“Grid,” developed by Codemasters, was highly acclaimed for its technical prowess and graphical brilliance. Now there's a sequel and expectations are for the game are high.
“Grid 2” will release on May 28 in North America and May 31 in Europe for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. As of now, we know that the game’s cockpit cam has been removed due to console limitations.
“There seems to be some confusion about where we get our data from to help us make these decisions. While we do use research and focus groups, the most important data source for us is the enormous amount of telemetry data we can obtain from our servers that tells us exactly how and what our players are doing across all our games. So it's not a case of just a sample of people we've spoken to in research, it's a fact that only 5% of Codemasters Racing game players ever used the in-car view.
We certainly don't want to alienate any of our fans we want to deliver truly exciting features that 100% of our players will enjoy. Videogame development is always about trade-offs and in this case, taking the hard decision to lose the in-car views for 5% of our players (and remember we still have bonnet cam and bumper cam, which many people with racing wheels use), is something we felt was more beneficial to everyone. They are expensive to run due to the requirement for high-resolution interior textures which are seen close-up and require a considerable amount of in-game memory (to store) and processing (to render).
What this means in practice is that the benefit to our vehicle models, environment models and the hundreds of other things in the environment sapping memory, is huge. By making this educated call, we can use the extra available memory to make the on-track racing a truly mind-blowingly immersive experience.
For example, we can author and run higher resolution vehicle models with more detailed geometry. We can feature higher resolution external vehicle textures and work further detail into our environment textures. We can dedicate more processing power to our improved physics systems, integral to the GRID 2 experience, and push other systems to the next level, such as particles and real-time lighting. And there are many more benefits,” says executive producer Clive Moody in a post on the game's forum.
Apart from that, we know what the pre-order bonuses for the game are. They include various car packs that players can get by preordering them at specific retailers.
The game was announced in 2012 and runs on a more advanced engine compared to the one used for the first “Grid.” Executive producer Clive Moody says that in single-player, split-screen and online, the next-generation EGO Game Technology Platform will power not only the graphics, but AI, handling and damage.
As far as game improvements are concerned, the game will have better handling, visuals and AI. An improved career mode is being introduced alongside a new TrueFeel Handling System that makes use of real physics to provide that extra edge to the game.
“Grid 2” will also contain American locations like Chicago, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the California Coast, alongside international locations like Abu Dhabi and Paris.
