Previews// Race Driver: GRID

Yes readers! By now, I have picked up and read the accompanying bumph, and, taking into account that this is an 80% complete game, am a little disillusioned. After the drifting around the docks, and tear-arsing around Jarama and San Francisco, there is another SF course; a short-but-challenging Washington circuit around which you pilot a Pagani Zonda; and a nighttime spin around the Shibuya district in a 350Z (much to my chagrin, I couldn’t find this in the menu, but I watched someone else play it).

But a special mention must go to the Milan course and its grid full of Aston Martins. This is a perfect example of videogame racing: the course is just enough of a challenge, in that it has its share of tight turns and corners and a fantastic left-arcing curve as you finish your lap (if you get that far) on which you can easily reach the magic figure of 200 MPH. But Milan is not that simple.

You are racing around city streets and in some stretches, they are not very accommodating to a souped-up Aston in a hurry. Prepare for a few collisions and wipeouts. They will happen, but it just makes you more determined to conquer the bloody thing (there I go again with the aggression) and that truly is the mark of a very good game: the course, the cars and the difficulty.

Jarama was good, but Milan is a doozy, unless you’re adverse to a bit of bullying, and if that’s the case, why don’t you bugger off and play a flight sim, eh?

The preview version of Race Driver: Grid promises a lot for the full game. It already looks great - admittedly on SPOnG’s top quality HD telly - and there are several disciplines in which to race: Drifting, Pro Muscle Cars, and European Touring Cars among them.

The Career mode is intact, with payments for entering events and bonus money awarded for achieving certain objectives. It’s all a bit meaningless as it’s only 80% complete, but at least we can be sure that, like other racers from Codies down the years, there’ll be a deep and immersive Career mode.

I don't know about Burnout or GT Prologue but i know what I like. My troth would have been plighted without fear were it not for the drifting palaver and my misgivings about its place in a game like this. I like Race Driver: Grid a lot already, and if you’ve been lucky enough to have doing a bit of dry humping in the last week or so, you’ll know what I’m talking about.