Let me just start off by saying that I love all types of racing games whether they be sim or arcade. Many racing enthusiasts like me who have played GRID automatically have written this game off as an arcade game. However this is not the case if you own a Driving Force Pro, GT, or G27 racing wheel. When played with a dual shock controller, the maximum steering is set at 200 degrees since that's all a controller can really do. At 200 degrees of steering, the cars are incredibly twitchy, yet easy to control like an arcade game. When hooked to a 900 degree steering wheel, this game's personality completely changes. Gone are the twitchy, pendulum swinging controls, and what you now have is much more realistic steering. This game is not about driving everyday cars with painfully accurate physics. It's about driving heavily tuned racing cars that handle MUCH better than regulars do. You know, RACING! Where as Gran Turismo sets out to only to have the most accurate physics (supposedly) GRID sets out to reproduce the thrill and excitement of what makes racing fun in the first place. From the amazing engine sounds and overall sound design, to the amazing graphics, to the visceral sense of speed, to the incredibly fierce competition, to the damage modeling, this game has all of the things that normal sims are simply too good for. The physics in GRID are good, but somewhat forgiving. However screw up and slam into a wall and you can heavily damage your car which can make your efforts to finish utterly futile or you can instantly total your car if the crash is bad enough. The question isn't: Why doesn't GRID have better physics. The question should be: Why are there no consequences for bad driving in other racing games? Why do cars still sound like vacuum cleaners? Where is the sense of speed? Why is the computer A.I. such a pushover? Why are there an overwhelming majority of regular/slow cars to chose from in racing games? The answer: They are not Racedriver GRID!
I played the crap out of the original 1994 edition back when the game first came out. This game was everything that the movies were missing. Wars among the Stars. Dog fighting Rebel ships and blowing stuff up! Still to this day, nobody has developed such a deep and fun combat flight simulator. I just about had a heart attack when I saw the email from GOG had finally put Tie Fighter and Wing collector's editions up for sale. I didn't even think twice and bought it, and neither should you. BTW there are some who are complaining that this collection does not include the 1995 CD collector's edition which is pretty much the same as the 1994 version (which is included) but ran in double the resolution and speech during mission briefing and radio chatter. The 1998 collector's edition uses the XWing Vs. Tie Fighter engine with massively enhanced texture mapped graphics, CD music, and cockpit engine sounds. There is limited music while navigating around the game which has been replaced with ambient sound effects which does blow, but missions do have music. No, there is no midi music in the missions, but the CD music isn't too bad. You'll be too enthralled with the mission to care about such things anyway. Other than that both the 1995 and 1998 editions have the same crappy intro. The original 1994 version has the best intro by far. Lastly, you will do yourself a great injustice by playing this game with anything other than a flight stick. You'll need one hand on the keyboard pretty much at all times and flight stick will give you the precision that you need to dogfight effectively. I tried it with an XBOX360 controller and it blows. Also I hit a few snags after installation with graphics being weird colors and an error upon startup on the 1998 version. I remedied this by telling the game *NOT* to run as the administrator. Also I had strange colors and terrible performance on the 1994 original. I fixed this by changing DOSBOX output from "surface" to "DDraw" MUST BUY
Man when this game came out there was so much hype from people who actually bought this Kickstarter game when it came out. My brother got it as soon as it came out on his Wii U. He was so enamored with the game that he literally kept begging me to get this game. I love retro games, but I dislike how alot of retro style games try to sell themselves by just being hip and retro with being no more than a mediocre copy cat of some game I played back in the day. Well.................... Believe the hype. It's all true. I say this game is "The Real Deal" because this game was made with the love and passion as if we were still living in a world where 8-bit technology is the best tech available. This would have easily been a AAA title if it had come out on the NES back in the day. Shovel Knight does not seek to copy an old game. Shovel Knight is it's own unique game even though it mashes some popular gameplay mechanics that were established back in the day. The story and the dialog is ridiculously well written and will cause some laugh out loud moments. The gameplay is perfect and extremely tight. The music is..........well let's just say that I never thought that chip tunes like this could be made anymore. The music is beyond amazing. You can find MANY You Tube videos of this game to help you decide whether or not to buy this game, but the videos don't do this game any kind of justice. After I played this game on my brother's Wii U, it went from a game that I would eventually pick up cheap in GOG or Steam sale to a "Shut up and take my money!" game.
I'm gonna keep this as short as possible since my other review was too long for GOG so I will try to hit everything you should know about the game quickly. Controls: No melee attack, any key designated as the action/use command other than the "E" key will cause a glitch and you will not be able to let go of tripod based machine guns......ever, you can't run and strafe at the same time, the map system is a complete abomination with no ability to select a way point. Graphics: Amazing Sound: Guns sound amazing, music sucks Gameplay: Frustrating, respawning enemies that you can't ignore because they will chase you down, no stealth due to no melee attack or silenced weapons, constantly having to repair your vehicle, guns jam constantly, Malaria, every objective and side job is "kill that guy", the only thing you collect is diamonds to buy stuff, driving doesn't feel like driving. Bottom line, don't buy this game. Buy Far Cry, Far Cry 3, and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Buy this game only if you like to look at pretty graphics and destructible and flammable environments.
