Features

GRID DLC to be launched today!
2008-12-04 10:54:33
Great news everyone!

Today, we are pleased to announce the release of the new downloadable '8-ball' premium content pack for Race Driver:GRID.

Available on both the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3, the '8-ball' pack will set you back a mere 800 Microsoft points and £6.29/$9.99/EUR7.99 from the Playstation Network. News regarding when the PC DLC is coming out will be available soon.

New featured cars include the McLaren F1 GTR, TVR Cerbera Speed 12, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, Honda S2000, Nissan GT-R (S-G2008), VW Nardo, Pontiac Firebird Trans AM and the Volvo C30.

In addition to the cars, there are two new multiplayer events to compete in set on existing circuits from across Race Driver: GRID's three continents and designed to test drivers to their very limit online. On Xbox 360, the pack will also feature four new Achievements worth 25 points each to earn from four new competitive challenges including Jack Of All Trades, Drift Master, Gas Guzzler and Clean Passing.

So start your engines and download the 8-BALL pack today!

THOSE “8 BALL” CARS IN FULL:

McLaren F1 GTR – The McLaren F1 GTR wrote itself into the history books as the only GT car to ever win Le Mans outright in the modern era and is considered one of the finest examples of automotive engineering in history.

TVR Cerbera Speed 12 – The TVR 12 smashes past 60 MPH in just under 3 seconds. Production models were planned, but they were considered too powerful to sell to the general public.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X – For over a decade the Evo has been billed as a supercar slayer – now the Evo-X in GRID lets you unleash its sledgehammer aggression in the Pro-Tuned class.

Honda S2000 – This roadster is heavily modified for drifting and has become a cult-favourite thanks to its award winning engine.

Nissan GT-R (S-G2008) – One of the world’s hottest cars makes its debut in Race Driver: GRID in its fully tuned racing spec.

VW Nardo – This powerful concept car made real from VW uses its 600BHP engine to rocket to 60MPH in 3.1 seconds.

Pontiac Firebird Trans AM – The 1971 racing edition of this true American legend is a worthy addition to GRID’s exclusive group of muscle cars.

Volvo C30 – Adding to Race Driver: GRID’s touring car roster comes the C30, Volvo’s agile, cutting edge hot-hatch straight from the STCC grid.

ACHIEVEMENT CHALLENGES:

Jack Of All Trades – Win an online race in each of the 8 Ball pack cars.
Drift Master - Achieve a 99x combo in the Honda S2000.
Gas Guzzler - Clock up over 250 miles in your favourite 8 Ball pack car.
Clean Passing - Win a clean race in an 8 Ball Pack car from last position.

You can check out some cool screens of a few of the new cars added to the game by the DLC on our forums.
GRID Community update: Expanding the game.
2008-09-19 16:45:16
For a long time, the most frequent question that’s arisen on the forums has been “When will there be more information on the DLC?” Well, the answer is: today!

You already, hopefully, knew about the McLaren F1 (GT1) and VW W12 Nardo (Prestige), and now the Line-Up for the first pack, launching in October, can be completed.

Honda S2000
Honda’s iconic sports car comes to GRID as a Drift car.

Mitsubishi Evo X
The latest iteration of Mitsubishi’s Evo series of super-fast saloons arrives to shake up the Pro Tuned Class.

Nissan GT-R GT500
One of the hottest cars on the planet right now, the Nissan GT-R joins the GRID line-up as a race-ready GT1 Car.

Pontiac Firebird
The Classic Muscle class has this for a new addition.

Volvo C30 STCC
Touring Car fans asked for more cars, and this handsome hot hatch makes a fine selection.

TVR Cerbera Speed 12
Powerful, Brutal, and a real test for drivers. This car goes into the Prestige class.

Over the run-up to the launch of the DLC, we’ll be adding more in-depth articles to the GRID cars database, which launches today. We’ve uploaded all the old “car focus” articles into it, and articles for the S2000 and Speed 12.

Finally, Congratulations to the qualifiers from this week’s rounds of the GRID community championship – you can read more details on the forum.
GRID Community update: Finding the champions
2008-09-03 15:24:24
GRID’s been out now for a while and we’ve been hard at work in the community office thinking of ways to reward the community for their loyalty in the run-up to the launch of the DLC.

Well, it gives us great pleasure to announce the GRID Grand Community Tournament!

We want to find the best racers in the GRID community, on Xbox, PC, and PS3 – what’s at stake is honour and bragging rights, not big prizes., The winners will get an exclusive forum avatar, and a Custom “GRID Community Champion” User title. The winners will also get some GRID goodies that we’ve got laying about the office.

The format is going to be based around qualifying race sessions with the fastest qualifiers on each format going on to a final in a few weeks. In the finals, the best racers will face off against 2 community team members. More specific details can be found in the signup threads listed below, but the schedule is as follows.

PC qualifying day – Wednesday September 10th

Xbox Qualifying - Wednesday September 17th

PS3 Qualifying – Wednesday September 24th

Then it’s Finals Week!

PC final: Wednesday October 1st
PS3 Final: Thursday October 2nd
Xbox Final: Friday October 3rd

So get signed up! One final thing- for it to work, you MUST have Private messages activated on your forum account.

Good Luck, And Good Racing!
GRID Weekly Update: “And The Winner Is…”
2008-08-08 13:21:41
Lots of news this week, so let’s pull on the crash helmets, strap ourselves in and get cracking!

Firstly, this week sees the launch of the DS version of GRID. We know some of you out there have been waiting for this for a while, and we’re happy to finally have it available to you! To mark the release, we’ve released a new video for the game showing off the game’s track editor. If you were familiar with the previous game in the series, Race Driver: Create and Race, then you’ll probably be excited to see the new track pieces and options that you can use in creating your tracks. You can download the video here.

Speaking of track design, it’s a seamless move from talking about GRID DS, so showcasing the winners of our “Design a Circuit” competition. It’s taken a while to go through these, but these are the three entries that really stood out to us – there’s no first, second, or third place here, all three are equal winners – and it was a hard job choosing them!

First up, Micheal Filer’s entry for a track around Denver!

Micheal provided lots of description of the track, and the area around it, as well as images and this layout map. The layout looks nicely balanced between speed and challenge, and has a tunnel, and tunnels make racing circuits much cooler!

Secondly, Matthias Achtelik’s Circuit around the town of Heilbronn. Matthias submitted his entry in the form of a powerpoint presentation, which you can download in English and German. This is another nice balanced layout.

Finally, we have Topi Kauppinen’s Helsinki circuit, presented in this Youtube video. A great layout, fantastically presented.



Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who entered, we hope you had fun making your entries, we certainly enjoyed judging them.

To wrap up this week, it just remains to announce the winner of the Livery Design competition: Pierre-Yves Coulombe, well done!
For legal reasons we can’t show the winning entry just yet, but when the artwork is ready, It’ll be posted up here.
GRID Community Update: The weight of judgement.
2008-08-01 12:42:00
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running a couple of competitions where the GRID Community has been able to flex its creative muscles. These competitions ended last week, and we’ve been deep in thought judging them.

We’ll announce the winners in next weeks’ update, but it’s been a fun, though taxing job choosing winners from so many entries, and we’d like to thank everyone who entered.

In other news this week, I’d like to draw your attention, in case you’d missed it, to the Codemasters community team’s blog, www.maycontaingamers.com. It’s been running for a few weeks and has all sorts of articles, with both light-hearted comment and some proper analysis and discussion of various issues relating to the industry – and as always we’re keen to hear your comments on the articles.

Finally, there will be another Community Race day next week, on Thursday afternoon (UK time).

Oh, and in some late-breaking news, the DS version of the game will be released next Tuesday! Stand by for a video next week showing off the awesome track editor.

Keep checking the forum for more info!