By Alec Meer on June 5th, 2008 at 7:26 am.
Well, that headline just didn’t work, did it? Sorry.
Nevertheless, news is in: Codemasters’ Race Driver GRID is on that there Steam- and this one is available to multiple territories, not just to you ever-priveleged Americans. $40, it is – or $47 in the UK, once VAT is added. Which is about the same as the boxed copy, sadly. To American Steamers, it’s $60 – Europe treated with respect by games publisher shocker.
It isn’t Codies’ first appearance on Steam, but it is their first very high profile one – of its two prior offerings, Clive Barker’s Jericho [Mehrico more like - Ed] was a bit of a stinker and Overlord, while a giggle, never quite reached heights of brilliance. GRID? Lots of fun, remarkably attractive and a game that my racing fan chums just won’t shut up about, no matter how much I yawn and mutter ‘oh, is that the time?’. Hopefully it’s a sign Codies are taking Steam seriously, and we’ll see a healthy slice of their back catalogue turn up on it soon.
05/06/2008 at 07:33 MeestaNob! says:
If you’re an Australian it’s certainly a sound investment.
05/06/2008 at 08:10 Bitkari says:
Europe treated with respect by games publisher shocker.
You’d really hope so being a European developer/publisher!
Anyhow, I’m glad they’ve put it on Steam, and at a reasonable price – I’ll be buying it from here rather than Play for a change.
05/06/2008 at 08:13 Ben Abraham says:
@MeestaNob!
Hell yeah! Boxed games priced as if the AUD is not currently worth the .95ish USD that it currently is, really, really sucks. Go steam!
Edit: For anyone interested in the disparity between Australian gaming costs and US/rest of the world, EBgames.com.au has GRID X360 boxed for $109.95 while US Ebgames.com has GRID at $59.99. For the same game. No wonder Yahtzee is so angry.
05/06/2008 at 08:14 Sean says:
“To American Steamers, it’s $60 – Europe treated with respect by games publisher shocker.”
No its $39.99 for me, and there is no sales tax :P
05/06/2008 at 08:27 Rob says:
@Sean
You know I was just thinking that that’s what this comments section was missing, a bit of gloating. Nice to know there’s someone to fill that niche.
05/06/2008 at 08:33 rustdragon says:
So wait… someone is excited about this game?? For that price??
05/06/2008 at 08:33 Jimmeh says:
Not Europe, just the UK. It’s $59.99 if you’re on the continent.
France, Netherlands, etc.
05/06/2008 at 08:46 FunkyLlama says:
@Rob
He wasn’t gloating he was correcting an error in the article.
05/06/2008 at 09:04 Rob says:
@FunkyLlama
Our mileage varies.
05/06/2008 at 09:12 creamsickle says:
I absolutely could not stand grid. It was in some horribly awkward place between sim and arcade that whether I tried driving aggressively or realistically i would either spin out or get overtaken instantly.
I don’t know if it’s just me or what. I simply cannot play this thing for the life of me. This is definitely the Rainbow Six Vegas of racing games. I want the old codemasters back. :(
05/06/2008 at 09:53 Optimaximal says:
Hillariously, the Royal Mail seem to have lost my copy of GRID from Play.com, so if it doesn’t turn up in 21 days, i’ll simply claim my money back, buy it on Steam and use the code Play.com gave me for the exclusive Aston DBR9 anyway :D
05/06/2008 at 09:58 Pavel says:
creamsickle – It is just you. Both demo and full control flawlessly.Both on keyboard and momo wheel..
05/06/2008 at 09:59 azwipe says:
Urgh? RPS has an editor?
05/06/2008 at 10:06 nakke says:
Yeah, it’s $60 in the rest of Europe. Which isn’t all that bad, really, €40 before taxes, but I’d of course rather pay $40 like others. Although I’ll not buy the game anyway, just because I don’t like arcade driving games trying to be simmy.
At least it’s not $70 before VAT, like our good friend COD4…
05/06/2008 at 10:44 Howard says:
@creamsickle
No, it’s definitely NOT just you. Game is terrible either played on my G25 or my 360 pad. As you say, neither Sim nor arcade nor anything playable in between and with the worst AI I have ever witnessed. Another game for the 360 owners and not for PC
05/06/2008 at 11:04 Sizzlord says:
Wow this game works out to be $41 dollars Australian!! Holy shit. I’m tempted to buy it on simple principle.
05/06/2008 at 11:10 Heliocentricity says:
To speak of him is to invite his wrath! The editor is the RPS overmind, at 2:14 a.m. August 29th, 1997 RPS became self aware.
Also…. I’ll be buying this right now, nearly got a disc copy but not having to dig around for a disc in the future sweetens the deal.
erm… no, that would be any racing game where the racers are on rails(GT) or cheat(mario kart).
anyway, its allabout the multiplayer, race carefully to survive the carnage of the first corner then try and spin people out by tapping their rear wheel ^_^.
05/06/2008 at 11:35 G says:
Cue evil laugh
05/06/2008 at 12:07 Crispy says:
@azwipe:
I think they said somewhere the RPS editor is Tim Edwards. Although I think they used that term loosely.
05/06/2008 at 12:52 Wholly Schmidt says:
“Editor”, or “Tim Edwards”?
05/06/2008 at 12:57 Duoae says:
And this is one of the problems i have with steam. I don’t see why i should pay the same for a digital copy as a boxed copy… Not to mention that a lot of content on steam is more expensive than in shops (before it goes on sale on steam though)
Not that i’d get Grid – i’m not one for street racers, but i like to complain ;).
05/06/2008 at 12:59 Chris Evans says:
GRID has flaws, but is has found a good middle ground between Sim and Arcade. Really fun game.
05/06/2008 at 13:32 Rook says:
I think you gain a lot by going steam, so it’s easily worth paying the same price for games you’ll want to keep.
05/06/2008 at 14:11 DuBBle says:
If anyone’s having trouble with sporadic framerate lockup, try installing service pack 1 (if you’re using Vista). I know! Microsoft done fixed something!
05/06/2008 at 15:24 Nuyan says:
Does anyone know if the multiplayer became more ‘pc-like’ than the demo? I certainly hope so..
And I liked the demo, kind of tempted to buy it while I rarely play a race-game.
But I’m not going to buy it if I need to pay 60$ while all those british bastards can get it for 40$. Of course.
05/06/2008 at 15:50 TychoCelchuuu says:
Nuyan, it’s not $60, it’s $40. In fact those British bastards are paying 7 extra dollars.
05/06/2008 at 16:32 Hypocee says:
Yeah, the article’s factually wrong; GRID costs USD40. The UK treated with somewhat less disrespect than usual shocker?
05/06/2008 at 16:52 yxxxx says:
Im waiting for it to become dirt cheap for ps3 as its the only way Im going to buy it very disappointed with it.
Oh look a pun how very funny
05/06/2008 at 16:53 Nuyan says:
TychoChelchuu. I just got home and it says $60 here on steam, if you include VAT to that it’s $71,39.
05/06/2008 at 16:54 nakke says:
“Yeah, the article’s factually wrong; GRID costs USD40. The UK treated with somewhat less disrespect than usual shocker?”
It costs $60 on steam here (Finland).
05/06/2008 at 17:44 Optimaximal says:
Well, the Royal Mail never dropped it today, so I just dropped $46.99 on it over Steam.
05/06/2008 at 17:46 Mr. Brand says:
60 dollars here, too. Why such different prices when you move a bit north in Europe?
Is it because the data streams, as everybody knows, need to wear woolly underwear? I thought Valve would have been able to get a discount on winter clothes.
05/06/2008 at 18:21 Heliocentricity says:
Nuyan, it’s not $60, it’s $40. In fact those British bastards are paying 7 extra dollars.
We are not paying that $7 extra for grid, we are giving them to the queen as a tithe.
Lest we be smote.
05/06/2008 at 23:29 terry says:
A little bird told me this game looks amazing but is a mess to play.
On the other hand birds have very poor controller skills so I am interested.
05/06/2008 at 23:31 Sam says:
The game is huge! I pity anyone trying to download it :P
05/06/2008 at 23:38 cjc says:
I’m with creamsickle and Howard on this one – this is the worst handling race game I’ve played in a long time. Having said that, it looks amazing and seems to know my name, so I might just keep plugging away at it while grumbling to myself and spamming the restart race button.
05/06/2008 at 23:57 RichPowers says:
Wow, having to pay $100+ for a flippin’ videogame? You poor Aussies. That’s just cruel.
If Time Warner goes forward with its 40 GB download limit per month, Steam games might get a little more expensive if you’re unfortunate enough to have them as an ISP. Every GB over the limit costs $1. So if you’ve reached your limit (not hard these days) and can’t wait until the next billing cycle to download a game, you’re looking at $2-8 on top of the retail price.
06/06/2008 at 02:50 Fazer says:
It says 39,99$ for GRID on Steam and I’m from Poland.
06/06/2008 at 10:33 aldo says:
Demo control seemed fine on my budget wheel (logitech thingymebob), although am I the only person not that impressed with the graphics? I have no idea what the default settings, beyond 1600×1050 resolution, were for me (probably too high – tearing), but actually playing it seems no different than games of 2/3 years ago. Sure, stuff like an actual 3d, reactive, crowd is super-cool, but you don’t see that if you’re playing well and not skidding into them.
06/06/2008 at 13:27 KindredPhantom says:
It seems PCG is not keeping Tim Edwards busy enough. :D
08/06/2008 at 12:12 meh says:
@pavel: wrong.