Grid Legends Review (MrFoxhound)
I really don't like when reviews start out with "I wanted to like this, BUT..." Well, I wanted to like this, BUT the game requires a lot of grinding in Career mode. It's just a way to artificially inflate the game's overall game length. I finished the Story Mode and I thought it was great. Figured I would jump into Career Mode next. There are 5 different levels and each level has races. Each race is split into different cups and disciplines. I did the first two for Ginetta Cup fine enough, then the game says "Unlock Ginetta Cup level 2 to access this stage." Ok, so I go to Google and ask "how to unlock Ginetta Cup Level 2" and I find a thread that says I have to repeat the same races until I finally drive the required amount of miles, and I think it's 25 miles. The elimination race only gives me 6 miles while the cup gives me around 10 miles.
This is dumb! And it's the same for every single cup. I looked and there is that option for every cup in Career mode. Just requiring the player to repeat the same stages over and over is an artificial way to inflate the game's length. It's a shame because I had planned on beating Career Mode and then buying the Season Pass for the other 4 Story Mode chapters, but, nah. This is terrible game design. Codemasters never would have done something this grindy before selling out to EA.
EDIT at the 31 hour mark:
Yeah, this game is complete trash. I STILL haven't even been able to knock out the Rookie level of races in this game. I finished everything, but there are sponsors that I don't even have access to after unlocking Pro level races. The game just doesn't want me to finish ANYTHING!
For reference, I finished the ENTIRE career mode of Grid 2019 in under 25 hours. I'm over 36 hours here and I only have 2 completed disciplines in the Semi-Pro level, and there are 4 levels: Rookie, Semi-Pro, Pro and Grid Finale.
Having a fully upgraded car is a complete waste too, because the AI of the other 21 racers is on rubber bands. They zoom off at the start, passing me with ease even though I have a fully upgraded car with the highest power and acceleration in available to me at the race. My car magnetizes to other cars when trying to pass, I'll either rearend them or sideswipe them and I am fully tilting the stick the opposite way of them to get around them. The game doesn't care.
The game doesn't care at all about any car stats, it's all just superficial fluff. You're just battling the game's rubberbanding AI the entire time. And since that is the case, WHY DOES THE GAME REQUIRE ME TO GRIND OUT 35 MILES TO GET ACCESS TO THE CUPS?! If the upgrades mean NOTHING (and they don't because I stopped upgrading cars to save money after realizing the upgrades are USELESS!), then why force me to grind races to some arbitrary number?!
And it is a grind. Every race gives around 5 miles, and each cup usually has 3 races. The first race doesn't even give you miles because you are "borrowing" the car. And there is NO option to buy a car for the discipline before the race. You are FORCED to use their car, so you get no credit for it. But you can go back and repeat the first race after you own the car, right? NOPE! The game gatekeeps ALL the first races of every cup to "borrowed" vehicles, even if you already own the car you are racing. Everything in this game is just trash. I don't grind this much in JRPGs or MMORPGs. And it's such a boring grind. The racing isn't fun. There is no music (which sucks because the music in Story Mode was great and was a mix of Metal Gear meets The Matrix).
This is a complete trash game and even if they pull a Ubisoft in the future and release it for $1.00 (like Ubi is doing at the time of this writing with The Crew 2), it's not worth it. Codemasters sold their souls to EA and it shows! Dead developer. Dead franchise. I'm leaving comments on with this review. Please tell me why this game is good. Because it's not.