When writing a review for a game, you have to put in a lot of man-hours just sitting there and playing everything. It's not exactly the most fun thing in the world sometimes, but it comes with the job. However, that doesn't mean I don't have thoughts on the game as I play it, and in this post, I'm going to talk about the game I'm reviewing right now: Codemaster's GRID for the Xbox 360.

When you star tthe game up, you can tell it's going to be something special just from the opening movie. GRID grabs you by the throat right form the start, throwing you into a high-pressure race with no training, but in doing so, it's a baptism-by-fire. You learn the controls pretty quickly as they're standard.

The game looks great visually, and though some of the sound clips get repetitive, sound is otherwise good. The soundtrack really gets your adrenaline going, too. On top of it, when you enter your name at the beginning, if you have a common name, you can set the game to call you by that whenever they refer to you. If not, there's a long list of nicknames to pick from instead.

This is better than Forza 2 in some areas. A lot better than Forza 2 in some areas. There's a greater variety of race types, almost a smörgåsbord of racing. Everything from drift competitions to touge racing to demolition derbies are here.

There are more courses and fewer cars, but I was in for a surprise as I thumbed through the course listings and found the original Detroit street course layout among my options. I had been pleading Turn 10 to release this for Forza 2 for months now, and to see it in GRID made me squeal like a giddy schoolgirl. Seriously.

Customization isn't as great in this game as it is in Forza 2, obviously, and tuning isn't even an option. But I do like how the career mode is set-up, very similarly to all the other Race Driver games, but not the monotonous, grinding experience Forza 2 and Gran Turismo are supposed to be.

Speaking of which, the sense of speed and the crashes in GRID are spectacular. You literally can feel the speed in your turning and when you hit the wall, you not only feel it, but the game slows down to show you your impact. Amazing.

GRID is easily the best racing game of 2008 (suck on that, GT 5 Prologue) and is bested only by Forza 2 on the 360. Sure, it could use more content perhaps, but Codemasters has established a great base to build from here. I expect GRID 2 will be fantastic. All 360 racing fans should own this title.