Gridmaster

I heard through the grapevine that this was a sequel (or rather spiritual successor) to a critically acclaimed and incredibly advanced softbody physics sim racer from 2003. This... is rough. I can't endorse it in its current state, but it is a nice look at what could be. I wouldn't mind the more simcade style if it were advertised as such. I really had high hopes for this one.

This is one of those games where I was really unsure whether to recommend or not. On the whole, I think there are the bones of a good game here, but whether you'll be willing to dig for them depends on how much effort you're willing to put in. The game provides options for either time attack or drift events. There are no competitors to race against, just a target time/ drift score. As you obtain bronze, silver and gold trophies for these targets you get XP. Each time you level up you unlock a new car and/or track. It's a system I wasn't keen on at first, but you soon become hooked as better cars allow you to get better times/scores and push further into the game. The track selection is a bit limited, especially for the drift events. However, each track is quite unique. I found myself disliking the airport track and the grid world one. Otherwise, I enjoyed the variety. Graphically, the game looks good in still images. Unfortunately, that doesn't always translate when playing. While the frame rate remained steady, I experienced a lot of screen tearing on some tracks. I also had to turn off the shadows completely as they were glitching out. I'm not sure if that's because of my PC, though, so if you have something vastly better than the recommended specs you may have a smoother experience. Sound is ok. The music is inoffensive, and suits the game. The engine noises were nothing special. Sound does its job, basically. The cars tend to either lose grip or suffer incredible understeer, but that's kind of the point. Each track suits particular cars, so it encourages experimentation. I definitely found that drifting was more fun than the time attack mode, though. Aside from the graphical issues I mentioned, I haven't encountered any bugs so far. With a little more polish this could potentially be a good arcade racer. As it is, I'd suggest picking it up if you like the genre and are willing to put up with a few issues.