![]() Late in the campaign, when you watch your fanbase climb into the tens of millions, the game gives a weird sort of thrill, creating an illusion of fame in the form of what’s basically an arcade high score. First, you’re picking up a few hundred fans, then a few thousand, then tens of thousands once you start competing in the actual regional WSR tournaments. At the beginning, your racing just a few clubs in America on a mere three evolving courses – like in the aforementioned Chicago and the hills of Northern California – but with each success (typically placing in the top three, so even the less skilled can make progress into the campaign early on) you watch a meter counting your fans tick up. Starting in the US, then Europe, then Asia before competing in full world competitions, Grid 2 slowly blooms into a vast array of races and cars. ![]() To get the WSR off the ground, though, you have to tour the world, besting racing clubs in each region to earn both their respect and their fans. The WSR will bring together all the street racing communities of the world, from American circuit duelers, to Asian drift masters, and onto Europe’s storied technical racers. After inviting you for a day on the test track, where you learn some of the fundamentals of driving and how to properly handle a heavy muscle car like the Mustang, Callahan chooses you to be his driver for the World Series of Racing. After taking an easy win – though it’s possible to fail even here in the intro – the racing eccentric Patrick Callahan takes note of your skill and rising popularity, thanks to videos on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. When Grid 2 starts up, you’re pushing your Ford Mustang into a short race through the Windy City’s midtown on a course sparsely populated by fans. Here’s the deal: You are the rising star of Chicago street racing. It is a remarkable attempt, though, and one that comes so close to achieving its utopian vision that it deserves praise. It’s rarely worked and even Grid 2 may not satisfy the true gear head. Want to take corners at unreal speeds and still find a way to recover your race, then have to drive a pitch-perfect line the next time you take the course? That was the goal. They were all in some way conceived as games that would be all things to all racing fans. Last year’s open world experiment Forza Horizon and the original Race Driver: Grid too. The formerly Need For Speed branded Shift series from EA tried it. Racing cars that offer realistic physics with arcade demands on tuning. It wants to offer you the unbridled speed and escapist thrills of classics descended from OutRun, while at the same time offering the sort of technical-minded challenges rooted in Hard Drivin’. It’s yet another attempt to make a racer that truly brings together all the fantasies offered by driving video games even through reality may stand in the way. ![]() Codemasters Southam’s latest prayer to the road is more than that, though. It’s a one stop destination for motorsport fanatics, even if it makes about as much sense as having both baseball and cricket teams compete in the MLB’s World Series. Grid 2 wants to be a utopian racing game.
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