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Grid Autosport Review
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Grid Autosport Review

 Grid Autosport

Nintendo Switch owners are finally able to get a racing and simulation game with an orientation towards realism. The British company Codemasters, in cooperation with the Feral Interactive development team, is filling a gap in the Nintendo Hybrid game library and presenting the favorite racing game from the company Grid in a version that combines home and mobile, how was the result?

 


Codemasters has a very long history in racing games and it is not hidden from anyone, and the company has specialized in producing this type of game. The company was founded in 1986, but it found great success that put it on the map with the release of the wonderful game Micro Machines, with which we have many beautiful memories. The company began to specialize more and more in racing games when it started issuing series such as the TOCA racing series and the Colin McRae Rally series.

 

The company maintained this legacy when it launched two great series in the past generation, the first is the Grid racing series, which is a racing game that mixes realistic simulation with unrealistic arcade gameplay, and the second is the Dirt racing series, both of which achieved commercial success and audience admiration. Grid got a second part that was not up to the expectations of the fans of the first part because of its exaggeration in the arcade gameplay and its abandonment of the realistic driving elements that were present in the first part, so that Codemasters returned to planning again and returned the series to the roots through Grid Autosport. The game was released on the home devices of the last generation in 2014, and the personal computer, and it was transferred to smart phones as well, and here it finds its way to the Nintendo Switch platform.

 

Since this game is not entirely new, we will start by talking about the features of this version of the game. The Feral Interactive development team has made a great effort to ensure that this version of the game meets the expectations and aspirations of racing game fans. The game supports many control options, including motion control, button control and increasing the speed with the ZR button, or even using the right analog to gradually increase or decrease the speed, because the ZR and ZL buttons in the Pro Controller for the Switch are not gradual like the rest of the devices The game also allows the use of the GameCube controller, which contains progressive shoulder buttons, for whoever chooses to do so. Of course, there are also a range of driving assistance options that can be turned off or their intensity changed.

 

Even in terms of graphics, the development team took care to provide many options to satisfy all players. The game runs at 1080p resolution in home mode and 720p resolution in mobile mode, and there is a 3GB package available on the store for free to improve the models of all cars in the game. You can choose the performance mode in the game, which makes it run at 60 frames to provide a truly wonderful and smooth driving experience, although the frame rate drops below this number when crowded and there are many other cars. And you can choose the graphics mode that enhances the level of visual experience, such as improving shadows and light reflections in exchange for reducing the frame rate to 30 frames, and there is even a battery saving mode, which reduces graphics a lot to extend battery life to the longest possible degree.

 

Most of the game times we went through the performance phase with 60 frames, and the graphical difference was not significant or significantly noticeable compared to the phase that offers better graphics and fewer frames, and in general we salute the development team for making all these efforts for this version of the game, and even that The game menus are large in size in a way that is completely compatible with the mobile version, unlike many other device games with a small font, and even the game supports HD Rumble vibration technology, where you can feel the car touching the ground and its movement in a very wonderful way, and you can also increase or decrease this Vibrate as you see fit.

 

For those who are not familiar with the game, Grid Autosport offers a career mode, individual races, the ability to create your own competition, and several other types of races such as Drag and Time Trial. The career or career development in Grid is somewhat different from other games, as it does not require you to start with a slow car and then gradually compete and buy better cars, nor does it even impose on you the type of races that you will play. Instead, the game offers five different types of competitions, each type includes several seasons, and you can finish any season and then move on to seasons of other types directly. One such competition is Endurance, which puts you in night races over long distances, or Street, which forces you to compete on city streets.

 

The game is distinguished in artificial intelligence and there are many different levels of challenge. Grid is a game characterized by various choices, and this philosophy is evident in all aspects of the game design. Even the effects of collisions and damages on the car, you can make it visible only, and you can make it affect the performance of the car to make the experience more realistic. The game is playable even for non-professionals, as there is an option to Rewind, which takes you back in case you performed badly in driving and wanted to try again. The game also contains a bar that appears on the floor of the racetracks to guide you to the optimal path for driving, and its color changes between green and red to help you speed up or down when cornering.

 

Well, is the game flawless? of course no. We can say that the driving experience in the game in terms of car physics and sounds is not comparable to masterpieces such as the brilliant Forza from Microsoft, and the game lacks various weather conditions such as rain and fog, and by mentioning weather conditions, we mention one of the games that excelled a lot in this aspect and Project Gotham Racing 4 on Xbox 360.

 

The graphics of the game are some of the best on the Nintendo Switch platform so far, the roads and buildings look very nice. The car models and lighting may not look at the same amazing level that we have seen in some current home device games such as Driveclub from Sony Interactive Entertainment, but it matches and surpasses the best that was presented in this type of game on last generation devices with higher display resolution in mode home, or looks perfect in portable mode. This game is a beautiful technical demonstration of the Nintendo Hybrid platform, which is only 6 inches in size, and it is amazing that a device of this small size is able to run a game of this level of graphics while consuming less than 15 watts of electrical energy!

 

Grid Autosport is a game that harnesses its resources and distributes them intelligently to create a gaming experience that can last hundreds of hours with the player. We regret that the game did not get the multiplayer mode over the network from the beginning, which the publisher promised to add through a later update, but even without that, it is the best realistic racing and driving game on the Nintendo Switch platform and perhaps on any mobile device so far.

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