GRID: Autosport - Xbox 360

Fire up Grid Autosport and a particular feature of the handling jumps right to the fore - drifting. This time around, the cars seem to exist merely to get sideways: turn in way before a corner and immediately you create clouds of virtual tyre-smoke; combine gentle throttle dabs with the odd application of opposite lock and you can serenely sweep sideways around a string of corners.

There is, of course, an awful lot more than mere drifting to Grid Autosport, the latest iteration of a racing-game dynasty that can be traced back to the revered Toca Race Driver games. The game’s unique selling point is that it contains five different, distinct types of racing: street racing, touring cars, open-wheel racing (familiar from Tocas and Grids of yore), plus drifting and endurance-racing.

While Grid games have always been about striking a balance between arcade and sim styles, Grid Autosport is more sim-like than its predecessor, Grid 2. The handling has edged back towards what series veterans will remember of the first Grid.

As in Grid 2, the single-player and online elements of the game are totally separate. Naturally, Racenet, Codemasters’ social media-influenced multiplayer system which generates events on the fly, features heavily in Grid Autosport’s online side. A new Racenet feature is Clubs, an option that enables players to set-up and join teams. Members of a club will automatically get their club's livery, and when they're competing online they'll constantly be contributing to their club's performance.

Handling has been tweaked, too. The front-drive touring cars, for example, feel totally different to the rear-drive open-wheelers, in which you have to be much more precise when attacking corners at exactly the right speed.

Autosport sees its release fairly hot on the heels of 2013's Grid 2, but it has lots of new goodies under the hood. more