I remember playing this in 2010, and this is what it feels like playing the first 2 hours of GRID : "damn they are all driving so aggressively, what's going on here? OK I'll try to get to 12th place at least." After two hours of playing: "ok I'm at 5th place, this is amazing!"
Playing this game and the slow but steady learning curve is one of the many genius concepts of Codemasters game. And believe me, if you play this game more than 3 hours it will suck you in, it even got my brother out of 10 years video-game retirement, so be aware, this is a very addictive racer.
Because it is hands down THE best racing game in my opinion. It perfectly blends realistic racing with arcade fun. And even if someone prefers more realistic gamepkay, the game has a ton of options to tweak and adjust the realism of the behavior of your car.
On top the game gets never boring because it throws so many different challenges and car classes at you. You play regular races, once yuou get accustomed to the car, suddenly you have to switch and drive Formula 3 cars with a total different speed and handling of curves. The game always throws you off the loop, the minute you get too comfortable. The damage model of the car is so great, you get bumped too many in your left side, your car starts drifting towards the left, you might even total your car completely and the race is over. Here is where another great gameplay element comes into play: the replay function, where you can rewind the time for a max of 5 seconds before a crash, which gives you a second chance of taking that curve perfectly. One of the biggest challenges are 24h of Le Mans races, which is a 24 minutes race, where you start during the day and end up playing into night (weather changes included), those 24 minutes will be a nerve-wrecking test, there is no music until the last two minutes of the race when a pumping orchester score starts fading in, just to make sure you get the point! XD make sure to use those 5 replays wisely!