Review: GRID Autosport – Best Mobile Racing Game

Some games just succeed at offering excitement and thrill without fail. You’re on the last lap, pushing the pedal and bumping the cars beside you. Everyone’s on a high to get to the finish line. You gun it and finally you zoom past the checkered flags. For a moment, you feel like you’re on top of the world. That is, before the next race, That’s the feeling we got from playing GRID Autosport.

GRID Autosport was released in 2014 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was the developer Codemaster’s attempt to bring back the authentic racing experience that was lost in so many other racing games, including its predecessor GRID 2. Codemaster wanted to focus on the old stuff that gamers loved in racing games, like realistic driving models and different cars. And they succeeded at it.

GRID Autosport offers a console-like gaming experience to your mobile device. With jaw-dropping graphics, you’d expect this game to cost as much as the original PC version. But, the price is extremely affordable at just $9.99.

Download GRID Autosport for iOS
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It may be on a smaller screen, but GRID Autosport is a big game. For a mobile app, it’s a pretty heavy one, with a recommended free internal storage of 6 GB. For Android, the lowest you can go is an initial 4 GB of free space, while iPhone and iPad users need 3.9 GB and iOS 12.1 or newer. The game is playable on the iPhone 6S and newer, and the iPad Pro 2017 and newer.

After playing a few laps with different cars, we could tell that GRID Autosport definitely lived up to its name. It’s a realistic racing game that will challenge even the best veteran racers out there, while charming casual players who just want a taste of “traditional” racing video games. Each car has a different drive that you can really feel. For instance, if you drive a single-seater the same way that you drive a stock car, you’ll fall off of the track before you know it. GRID Autosport isn’t just visually stunning, it’s also realistic, and that’s probably why so many people play it.

GRID Autosport has as many as 100 cars and 100 circuits, and all of them are rendered gorgeously. You’ll be met by familiar car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ford, McLaren, Nissan, Chevrolet and more. While the game doesn’t have all of the car manufacturers in the world, there are so many cars to choose from. You’ll be playing for a very long time before you run out of choices. Each car also has a different drive and requires a specific approach — this detail makes the game more challenging and fun to learn.

Career Modes

Even if you had 100 cars, if you could only race in one scenario, you’d still get bored. Thankfully, GRID Autosport isn’t like that. Aside from its realistic driving model, GRID Autosport lets you start a career in 5 modes: Touring, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner, and Street. In each career, you’ll get to pick a team with certain objectives, and then earn points while you race in multiple events. Each career has different cars and tracks, so your approach to each will have to be different. You might not make it during the first try, but that’s what makes this game interesting.

If you aren’t into starting a career, you could always go for Drag Championships, Touring, and Sprint Cups, and so much more. GRID Autosport also has Time Trial or Quick Race if you just want a game to pass the time, or to practice your driving skills. There’s even a mode where every last car gets eliminated every few seconds. The best part is that all of the content isn’t hidden. No in-game currencies, pop-up ads, or unlockable content. Everything is available.

Difficulty

GRID Autosport isn’t like Mario Kart. It’s a serious racing game that’s so immersive, you’ll feel like you’re actually scraping bumpers with other racers. While the hardcore racers will love this, some might be intimidated. The good news is that GRID Autosport’s difficulty can be customized to be as easy or as demanding as you’d like it to be. You can choose to use automatic or manual gears, adjust the AI levels, Traction Control, Handling Assist, Racing Line, and more.

One feature we’ve probably overused are the flashbacks. They allow you to rewind whenever you make mistakes if you ever crash your car. This feature is particularly useful if you’re still getting the hang of the game. It takes away the challenge, but if you’re like us and you can’t stop crashing into things, the flashbacks are a lifesaver. Literally.

Controls

GRID Autosport lets you customize the controls, letting you play touch-screen or using a controller. Using touch-screen lets you choose from tilt (physically moving your device left and right), wheel touch (moving your finger in a circular motion on a wheel with an accelerator), and arrow touch. We found that the game’s touch-screen controls are very responsive. We played it using wheel touch and found that it was the easiest one to use, but nothing still beats the use of a gamepad/controller. GRID Autosport has excellent haptic feedback, which means you’ll feel everything from hitting curbs to losing tire traction.

Visuals

GRID Autosport is simply gorgeous. Everything about the game, from the cars to the tracks, is breathtakingly detailed. While some racing games only look good when you’re watching cut-scenes, GRID Autosport makes you feel like you’re watching a gameplay video all throughout. It’s the kind of game that you should use to show off your phone’s graphics.

After finishing the race, you’ll get to watch it on replay which looks even more stunning. It’s like watching a real race on the TV.

And it doesn’t stop at visuals. The game’s sound is spot-on too. Car sounds are perfectly recreated from the humming of the engine to the sweet sound of acceleration.

Performance

Overall, GRID Autosport gives you smooth gaming. We played it on the iPhone X and didn’t experience significant lagging, except for the occasional “stutters” from playing at high speeds. This is where flashbacks come extremely handy.
As with any game with visuals as gorgeous as GRID Autosport’s, it will drain your battery fast. Don’t be alarmed if it also warms up your device. There is a battery-saving option that decreases the quality of the graphics, but we don’t think you’ll have to use it — unless you’re playing for hours.

Conclusion

GRID Autosport doesn’t mess around. It isn’t the kind of game you’d get bored of after a week. With every car and track available, you’ll be playing for hours, trying to master each car’s controls as you aim to win every race. The only downside is that it heats up your device fast. But for a game that looks and feels exactly like the original game on PC, PlayStation and Xbox, it’s so worth the $9.99 price tag.

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