Racedriver: GRID won the BAFTA for Best Sports Title in 2009
The development of GRID came hot on the heels of the massively successfully DiRT, improving on the technology base and performance output of the EGO engine that we had developed initially for DiRT.
An exceptionally talented core team developed the early concepts for GRID simultaneously during the development push of DiRT within the Codemasters Racing Studio. As swathes of the development team completed their work on DiRT, they transitioned seemlessly into GRID to begin to implement the incredible concepts set down.
Finally as optimisation efforts for the PS3 and PC development drew to a close with DiRT, I joined the Art Management team to develop the car livery system and push the 3D Envrionments and UI technology.
“GRID is a truly beautiful racing game: the cars are dazzling, whether you’re watching the evening sun glide down the side of your first Mustang or watching an F1000 go-kart take off onto a crash barrier as you brake poorly into a tight turn. There’s a slickness and polish at work that rarely slips. It’s most apparent in the little things: the serenity of the garage scene menu backdrop, with the camera bobbing slightly as if on the breeze; the crash-zoom GRID World intro to starting grid close-ups; the Achievement progress notifications on the loading screens; the seamless ghost-car downloads for world records in Test Drive mode; the range of driver assists, which most will want to turn off, but which reduce the strain on those who struggle.”
– Eurogamer, 9 out of 10.
Sadly I wasn’t there to enjoy the BAFTA award with the team – After nearly 10 years I made the difficult to decision to leave Codemasters at the end of production but the easy decision to join FreeStyleGames, so this was my final game with Codemasters
