As the sequel to one of our most beloved mid-range racing games draws near, Codemasters called a discussion roundtable with press to answer final questions about Grid 2. We first played Grid 2 at PAX East and later published an in-depth look at the game's multiplayer, but until now, it's still been in development. With the game shipping in less than two weeks (May 28), the devs were prepared to answer some of our burning gameplay questions.

We covered a variety of topics for this pre-launch Grid 2 discussion, including vehicle customization, car tuning and tweaking, locations, RaceNet integration, and the revamped direction of the Grid franchise.

As a veteran of nearly every major racing game on the market -- to include the entire Need for Speed series, Gran Turismo games, Grid, DiRT, Driver, and more -- I was eager to hear how the overall feel of Grid 2 would be represented. Let's start with Grid's objectives.

Twitch shooters have been a long-time staple in the somewhat volatile PC gaming market. Since its early days in the Quake and Unreal series, the clutch genre rooted itself with its fast-paced, drop-in/drop-out, competitive and entirely skill-based gameplay; without weapon balance to fall back on, games like Shootmania force players to be committed to their plan-of-attack and quick on the keys. It all comes down to the ability to dodge and return volleys quickly, often becoming a battle of reflexes before high-level strategy ever enters the field.

Shootmania continues the twitch shooter legacy, but uses a few interesting twists to further encourage skill-based play and strategy that's appealing to both the competitive and casual gamers. As I explain in my Shootmania: Storm video review and gameplay analysis, the game's focus on player dexterity by entirely eliminating weapon choice is what really sets it apart.

Former Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski gave a keynote presentation at the 2013 East Coast Game Conference (ECGC) Wednesday, April 24th. His keynote speech reached twenty years into the game designer's past, explored the once-emergent shareware distribution model, and then bridged those experiences with the future of gaming and its charted trajectory.

Bleszinski's keynote spanned topics across the gaming world, including commentary on the "millennial" generation—a term that the twenty-year veteran hates—the enablement and rise of indie gaming, and brief commentary on software piracy. The central message to the speech seemed to encourage a coming-together of the industry's seemingly-severed AAA and indie market segments. We've embedded a video of the entire ECGC 2013 keynote with Cliff Bleszinski, found below, but have also gone through and extracted some noteworthy statements.

After spending an hour with GRID 2's devs on a live stream (VOD online) yesterday, we have some new information pertaining to the upcoming racing game's multiplayer game modes, social features, "RaceNet," and gameplay interactions. We previously got a hands-on with the game at PAX East, discussed briefly in our "PAXCast" video cast.

Along with the below screenshots, this was grabbed from the livestream, so the quality is down slightly due to streaming limitations.

GRID 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the original GRID, released back in 2008, a game that bridged the gap between driver simulation and arcade racing. GRID 1's cockpit mode (sadly absent in the sequel), semi-realistic car damage (destroyed clutch, burnt-out tires, smashed body), and fantastic graphics made it one of the best racing games produced in the past few years -- and personally, I still play it.