Video Games : Race Driver: Grid (Nintendo DS)

Rating: - GRID is a solid and polished racing game for the DS
I`ve played rather a lot of driving games in my life. My favourites now are Gran Turisimo 5 -prologue (PS3), Colin McRea Dirt (Xbox360), and Mario kart for Wii and DS. Thats so far for my tastes in racing games, so the reader will know as to what I compare GRID with.
GRID for the DS is the follow-up to RaceDriver: Create and Race. This first game was good, but had several bif flaws: the cars were too slow on the wheel, the cpu-opponents were all too difficult. And even though graphics were very good on the cars, the background was boring, flat, blocky, and one could hardely see far enough ahead to take curves smoothly (unless you learned the course perfectly).
In GRID a lot of improvements have been done and the result is a very impressive non-cartoon driving game. It plays like a blending of a car-sim and an arcade racer; physics feel fine, really realistic for a portable driving game, but is easy to get into. Opponent-cars are not extremely hard to beat early in the game. Also they are not all a tiny field "up ahead", they are spread over the entire course giving players possibility for improving ranks more "little by little", than in Race Drver 1.
Graphics are very impressive for the DS. Car-3D-models are detailed and looks good. There are lightning-effects on them also, so as light and shade shifting as the car turns around, and also frontlight-effects on night-levels. Background is a huge improvement from RaceDriver, with lots of buildings, trees and signs along the courses. There are 37 tracks to explore, and also a track-designer where you can within a certain area create your own courses. This with great variation, making the game last for long time. One can also use selfmade tracks with singlecard and multicard game-sharing. When you race against a human opponent, the other cars will be cpu-driven.
The cars you choose from are licensed sports cars, and they have made the game to play very well with all 4 views: 2 views from behind the car, and two from within.
Sound is not very good though. Sound-effects are ok; your typical engine-noise, and tyres whining. If you use headphones there is stereo-effects when cars pass you by. Backgroundmusic are boring rythm-music repeating itself over and over), but thankfully you can adjust level of sound and music from 0 to full.

Summary game review:

GRAPHICS: 4.7/5.0
SOUND: 3.2/5.0
PLAYABILITY: 4.5/5.0
LASTABILITY: 4.8/5.0

OVERALL: 4.6/5.0

Closing comment: If you`ve got a DS, and want a solid non-cartoon driving game, look no further; this is quality.
If they make a third racedriver for the DS, I hope they improve background music (back in the eighties, on the Commodore 64 there were lots of brilliant music, so they`ve got no hardware-excuse), and I also hope they make bakground -graphics a little more arcade-like (everybody likes to race in idyllic scenery! Car-glam someone?).