GRID

[bVork]

From the press release on the Codemasters site:

Codemasters Studios to shift race gaming to a higher gear with GRID™.

GRID™ confirmed as official title for intense new racing experience coming mid 2008 from the creators of DiRT™ and Race Driver™ series.

Codemasters® today announced GRID™ as the full and official title for the game introduced under the working title of Race Driver One. GRID is the new racing experience from Codemasters Studios, creators of DiRT™ and the Race Driver™ series, and is set to deliver a step-change in the racing genre.

Coming mid 2008, GRID is set to capture every moment from the starting grid to the chequered flag and concentrate those moments into an intense and dramatic race experience. GRID is being developed for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows®.

“GRID is all about the race.” said Gavin Raeburn, Executive Producer at Codemasters Studios. “The next iteration of our DiRT engine combined with a decade of experience in developing driving games enables us to put the player at the centre of the action like never before. Damage, packed grids, intelligent opposition and unprecedented race day atmosphere will combine to deliver an experience like no other.

Says Ralph Fulton, Chief Game Designer. “GRID focuses on everything that happens between the start grid and the chequered flag: the drama, the rivalries, the aggression and the crashes. This is not a game about collecting cars or spending all of your time in the front-end tuning suspension settings or designing liveries. We want to make racing exciting again.”

GRID will take players to beautifully realised and dramatic race locations over three continents to compete in an unprecedented variety of racing events. Packed with the most powerful race cars - new and classic, circuit and drift - players will compete to conquer the most prestigious official race tracks and championships and then go beyond to compete in challenging city-based competitions, through to road events and urban street races.

In Europe, race gamers will compete on the greatest official tracks in prestige Marques including Aston Martin, Koenigsegg and Pagani.

Iconic cities across the U.S. - including San Francisco, Washington DC and Detroit and each with their own atmosphere and events - play hosts to diverse street races. Here, high-performance V8 muscle cars set the pace in aggressive closely fought pack competitions.

In the Far East, Japanese racing culture sets the tone where night races, including Drift racing, take drivers through neon illuminated cities and to outlying mountain roads. There is also the opportunity to compete in races that operate on the fringes of legality in the back streets and industrial areas of Yokohama.

GRID is coming mid-2008 for the Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 system and Games for Windows. To register for future driver briefings and get a place on the grid, be sure to visit www.codemasters.com/grid.

Screenshots stolen from Kotaku:
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Looks (and, from the press release, sounds) an awful lot like PGR: Semi-sim racing with no tuning using realistic depictions of cities and tracks. DiRT is fantastic, so I'm looking forward to this. I just hope that they improve the framerate - DiRT slows down a lot when racing against other vehicles, and that looks like it'll be the focus of this game.

[Rumpy]

Since DiRT is so good I'm looking forward to this.

[Yoshi]

<3 no tuning

I'll give this a shot.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

totally off topic, please forgive me. I'd rather not bump the Dirt thread for one question.
I haven't played a rally game since rallisport 2 for xbox, which I thought was excellent.
Does Dirt top it?? (aside from graphics).

[Rumpy]

I never played RS 2....had a great time with DiRT though. It's got a few race types, presentation is great, looks amazing (I don't think it dropped frames too bad) controls just as well. The difficulty levels are great for different skill levels. I played mostly on normal but could bump it up to Pro on a few rounds if it was too easy.

[Wildkat]

will the title of this get changed to AIDS after a couple of years?

[sethsez]

will the title of this get changed to AIDS after a couple of years?

Usually TNL jokes are really predictable, but this one caught me off guard.

Anyway, the Race Driver series is usually pretty fun. I doubt this'll be able to compete with the bigger racing franchises, but it'll probably be a solid rental.

[Bacon McShig]

will the title of this get changed to AIDS after a couple of years?

SARS imo

[Giga Power]

totally off topic, please forgive me. I'd rather not bump the Dirt thread for one question.
I haven't played a rally game since rallisport 2 for xbox, which I thought was excellent.
Does Dirt top it?? (aside from graphics).

Hmmm. For me, no. But the three best rally games ever made are RSC2, CMR2005, and DiRT. I couldn't pick one from those three...but DiRT is in the same league as RSC2 for sure.

[bVork]

IGN has a new preview and new trailer.

It sounds great. What I find most interesting is the proposed rewind feature that lets you reverse time to undo a crash. Unrealistic, but better than just respawning the car.