Argh! You stupid idiot! What did you do that for?!” Expect words such as these to spurt violently from your mouth on numerous occasions while playing GRID, the latest racer from the folks behind the TOCA series. It’s all thanks to a new gameplay element known as Flashbacks, and it is both a blessing and curse to what could quite easily lead to hair loss, popped veins and broken controllers. But damn is it good.

Basically, Flashbacks let you retry any moment within a race by rewinding play and starting again. You have four of them per race, which means you have four lifelines to set things right. It’s a brilliant feature, making sure that if you do veer wildly off track around a corner or simply shoot into one too fast and crash, you can simply hit the back button, watch the action back in slow motion, and decide on a recent point to reset your car to, continuing on as if nothing ever happened. We only wish we had such an ability in life, we would all probably be rich and married by now

The problem is, Codemasters seems to think that this is cause to make us all the more prone to crashing and skidding out of control. Imagine the scene: the race starts as at least 12 cars storm off down a long straight heading for the first turn. It’s a car-wreck waiting to happen! And it does. Over and over again. You would think having four Flashbacks per race would make things easy, but it doesn’t. It’s like racing on ice as it’s all too easy to lock into a doughnut spin. Scraping wing mirrors with an opposing car will make you stick to them like glue too, ending in yet another crash. They are like magnetised death cars, impossible to avoid on the claustrophobically slim lanes.

Of course, it’s fun as hell at first. Who wouldn’t enjoy smashing into a pack of cars at 200mph like a kamikaze daredevil when you know you can reset and do it properly the second time? It grates incredibly thin though when you’re actually trying to win, when all of a sudden GRID becomes your worst enemy. What was once a smash-andbash thrill session becomes a serious test of throttle control and evasive driving.

It’s a good thing it’s so intoxicating then. You pelt through Europe, USA and Japan in a multitude of cars representative of their nation at eyewateringly fast speeds that could combust into failure at any moment, it truly is intense. Speaking of the locations though, they aren’t as gimmicky as we’d like, and although there are technically 80 tracks, they are all modified, regurgitated versions of the same 15 circuits, which feels a bit cheap, but there’s enough charm and variation of events to keep you coming back.

You get to pick a nickname when you start, which your garage attendant will use to address you. She’s a lovely sounding lady too. Your driving attendant will use it during races as well and it feels more personal, like you are more involved somehow. As for the events, alongside standard races are Drifts, Demolition Derbies, 24 Hour Le Mans races (see All Night Long) and Touge tournaments. The latter is reminiscent of the duels from Need For Speed: Carbon. You drive two legs, one in the lead down a cliff and one trailing back up the same route, where the best time overall wins. That’s six legs in the tournament, and only four Flashbacks for the whole thing. Ouch.

Demolition Derbies are superb. The damage engine GRID uses in general is very tight and realistic, affecting your car’s performance where you crash, so in a Derby it is all the more noticeable. The cars drift effortlessly around figureof- eight courses and leap over crossing jumps that are just begging for mid-air destructions. Drift events themselves are a bit poor though. It’s hard to get a feel for the traction, and scoring is very temperamental. For us it just doesn’t do enough to give Juiced 2 a run for its money, where the drifting was nighon perfect. There is however a great multiplayer mode. Flashbacks in this situation are of course impossible, but when you do total your car you get to watch the action on camera until it is over, which is a nice touch.

Overall, as infuriating as GRID becomes we are always booting it up for another bash. It’s one of those games that we can happily play in short bursts many times over, and there’s so much to achieve it will last you until Christmas if you did. It may be a hybrid between Burnout, PGR and Juiced, but it’s an enthralling racer all the same that deserves to be played, even if you own all three of the aforementioned games. Just book yourself into anger management if you have a tendency to get mad, or have a well-placed cushion nearby to scream into.

Javid Sangra