An impressively tweaked port.
Grid Legendsis a great-looking racing game.
That’s true across all the platforms, but the recent release on Android and iOS is intriguing.
In fact, it’s one of the only triple-A iOS ports I can actually recommend.
Lighting has been significantly simplified while shadows are obviously lower-res, with a sharper divide between cascades.
Shadow aliasing is a bigger problem as a result, with coarser shadows that look less natural at rest.
The foliage in some tracks appears a bit flatter, with lower contrast shade beneath.
That said, there is one lighting tweak that actually favours the iPhone.
On iPhone, they are full-rate, and distract much less and of a higher resolution.
Model detail also takes a hit.
Texture filtering is reduced, crowds are simpler, while particle effects are pared back or gone.
That’s all the more impressive given that performance is also strong.
When the cars bunch up a bit though, frame-rates can briefly tumble down into the 20s.
Rewinds also tend to provoke frame-rate problems, though it has little gameplay impact.
Additionally, the motion blur present on both platforms makes the game feel decently smooth despite its lower frame-rate.
But there are two other visual modes to look at as well, which come with their own trade-offs.
The upside though is that performance is very good, hitting a consistent 30fps in typical play.
However, this mode uses real-time cubemap reflections that update at half-rate, which means 20Hz here.
I do however have an iPhone 13 Pro Max that I tested briefly.
But generally speaking, it’s a good-looking experience that runs at a decent performance level.
Overall, Grid Legends works.
It doesn’t suffer from any glaring flaws, and is a well-optimised version of a beautiful racing title.
