Hey everyone! It’s me again!
GRID: Autosport‘s been out for 2 or so weeks on the Switch now. I’ve experimented with the GameCube controller and given my First Impressions, but I haven’t really gone through any smaller things within the game yet. So let’s do that!
GRID’s Career Mode
The last game I played in the GRID series was GRID 2. Before that it was Race Driver: GRID (at least, it’s called that in the UK). Both of those career modes are a bit different to this.
The previous career modes had you work for some teams to get cash, and then buy your own cars so that you could make your own racing team. I’m not sure when this changed, but instead you to race for other Motorsport teams per season in different disciplines.
It isn’t necessarily bad – I think this is likely a more realistic representation of a driver’s career. I mean, I’ve never heard of any F1 racers looking to get enough money so they can manage their own team; A team they also race for, while also dealing with the numbers stress behind the scenes. This is something to consider if you’re coming from other racing games with Career modes. It’s definitely different enough that you’ll notice it.
Graphics Modes
Have you seen the gameplay in our videos? The game looks amazing for a Nintendo Switch Game. In fact, I would go as far as to say it looks good as a racing game overall. There are three options for the quality of graphics in game: Performance, Graphics and Battery Saver
Performance Mode
Performance feels a bit weird to me. Yeah, you get 60fps, but it just looks too smooth to me. Lighting is still OK, but you lose the depth of field blur. If you play with an interior view, you’ll notice this a bit less than if you play with an exterior one. I still notice it enough that I like it on. It doesn’t look bad by any means, it just starts to look a lot more like a good Nintendo Switch game, as opposed to coming up to what we have on our current generation. (i.e, Xbox One and PS4, not the X or Pro variants)
Graphics Mode
Graphics is what I would suggest you keep the game on. It uses the most amount of power, and keeps you at 30fps, but all 30 of those frames are beautiful! They’re filled with way better texturing, driver numbers on cars (which looks great for the replays), lighting and smoke that look more realistic, just everything. To me, the frame rate feels better for driving as well, it doesn’t mess with my reaction times as much. The only time I’ve noticed a frame drop is when using graphics handheld. It still looks good and it didn’t get in the way of my gameplay, but if you don’t want that, you’ll want to use Performance.
I haven’t played this in Battery Saver because it’s only available handheld. My assumption is that it’s Performance, but locked at 30fps to reduce power usage. If it is, that’s still pretty amazing! Comment if you’ve used it, I want to know!
Driving Feel
There are a few handling settings the game has, from “Arcade” to “Simulator Pro.” I’m playing on Simulator Pro, which is meant to be the most realistic experience when driving a car. It’s meant to give minimal to no help with the responsiveness of the car. Of course, outside of what GRID says is it’s handling.
It definitely feels close to what I’d expect. I own a Civic Type-R in real life and the one in the game handles as I’d expect (even if it’s newer and shinier than mine). It’s great in the corners because of it’s front-wheel drive, with enough power to see it work well on straights. All of the rear wheel drive cars are about as unforgiving as I’d expect. Mistime a gear change during a turn and you’ll spin. The more power you have, the more likely that’ll happen. You’ve been warned.
I haven’t played too much in Arcade, but it felt a lot simpler – in a good way! It doesn’t necessarily mean the game is a cakewalk, but it does mean that you have a lot more options when it comes to driving around a course. The game is helpful enough that you can mess up turns and still be OK.
Car Selection
The selection of cars per class seems to be quite thin. I was hoping playing career mode would unlock more, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, in the Street class, there seem to be only 4 cars in the Hot Hatch category. 4.
Sure, I don’t think the game is necessarily trying to be the same as either Gran Turismo or Forza, but once you get to it, each division of the classes only has between 2-5 cars available. It does feel a bit limited. The plus side is that you get very good at handling each car because you can spend more time learning them. The down side is that you’ll notice the lack of variety after a couple of hours of gameplay. Might be the time to take a break, right?
GRID + GameCube Controller
Grid Autosport doesn’t see a GameCube controller connected through 8bitdo’s Gbros Adapter as a GameCube controller. That’s a question pre-emptivelt answered. It sees it as a Switch Pro-Controller, so you can’t use the triggers in the same way, at least from my testing.
It does, however, work with a Wavebird! I have one of those and the receiver just plugs into the GameCube adapter. Granted, the WaveBird is a very tricky and expensive controller to find, so it might not be the best option unless you’re a collector. Just remember that the WaveBird doesn’t have rumble; you only get that on the standard GameCube Controller.
Multiplayer
As I said in the first GRID: Autosport video, I can’t be too harsh on the lack of Multiplayer yet. Considering everything else, it’s likely that there’s still some work going on behind the scenes and an update will bring it. But multiplayer is missing in this version, and it does affect the feel of the overall game.
Even with The Eye’s limited experience with more realistic racing games (compared to Mario Kart 8) it would be nice to have her play this game with me. It would almost go back to the days of playing Gran Turismo on the PS1 with your friends. You know, where you’d pick the Nissan Skyline and basically win.
Overall
This is still a great racing game for the Nintendo Switch – it almost feels like a step up from Gran Turismo on the PSP. Portable, this game gives you a realistic driving simulator that’s still accessible on Joy-Cons. At home, with a GameCube Controller, you have a racing game you can spend hours on.
Granted you don’t have as many cars available, but everything else this game offers does make that a non-issue. If you’re a racing game fan and you’re looking for something you can take on the go, then here you have it!
However, if you want something that does feel like a more “standard” racing career, there is enough that this might not be the best. A racing game that has you buy a simple used car and add parts to it is what’s missing. The Switch needs a “Switch Turismo” or something. (EA, please make NFS Underground 2 for the Nintendo Switch. Thanks.)
