I am not sure why I started playing this game right as I got it but I did. The game is pretty but not in a unique way. It is very linear. Super linear in career and cars are given to you or simply become unlocked into using a particular vehicle. Lots of rear wheel drive muscle cars which swing out of control easily on certain roads. It is a ok game so far but the tracks seem limited.
The loading times are long asf. Loading to race, loading the fancy menu - it feels almost as long as Skyrim. GRIDS2 has more realistic graphics than PGR4 but it is not as varied and there are no weather effects. In the first season of GRID2 you are stuck playing the same level multiple times. You eventually get shipped to Paris in Season 2 of the career mode but the repeating levels and linear career mode is very in your face.
The game feels good and fast in the city levels. Though when in the forest and coastal tracks it is easy to fly off the track or hit a solid road sign that will destroy your speed. The game has a limited rewind feature which can be used to cheat your way out of bad situations.
20 races in and I think I finally have a handle on the cars. The levels get better as well. The city levels in general are very pretty, especially in the later game - too bad no screenshot option. Loading times stay consistently bad. The graphics definitely make up for the long loading times. I will say that this is the best looking racing game I have played so far on the 360. There is not shortage on great racing games on the 360.
I had to change my camera view to "bonnet" because the 3rd person view swings too wildly causing me to under/over steer into every corner. Once I changed the view I was better able to handle the car around corners.
I think the issue with the game "seasons" is that you spend a few races on the same tracks until the end of the season. Once the season ends you get to get fresh new tracks and the circle repeats. The later tracks look good so its worth the temporary slog to see whats next. It is a lovely game and the night levels are really dark.
There are no weather effects which would have been cool but I figure that weather would be too much for this game engine and the 360. I am in the later part of the game now and everything is starting to come together. There are no more new tracks to see but I have quite a few vehicle challenges to complete. Vehicle challenges seem to be the best way to play because you are not interrupted by the NPC cars.
How it ended
Fun right up until it ended. Not a long racing game but there are extra things you can do to extend the playtime if you want to.
Conclusion
My rating 8.5/10. Definitely in my top 5 racing games on the 360. Lovely graphics, lovely night racing. No much weather but the sense of speed in the edge game cars is great. The announcer is a little annoying but you get accustomed to his random input. A nice arcade racing game to add to anyones collection. I would recommend it over Forza 4. No in game screenshot feature.
Strategy
I had to change the camera view because the 3rd person view made me crash "alot". Do all the promo events to ensure that you see all the special track locations. Though in the end you wont miss out on much by doing the bare minimum to unlock the next event. When the game ends it locks you off from the career mode so if you want to do and get everything the first time make sure you enter every challenge before you complete the season finals.
First impressions the game is pretty. I did select the option to lock the framerate at the cost of graphics. The world is detailed and has lots of things to loot but I hate having limited slots for my left hand abilities while still being able to carry infinite guns. The sound and lighting is excellent. It makes me question my whole concept of early gen games being bad since it came out in 2007.
As I got further into the game I got to buy more slots with cash. I gobbled them up quickly but even with enough money they limit how many new slots I could buy at one time. Then eventually limited the money I could keep in my wallet. Despite this limitation I did push on, listening to voice notes and checking corners for secret rooms as I did in DeusEx.
Conclusion
Its a good game. Sound design is excellent, voices everywhere. A bit too many weapon options and linear design. 8/10 would recommend.
Strategy
Play on easy. The game really has no strategy, its A to B stuff with a few hidden corners that give you extra stuff to add to your already OP arsenal of stuff. If I were playing on normal I would probably be constantly running out of stuff because of the max limits.
I popped this in after completing Watchdogs (gave it 8/10 cool game). The graphics are ok. This feels like the game that transitioned laura to full circle Drakes Uncharted. Tonnes of QuickTime events, scripted scenes and white paint telling you where to jump up. I played for about 15 minutes and the entire thing was on rails apart from a little section where I had to jump from a ledge onto a crane to raise a flaming bunch of garbage. It was insane but slick in it's execution. The early game is sectioned off so it auto saves often which means that there is not much freedom to mess up during this early tutorial section. We will see if it opens up as we go along.
Even in the early game there are popups for progression for basically doing nothing - wish I could turn these off. This is a bad sign but I should not be surprised as this game probably started this modern trend. I even took a look at the achievements which was basically "kill 30 enemies", "craft 20 weapons", "hunt 2 large animals". lol, this game feels like it is going to be a gigantic waste of time. But we will see.
The game is pretty straight forward with lots and lots of little cutscenes/QTEs as I mentioned before. The game funnels Lara into a constant mix of awful situations. There is jump paint, animals to harvest, scrap to collect so you can upgrade weapons and skills. The skill tree is gated so that you cant "over power" anything too soon. In so doing it ends up being a liner checklist of things to click on - which sucks.
It's a collect-a-thon game that is fluid and most jumps are easy to make without worry. The game feels like Uncharted + Horizon Zero Dawn mixed with Banjo Kazooie. This is why I play on easy. The bow feels nice. I am mostly using the bow. Silent and deadly.
The game is good, the flow is good, the bow is deadly. Some areas have a bunch of enemies but not to an extreme. The game flows nice without many road blocks in the way. Its just one torture scene after another. I dont know how laura or any woman could survive this all. But this is video game logic.
I like the sections with fire. Fire in this game looks really good. Though the fire sections are few and far between - they are impressive to look at. The game does not balance very well for the bow, so you might get forced to use the guns in a few spots - especially if you are not efficient with your arrow consumption. This is disappointing because I had planned to use the bow throughout my entire play-through.
Conclusion
Good game. 8.5/10. Worth the time. Innovative. Nice set pieces, nice fire. Lots of stuff to collect. I might buy Rise of the Tomb Raider to see if it holds up. The game is fun on easy with nice set pieces and not too much bloat. Would recommend. Must have in any collection. Going to play Aliens vs Predator next.
Strategy
Play on easy, bow and arrow all the way. I completed the game first time with a 75% completed. So the game is not a collect-a-thon. You can replay the game afterwards to collect everything you missed if you so desire. Playing bow only feels good and is a bit more stealthy if thats what you are into. I only upgraded the bow to 100% and ignored everything else. Had 5000 scrap left over in the end.
