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Ever since Codemasters hit DiRT (Colin McRae: DiRT to Europeans) first hit store shelves back in June of 2007, other racers have come and gone with varying levels of critical and commercial success. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Burnout: Paradise, and Sega Rally Revo have all vied for tops of the racing world. But most would agree that DiRT had the most going for it. The tragic and untimely death of Colin McRae gave fans of DiRT reason to be doubly sad, since it meant that the game's namesake was gone.

But with the annoucement of Race Driver: GRID (or just GRID to its friends) hopes were rekindled that Codemasters could put together another amazing racing experience, taking drivers off of the rally circuit and putting them into race tracks. Both games were built with the proprietary Neon engine (although it has been upgraded for GRID and is now called Ego). The GRID demo hit the Xbox Live Arcade today, and having played a few hours of it, I have to say, DiRT fans have good reason to be excited.  

The first thing you're prompted to do is input your name and your country of origin. Your home country factors into GRID in an interesting manner, as it will determine how your earnings are paid out (e.g. if you're from the US, you're earning dollars; if you're from Japan you get Yen, and if you're from France, it's all about the Euros). You also have to choose from a menu of pre-sorted male names, female  names or nicknames for the game to call you. I was "Mongoose" since the only spelling of my name was "Shaun". Sure, the pronunciation is the same, but it just doesn't feel the same.

From there, you get to pick your game mode from either Career or Xbox Live play. The career mode starts you off racing a BMW in the European Touring Circuit at the Jarama Track. Finishing in the top three unlocks a race of American muscle cars in San Francisco Finish that race in the top three and you get to try Japanese Drift Racing at Yokohama Docks. 

As a welcome addition not often seen in demos, Codemasters has made the XBL mutli-player accessible on the demo version of GRID. Finding a match was no problem, and I didn't notice any discernable difference between the gameplay of Career and Multi-player. The only real problem I had with the online gameplay was starting a race. If you come into pre-game lobby as the sixth person, you're starting in sixth. This gives a really unfair advantage to the game's host. I would like to add I don't understand how some people can play a demo that has been available for all of ten minutes like Major League Gaming sponsored players. But maybe that's just me...

The driving physics should feel familiar to anyone who has spent any time on DiRT. There is a lot of attention paid to weight distribution and drifting, and there is also a full car damage system. If you're anything like me and used to playing GT5:Pro, you've become accustomed to bumper-car driving your way around a track, bouncing off of every wall, car and solid surface. That won't help you in GRID. Every dent, ding, or fender bender is beautifully rendered.

For me, the most memorable part of the GRID demo is the replay system. If you are in a crash serious enough to cripple your car, your race stops there and then. However, you are taken immediately into the replay interface. You can watch the replay from several camera angles, at any speed from frame-by-frame-slo-mo, to Keystone Kops fast. After you've finished CSI'ing the accident scene, you have one of three options: you can replay the entire race, retire completely, or (in a really interesting twist), pick the race up from just before your crippling accident. This is a nice addition to a racer with such an unforgiving damage system, since you can literally try and try again to get it right.

Overall GRID's demo was a lot of fun, even though I generally don't go for such pure simulation in my simulators. It definitely whetted my appetite for the full version, as long there is a large selection of cars. 

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