And it's frustrating. The previous games in the series - the TOCA Race Car Driver games - were very sim-style, focused on giving you a reasonably accurate driving experience across a whole host of event types and giving it a bit of a personal edge with a hokey (but interesting) storyline.

Say what you will about the track variety and the graphics, the driving in the TOCA games was pretty solid. Presenation was secondary. Like with Forza 2, they concentrated on the car handling and then built the game around it.

GRID is the exact opposite - it's an overpolished shell with a busted driving model. Not that I'm surprised, I guess - back when they announced that the newest iteration of the TOCA series was going to be using the same engine as the DIRT game, I knew that it was going to feature the same light feeling cars and bizarre 90s-arcade-era center pivot handling. Remember in the N64 days when developers started touting 4-point-handling as a feature for driving games, where turning the car felt like it was turning at the front wheels and the rear wheels followed? That's archaic stuff now, apparently, as Codemasters have taken a 20-year step backwards and given us cars that turn in the center of the body. Realistic? Not at all. But worse, it doesn't even feel good. PGR4 is still the best example to date of how to take realistic handling and give it a solid arcade edge. Good car handling doesn't necessarily have to be realistic, but it has to feel good and be predictable.

GRID has some bizarre problems linked to its turning, namely the way that opposing cars will yank you sideways if you grind against them in a turn, or how spinning out just feels weird. Even the drift events have this intangible problem, since while the cars send their rear ends out, it still feels as if there's a giant tire embedded between the front seats of the car and it's steering you like a shopping cart.

And all of that is tragic, because so much effort was put into every other aspect of the game. The graphics are stunning (for the most part). The menus are fantastic. The whole sponsorship system works well and the career mode has a nice blend of race types (if nowhere near the variety as past games). The way they'll call you by name and the way music surges into the last race before each license are beautiful little touches. It just doesn't matter, because the driving itself sucks.