GRID Legends review – live action racing

metro.co.uk:

Codemasters’ latest offers a dizzying variety of cars and racing disciplines, as well as the peculiar novelty of live action cut scenes.

The problem with racing games is fundamental to the sport they simulate. You play a character stuck in a seat, whose interaction with the world is limited to steering left or right and deciding when to speed up or slow down. Fun though that is, the genre has long struggled with how to spice things up and make that incredibly restricted set of choices into something gripping and emotionally meaningful.

Gran Turismo attempts to engage your nerdy collector’s instinct with its infinite tinkering and fastidiously extensive car list, and the DiRT series revels in its spectacle and all-round mess-making. There’s also a small list of driving games that have dabbled in the dark arts of story and plot, attempting to give your motoring career a context beyond the track.

2008’s Race Driver: GRID was one such game. A successor to Codemasters’ classic but somewhat strait-laced TOCA series, it took the earlier games’ refined handling model and transposed it into a title that featured non-stop action and also told the story of your racing team’s transition from intrepid underdogs to all-conquering heroes.

Subsequent instalments of the franchise abandoned the idea, but GRID Legends has decided it’s time for a comeback, featuring a story mode to go with its career, multiplayer, and DIY race creator options. Once again it tells the tale of a racing team coming from humble beginnings, and this time your arrogant rivals are fuelled by mountains of cash.

It’s a set-up ripe for cringe, but luckily the cut scenes are both short and well acted. They also cast the Brits as heroes and the rich Americans as villains,