into the gaming bin again. On the table today for gaming is Race Driver: GRID for the PC. I guess I should mention straight out the gate that I'm not all that great at racing games. I suck. A real car I can drive, but in a game I'm all over the road. GRID is a continuation of the Race Driver series which was news to me. The game itself is based on developing a reputation and cash stockpile as you climb the world racing ranks in different classes of races.

It's a damned huge game that will take up a good 8 Gigs on your hard drive. Being as large as it is, make sure you have a couple of cold brews ready while you wait. Installing from one DVD means the game won't be asking for swapping disks throughout install, but it's not much fun sitting there watching as it crawls across the screen.

Once the install is complete you are introduced to warnings and a cinematic getting you hyped up for the game. You are first asked to create your profile. Asking for the first and last name along with your country of origin is fairly standard for race games. Keeping my game handle intact left me as TheLimit, Max. It then asks you for your radio handle, where it audibly speaks a name of your choice when addressing you. You can either have it call you your name, or a nickname. Unfortunately it doesn't have Max. Not in the regular names, or the nicknames. Aww...C'mon. I'll be damned if I am going to be called junior, or champ, or something goofy like that. I tried to find the name that closest resembled mine. I came up with 'Mac'. I know, I know, but it's the best I could have. I'd hate to imagine someone with an even less common name, or handle.

Max is so ready race

With the introductions out of the way it's time to race. First thing I did was try some quick races with the keyboard, which lasted only a couple of minutes. I think my exact words were: 'Screw this! I'm getting the game pad', after spending my first few races in the grass or against the wall.

So I plugged in the game pad, and had to restart the game before it would detect it. Setting the controls was a little less than a positive process. Several times my settings were lost, and a few times I couldn't get it to recognize the game pad without restarting the game. What a pain.

Configuring the the visual settings was about as good as I'd expect. Certain changes require a restart, but at least it does this for you which some games simply mention you'll have to.

After this you are ready to go.

Next->