Mechanic upgrades give you discounts on new vehicles, more sponsorship opportunities, or receive better performance on the track. While not mandatory, you can invest in Mechanic and Teammate Upgrades for your team. Rear-wheel drive cars have slippery backends, stadium trucks that usually are on dirt tracks have massive body roll on the track, and Electric vehicles whir with a dizzying speed and fantastic control. The cars have weight to them, a heft that feels like they are physically on the track you’re racing on. I found controlling all of the vehicle types in GRID Legends more even and responsive than in GRID (2019). There’s so much variety that you’re likely going to find several favorite types to participate in. Being a GRID driver in this fictional sport is incredibly demanding, as you need to have expertise across disciplines like Touring Cars to GT to Trucks to Electric, and even Drift cars. Now, this is a dense mode, with hundreds of events tackling so many racing disciplines. Your career will begin in a Rookie tier, moving up to Semi-Pro, Pro, and finally Legend tier. You can start the career mode at any time, but there is a bit of continuity here that is well-suited by playing through the ‘Driven to Glory’ story first. Where the story mode ends, is where the career mode begins. If you needed any other incentive, there are benefits for playing through the story besides it being fun to watch and play, and that’s you gain levels and are rewarded with money for each of the races you participate in. I’ve talked a lot about a story in a racing video game, but it’s all thrills and no chills for this faux docuseries that’s just worth playing because it’s so entertaining. It’s necessary to cut down on the times you’re not behind the wheel, but amusing the nonetheless. It’s entirely too much talking for someone trying concentrate on winning or achieving some objective. The game will often deliver information and exposition while in the middle of a race. A lot of the things you do are incidental to the story, as any cutscene doesn’t match with your trajectory – in fact, it likely won’t consider it. Your role in all of this is “Number 22”, a nameless, faceless, speechless driver who is both a participant and a witness to the events that unfold. The level of diversity of its cast, to include women of color in empowering roles in a male-dominated sport is refreshing. It’s Lara Carvalho’s character arc I found to be the most important, played by Nicole Castillo-Mavromatis who’s second seat to Nathan McKane on the ever dominant Ravenwest Motorsport. Natsumi Kuroda plays as Yume Tanaka, the lead racer of the team you’re on goes on a real journey, but the game washes over a turning point with a blasé attitude. Then you’ve got Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa as a cocky upstart racer that evokes some Daniel Ricciardo vibes. Everyone in the cast is great, with all giving an earnest performance and never done in the way of camp or cheese, and it works really well to maintain the docuseries feel its going for. Nathan McKane, the longtime fictional antagonist of the series gets his first physical appearance courtesy of Callum McGowan. All of the cutscenes are done in full-motion video, using actors of varying recognition with some really fantastic tech to make it look it real. There’s 36 chapters that equate to about 5 hours of a campaign to take part in, and it’s all great. Funny enough, this story more closely resembles Netflix’s Formula One docuseries “Drive to Survive”. While it’s not as good of a name like ‘Braking Point’ from F1 2021, ‘Driven to Glory’ is some solid wordplay for the story mode of GRID Legends. GRID Legends is exhilarating, exciting, and an enthusiastic arcade-based racer that is the series’ best entry to-date. This entry smooths all of the rough edges of its predecessor. Codemasters have clearly heard the complaints about 2019’s reboot, and have expanded the number of locations, vehicles, and even types of disciplines. For GRID, the long-running series has really stepped into its own with the introduction of a story mode, and improvements on every facet with Legends. Codemasters are just that, experts at making games that cover broad strokes and niche corners of the racing genre.
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