Race Driver: GRID review (PC)

There's something rather odd about playing an arcade racer on the PC. The big grey box is the home of games such as Grand Prix Racer (Hallowed be they name) and the like, not these console upstart games with their fancy Dan graphics and joypad control schemes.

But the truth is that if you've got a decent enough PC - and you don't require an expensive Crysis crushing rig - the PC version of GRID is definitely the best version to go for.

Now I'm not going to bore you with a detailed discussion of the game - you can read my Xbox 360 review or Joe's PlayStation 3 review for more information on the game. Here we'll just focus on the strengths and weakness of the PC game.

Graphics

The PC version of GRID is just as gorgeous as the Xbox 360 game. And of course if you've the graphical horsepower you can play it on much higher resolutions. The game looks fabulous, with excellent lighting and texture detail far beyond many of the game's rivals.

The real benefit from the PC game is that of a much higher frame rate. Now the console game is no slouch, on Xbox 360 it's as smooth as butter, but the smoothness comes from excellent use of motion blur rather than a high frame rate.

On PC you can have both. But not immediately. Certainly those of you with an SLI setup won't feel the benefit initially. Nvidia owners should download nhancer and link the GRID exe file with the profile for Colin McRae: DIRT. In some cases you'll find your frame rate double.

Handling

My review of the Xbox 360 version made it clear I wasn't that impressed with the handling in GRID. But with all the driving aids off, including traction control, things get much better - especially in some of the later events. You never quite feel at home with the car handling but the racing on offer is so exciting that often you are much more aware of the cars around you than how your wishes are translated to the wheels.

That said the handling does feel better in the PC game if you've the hardware to run the game at a fair clip. I was playing the game on a dual 8800GT system which really did the game justice and provided me a much higher framerate than the console version, thanks to this I found myself feeling more in control and capable of handling difficult situations where I may have lost the car on Xbox 360.

Chequered Flag

All in all the PC version of GRID is as much fun, if not more so, than its console counterparts. The game looks and sounds as good - and with moderately decent hardware looks even better.

The online multiplayer works well and in all other respects all the things I enjoyed about the Xbox 360 game are equally true of this version too.

Highly recommended.