Recent reviews by Andi Sabin

*This was written before endgame*

No more brainless zoom zoom map cleared in 5 minutes.
There are actual fighting mechanics now. The character requires some brain power to be played in an efficient manner.

This game steers off the "diablo like" arpg formula, towards a LostArk endgame style combat which requires some degree of skill, no matter how powerful the build is. There are actual damage burst windows now, with buildup skills and some degree of positioning.

Overall, great game.

Absolutely awesome gameplay. Great game. Can't get enough of it.

But I can't rate it positively until they add an FOV slider. Their official response: it's a 3rd person game and the dynamic camera is too complex blah blah. Plus the usual "unfair advantage in multiplayer" bull crap. Corporate way of saying "f yourselves, FOV slider isn't comming". A modder made an unofficial FOV setting and it works like a charm. Used it for 40h of gameplay and it has been without issue. But I am risking a ban because I play with the correct calculated FOV based on my screen size and distance from the screen, so I don't get nauseated and throw up. But a studio capable of making their own game engine can't do it for some reason.

The newley added "UltraWide support" is a joke that doesn't add lateral display, but it cuts the content horizontally, so you get even less FOV and even more nausea.

No HDR. MS AutoHDR not compatible. SpecialK gets blocked by EasyAnticheat. Reshade works, but it's a bannable offence. Only solution is nVidia HDR. But that seldom works, as the app doesn't recognise the game.

And a funny one: If you set the Upscale setting to "Dynamic", all your graphics setting will reset to default when you exit the game, even the brightness settings. So leave it at a set position, like Ultra Performance, Quality, etc. Never Dynamic.

Another weird bug: For some reason (probably the stance change animation), the Power Sword does not combo when using keyboard as input when you hold any movement button. It just repeats the first attack.
You have to tap the movement keys only when you want to change the direction of the character while doing a combo.

Tip: Volumetrics is by far the biggest GPU killer (at least at 4k). Got 30% fps boost by setting it to LOW, with barely any visual difference.
Probably bug: changing Ambient Occlusion from High to Default gave me 100% fps increase in some instances (jungle biome).

I will change this rating to "Positive" when I'll see an FOV slider. Not having one is game breaking for the majority of players who have FOV nausea.

Today, 21st Aug 24
Version 1.1

Performance: greatly inproved for nVidia cards by selecting DX12 api. Rezolved the input lag issue, which was by far my biggest issue with the game. It still has horrendous pop-in, especially when driving fast.

Monetisation: as of writing this review, there is zero pay-to-win and zero pay-to-progress. Only cosmetics can be bought with real money.

Networking: a joke. I don't recommend this for a smooth PvP experience today. The hitreg is hit and miss. PvE works great.

Nah, keep your mandatory pleb account 2 months after release. I'll make one when I'll play on PlebStation.
Uninstall.
I'll just crack it if I'll ever wanna' play again.

Nice gameplay, terrible performace.
Had to use AI upscale on a 4080.
If the top 5 GPUs on the market have to use upscaling for fluid framerate, your optimisation is trash.
I really don't care how good that particular tree at 2km distance looks like because "nanite", because it's rendered at 1080p and AI upscaled, so it looks bad anyway.
People are modding the game to disable nanite and revert to polygon LOD in order to double and triple the fps.
// rant over

Great game overall, but only if your PC costs as much as a second hand VW Golf.

AI is on rails and has no idea where you are. If you are on their tracks, they will just race through you.
Formula Offroad with paddle tires on pavement was too much for me. I Alt+F4-ed there.
I love couch friendly racing arcade games. This wasn't it for me. Idiot AI just ruins all the fun.

VR REVIEW - 21st of April 2020

72 fps on i7 8700k + 2080TI with ValveIndex with no opponents to render. Adding aditional cars will drop fps to 50 and below. Even with VR Epic graphics preset (All resolutions to HMD default, no SS) the game uses 22% CPU and 60% GPU and looks like trash. The original Assetto and the 10+ years old iRacing are eye candy compared to this in VR.

Increasing VR SS to 140% (in-game) will make it look a bit better, and will increase GPU use to about 80%, but frames drop to 50 and below with no opponents to render.

I spent 2 hours tweaking graphics, reading guides, configuring engine.ini file. Bottom line is you can't make it look good and you can't make it run good. It's just badly optimised for VR as it doesn't know how to use the available CPU and GPU power.

As a real world comparison, the original Assetto looks better and sharper on the CV1 Rift than Competizione with maxed out graphics looks on ValveIndex.

I've Been Playing GRiD 2019's Career the Wrong Way

It's a shame all this fun is hidden.
This is a racing game. In all racing games, actually racing for positions and overtaking and defending is the most FUN inducing part. Just being 1st all race long is boring. You can win almost all events without a single podium. You can win by just having fun in the middle of the pack, overtaking and actually racing. I love the developers for thinking about this and I hate myself for not noticing it sooner 'cause I'm an idiot.

So, long story short is... If you don't qualify, the whole grid will be reversed based on the last race.
The wrong way I was playing was to qualify 1st on every single race than staying 1st for the whole race. This was boring.
The way I play now is this: I qualify for the first race in the event. I get like 4-8th place in the first or second try. I'm playing with a steering wheel on Very Hard. The AI is WAY slower while racing compared to their qualifying times. This 4-8th place is enough for me to win or get a podium in the first race. Now, for the second race, I skip qualifying and get the reversed starting grid. So I'll be starting 16th or 15th. Now, the AI will never be able to overtake as many cars as I do. I usually finish 3-6th when starting from the last place. For the 3rd race in the event and so on, I will skip qualifying and get this reversed starting grid. In the end, when the event is finished, I and my team will have waaay more points than 2nd place. I win the event and have a lots of fun in the middle of the pack, racing. Win-Win situation.
It's a shame the developers didn't make this cool feature way more visible, like the first thing you see when starting career mode. Or maybe they did and I was to hyped by the ,,new game" effect.

Shortest review for STEERING WHEEL players:
- The game is full arcade with very very basic sim elements. Just enough to be enjoyed with a wheel.
- I played GRiD 2 with a controller. That one wasn't enjoyable with a wheel. This one is.
- The very very basic sim elements are: 1. You will reduce understeering with a light brake. 2. You can feel when the car starts oversteering in the wheel, the FFB loses power. 3. The wheelspin balance of the back wheels for rwd cars when you accelerate out of the corner feels natural. 4. There is a very basic feeling of weight control and you can barely feel what the car does through the basic force feedback.
Conclusion: If you're a sim racer, but looking for an arcade that is GREAT and FUN with a steering wheel, buy it. I personally love it, I'm having a blast with it.

Tips for steering wheel players:
Go to your steering wheel settings in the game and crank every single setting on 150%.
For ClubSport wheel bases: go into your wheel's settings, under FF, and set it to 100%.
The game's force feedback is probably ,,early access", or they just don't care about it :)
And if you figure out how to make the force feedback for the gas pedal and the one for the ABS on the brake pedal work, please let me know. The game has sliders for pedal force feedback, but it doesn't seem to work for ClubSport pedals.