YMMV / GRID

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Because of the Gameplay and Story Segregation trope's effect in GRID 2, you can critically screw up the beginning race and due to the plot, still become an internet hit, with Patrick Callahan wanting to fund you. It's easy to interpret your internet display as a popular comedy video, with Callahan wanting to capitalize on your fame before you kill yourself out of humiliation.
• Awesome Music: All installments of the series have some adrenaline-pumping soundtracks that play during replay mode and special orchestra versions for the important license races.
  • Notable tracks for the first GRID include "Razor's Edge", "Burnbaby", "Vroom" and "Gridlock".
  • GRID 2's score manages to get remixed versions of the previous installment's tracks such as "Gridlocked" (Remix of "Gridlock"), "Adrenaline Rush" (Remix of the 24 Hours of Le Mans countdown theme) and the sequel song "Razor's Edge, Part 2" (which is more orchestra-focused than the former).
  • Disappointed with the soundtrack from Autosport? Legends have got you covered with "Triple Razor" (a third rendition and Triumphant Reprise of "Razor's Edge"), "Grid Runner", "Electric", "Legendary" and "Meltdown". And for a sense of finality, "Off The Grid" (which is a Dark Reprise of GRID 2's theme song) is heard during the final showdown against Nathan McKane at New Year's Eve during a thunderstorm at Strada Alpina.
• Broken Base: GRID Autosport. Was it a true-to-form return to the roots of the original GRID and a sign of Codies' "redemption" (that was fulfilled following the release of DiRT Rally), or a jaundiced attempt to Win Back the Crowd that got alienated with GRID 2? Debates are continuing.
• Contested Sequel: On one hand, GRID 2 has improved graphics, where Color Wash and Real Is Brown is finally averted and the graphics held up well years after its release. There's also a lot more variety of racing modes. However, the controls have been tweaked to be more drifty reminiscent to arcade-y drift-based games such as Ridge Racer, full cockpit view, race crews, and endurance mode is removed, and the career mode was changed from running between seasons to a standard "complete events to unlock the next events".
• Continuity Lockout: Downplayed. A few aspects of the story of Legends might require players to be familiar with the lore of the series, particularly the TOCA Race Driver games. However the "McKane" featured in Legends is given a massive Adaptational Villainy (see Moral Event Horizon below) that might make long time players think that he isn't the same McKane as the guy featured in the TOCA Race Driver games.
• First Installment Wins: It's pretty much agreed upon that the first GRID is better than GRID 2. Some do argue with Autosport being just as good as GRID 1, though. However not only are pitstops still absent (tracks with pitlanes have those pitlanes blocked off by barriers), but the returning cockpit view is blurry and far less detailed than the first GRID. It isn't until GRID (2019) and GRID Legends that the series earned its respect back.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Some fans had taken the liking to ram and total Ravenwest whether they show up in the first game.
    • Considering they do it to you just as often, it's only fair to show them what it feels like before they get the chance to.
  • The cockpit view. See They Changed It, Now It Sucks! below.
• Moral Event Horizon: Nathan McKane crosses it at the very beginning of Legends' story mode when he causes the massive accident in the mid-season Strada Alpina race - which causes Yume Tanaka to have to have her leg amputated. - and doesn't take responsibility for it.
• Polished Port: The Nintendo Switch port of Autosport, developed by Codemasters' sister studio Feral Interactive, is extremely well-done. Aside from slight overall performance and graphics improvements, there are now two modes - "Graphics" which enchances them further and makes use of advanced visual effects like shadow details and Depth of Field, and "Performance" which forgoes them in favor of a smooth 60 fps. In addition to being compatible with every type of Switch controller as well as the Hori racing wheels, the Gamecube controllers that players of ''Smash'' were using can now function with analog triggers, ensuring they can still control throttle and brake input as they could with the original versions.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The arcade-ish handling in GRID 2 (specially when driving a "Balanced" or "Drift" type car), in which you're very likely to oversteer when dashing through a corner.
  • The lack of rearview mirror in GRID 2 and GRID Autosport.
• That One Boss: Ravenwest's Nathan McKane and Rick Scott. They're almost perfect with their cornering, acceleration, and they seem to be either in the pole position or in the middle in the start of each race. Regardless of difficulty^note unless you play on basic(easy) mode, if you make any apex mistakes such as improper cornering and slipping off the road or if you don't drive aggressively, 9 times out of 10 one of the Ravenwest drivers will overtake you or overtaking them for the first three positions will be almost impossible.
• That One Level:
  • Circuit de la Sarthe from the "24 Hours of Le Mans event (a 12-15 minute endurance race)". You can do it in 24 hours real time if your bladder feels hardcore enough.
  • The Valvoline Trophy in GRID 1. Shibuya is already a difficult track, but restricting the entire GT2 pool to the difficult-to-handle Spyker C8 Spider...
  • The Advan Drift International event is definitely one of the hardest of the Drift events in the game; even in the cheap and easy to drive Toyota Corolla, going sideways at speed on a tight street circuit cleanly is not an easy task.
  • Shibuya in general is a very tough track in GRID 1; tight chicanes and hairpins, no run-offs, and roads only a few cars wide.
  • Okutama's short circuit in GRID 1 and Autosport is definitely not hard, but the Grand Circuit is quite a car-killer. To elaborate: The Grand Circuit goes up a narrow mountain road, with a nasty mix of fast blind corners, sudden and somewhat steep inclines, and bus stop chicanes that do nothing more than destroy cars if their line is poor. Hell, even Ravenwest has trouble navigating the mountain road part cleanly!
  • The one-on-one duels versus Ravenwest. Specially the final duel where it takes place in the infamous Circuit de la Sarthe mentioned above and the difficulty level is permanently set to "Extreme".
  • Midnight Touge events are much harder than the already challenging Pro Touge as it happens at night... with traffic to make things more difficult.
  • Hoo boy, the Milan street circuit in GRID 1 is a doozy. With narrow alleyways, blind corners, low road visibility, uneven roads and tall sidecurbs that can throw your car off balance (or even flip it upside-down in some cases), this track is easily one of the hardest in the game. Thank goodness you don't race on this track a lot in the Career Mode, but when you do, don't be surprised if you end up rage quitting at least once or Save Scumming for a better starting position. This track's incredible difficulty is best exemplified when you race in it for the third race of the Global-level Open Wheel championship, the Philips World Championship, where you race on the full version of the circuit in the extremely quick but very fragile and difficult to control Dallara Formula 3.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • GRID 2. Poor, poor GRID 2. It has received a lot of flak from the beginning for of the absence of cockpit view, because, according to Codemasters, only 5 percent of the GRID players used it. Now that the game's out, the other major complaint is that the game feels more arcade-y than the first game, thus disappointing the fans that expected and preferred the handling of the original. Upon the release of GRID 2's SDK, some fans took it upon themselves, adding cockpit view back in or changing the cars' handling.
  • While the cockpit view eventually returned in Autosport, it's blurry and minimally detailed compared to the highly detailed cockpit of the first GRID.

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