The single software house that has probably made the biggest contribution to the racing genre in the last few years is undoubtedly Codemasters with games like DiRT, F1 and, of course, GRID. This last one is an interesting title, but we have been waiting five years for a sequel; now GRID 2 is available for virtual drivers all over the world.

In GRID 2, like in the first game, the player is a skilled young pilot searching for a sponsor.  After watching the player’s performance on the Internet,  Patrick Callahan, a multi-billionaire, decides to set up the WSR, a new championship which involves all of the best drivers in the world of street racing. To recruit these drivers, we must travel around the world challenging the top pilots and convincing them to join the WSR.

Our task is to cross the United States, Europe and Asia, in three different seasons, achieving results, and unlocking each season until the Callahan’s project is complete. The structure of GRID 2 owes much to the previous episode, but the following approach is even more essential: each podium in an event yields a certain number of fans and the grand total unlocks access to the following series. GRID 2 has a 70 cars strong roster that you will get at regular intervals by winning a specific race asking to make laps or pieces of track within a certain time limit.  The system works well, but I still prefer the classic trade in/out to build our garage. We can assume that the true core of the GRID 2 experience is not to collect cars, but, rather, accumulating fans.
Within each season, there are also promotional events that may come to the rescue of those players who are just not able to win or place themselves decently in regular events, which will help with a boost in fan numbers. After customizing the livery of the machines with a system that allows you to select color schemes for different decals, you can also choose a number of sponsors that give the player a list of objectives every season; they range from winning a specific car upon arriving first in a number of competitions, up to placing themselves in front of a determined opponent.
As we have seen in all of the recently released racing games by Codemasters, the flashback system is back to give us the chance to rewind time five times in a row to straighten a curve or a collision went wrong. Despite this, GRID 2 remains a challenging game, especially in the final stages of the career that may take about 20 hours to be completed, mainly due to unwavering AI which is one of the trademark features of the game: our opponents do not give up easily and make every overtaking a real challenge.

In GRID 2 we’ll travel all around the world challenging our opponents in splendid circuits such as Barcelona, ​​Dubai, Japan and Paris, for a total of 14 different environments, each with different tracks. They range from races in which to beat an opponent head to head, the phasing out of the drivers in the queue and passing from drifting up to a new type of race on street circuits (where the path is determined by randomly changing the crossings teyt gradually should take). This event is held together by a series of films that should convey the feeling of the progression of the new series of races to the popularity, but the common thread is too short, and at the end GRID 2 cannot be anything other than a string of adrenaline-fueled races; one after the other.
The gameplay, the true strength of the series, remained the perfect union between arcade driving and the heaviness of the cars, so we have to choose wisely which to use depending on the event.
The new storage system of the car park, divided among four classes, is a bit confusing, and events alternate between races where you have to choose one car versus twelve others, isn’t very coherent. It seems that Codemasters wants to eliminate all of the dead time and let the players focus only on the races, to make them just run and have fun.

Where GRID 2 greatly improves upon its predecessor is in the online multiplayer mode. GRiD 1 had a tacked on multiplayer, but this time we have a real mode in which players need to move independently from the single player career. Each event leads to the purchase of followers in order to level up and unlock more powerful machines; in addition to the followers you earn money, as in the first GRID, and with money we can enhance and upgrade the cars, a feature that strangely was only intended for network play.

For every car you can buy packages to enhance the Engine, Transmission and Maneuverability, which effect things like maximum speed, acceleration, power and weight: beyond a certain limit, the car will automatically be promoted to a higher class. A simple system with only a few parameters, but still a pleasant surprise that in our opinion could have also been included in the career mode.
In addition to the individual races for 12 players, you can earn money and followers by winning medals in global challenges or events determined by Codemasters and changed on a regular basis. In short, the online game seems to have gotten the greatest attention to detail.
In contrast, given a system clearly designed to recover many fans of the original, it seems a strange choice not to include the cockpit view in the four available modes.  The decision seems to have been based on the difficulty of doing it, when compared to the simple fact that just a small number of players actually use it, but its lack is still bound to be a recurrent complaint amongst hardcore fans, and Codemasters might ultimately regret this decision.
Apart from that, GRID 2 is great looking, always solid, fluid even when the damage system, which is excellent, fills the track with bodywork parts from all sides. In particular, some sunsets are breathtaking, thanks to the reflections on the well-realized car models that fill the camera with flashes and lights. As for the sound, keeping in mind that the soundtrack is to a minimum, a good job has been done on the sound of the machines, thanks to the experience accumulated by the team over the past five years of construction.
In the end, I can conclude this GRID 2 review saying that this is a great racing game with some small issues here and there, but the online multiplayer system guarantees a very long life; that is, provided that the first games of the new console generation don’t set new gaming standards too quickly.