For instance, if you wanted a serious driving sim, you’d instinctively go for a Forza or a Gran Turismo. If you wanted something more unorthodox, then the Kudos chasing charms of Gotham would be your likely destination. For rallying, you’d opt for McRae, and for arcade charms, Burnout or Sega Rally. Simple really.

Or at least, it was. Enter Race Driver: GRID.

While it’s easy to plot a clear line of heritage along the paths of each of the aforementioned series, on first impressions, there seems to be little to link GRID with the original touring car game from which it has evolved.

Sure, certain elements remain – such as the use of touring cars – but so bold is Codemasters’ vision for GRID that these form a mere part of its motorsport spectrum. It’s not only TOCA (albeit it without the familiar moniker), but it’s also Forza, Gotham, Need for Speed and Initial D rolled into one. And the very fact that it’s optimism – rather than frustration – that we’re feeling should give you a clear indication of how good its looking.

In short, this is TOCA gone global: Taking the same approach that has enabled Codemasters to set the standard for European motorsport sims over the last decade and applying it to motorsport from all over the world.

To achieve this, GRID gameplay revolves around three areas: Europe, the USA and Japan. These divisions aren’t merely geographic, but also cultural as well. For instance, race in Europe, and you’ll find everything is geared around officially sanctioned, properly organised races. To this end, you’ll be treated to an impressive blend of permanent and street circuits such as Spa, Le Sarth and Milan, along with the sorts of cars you’d expect to find in an FIA run championship. These include GT cars like the Ferrari 430 GT2, Aston DBR9 GT1 or Corvette C6.R, Le Mans prototypes such as the Audi R10 or touring cars like the BMW 320si E90 – essentially, the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a Race Driver game.

However, head over to the States or Japan, and things are rather different. Rather than having highly tuned, super grippy race cars tearing up purpose built circuits, American races revolve around big, brutal muscle cars racing around street courses in cities such as Washington, Detroit and San Francisco. By contrast, Japanese events are derived from the ever popular illegal street racing scene, where racers meet up with their extensively modified Skylines, Silvias and Imprezas to race and show off in their cars around city areas, docklands and mountain passes.

Although each is stylistically very different from the others, Codemasters has gone to great lengths to ensure that GRID captures the individual essence of all three regions. When modelling the city of Milan, for instance, actual photos were mapped onto the building models and maps used to ensure maximum authenticity. When modelling the Tokyo district of Shibuya, the development team used actual feedback from people who had seen races there to judge whether the neon effects and suchlike were mental enough.

Even such things as the modelling of the cars helps bolster this feeling of uniqueness: for instance, the awesome Aston DBR9 featured in the game is superbly modelled, right down to the way its body panels crumple and fly off when it collides with something. Meanwhile, the big American cars have very clean lines, whereas the Japanese machines feature all the intricate artwork and mental body kits you’d expect them to.

And it works. Between the accurate modelling, the inspired choice of machines and locations and details such as the fully animated crowd, not only does each region have its own unique atmosphere, each event also has a palpable sense of occasion. More pleasantly, this don’t feel canned or forced upon you: rather, each of GRID’s regions delivers a convincing depiction of the culture they revolve around, and leaves you to decide how much you want to immerse yourself in it.

The obvious danger is that by being an international Jack-of-all-motorsports, GRID could wind up being master of none – a potentially problematic scenario considering how highly evolved its rivals are. But that’s where the sheer versatility of its game engine comes in.

The substance that fuses GRID together is the amazing EGO engine. An evolution of the NEON engine that powered DIRT last year, the manner in which it’s able to cater for a whole spectrum of different handling styles and skill levels is nothing short of brilliant.

To demonstrate this versatility, Codemasters allowed us to sample three very different styles of racing – a touring car race at Jamara, an American muscle car race and a Japanese drift event around Yokohama docks.

While much may have changed, we’re pleased to report that the touring car race was vintage TOCA. Turn on the assists, and you’ll be able to throw the car into corners, get the tail sliding about whenever you back off the accelerator and leave gear changes and suchlike up to the computer.

But for those who normally shun such arcade-like handling, turning those same assists off transforms GRID into a much more competent race sim. Without the benefits of ABS and automatic gearboxes, learning the racing line around a given circuit becomes essential. But for that, the way your car slips and slides on the track feels much more natural and well balanced, greatly enhancing the feeling of realism for those who appreciate such things.

Not only does this versatility enable both novices and hardcore racers alike to enjoy GRID, it also permits for a wide variety of racing styles to be incorporated. Case-in-point, the American muscle cars. With American machines being powerful, heavy brutes, GRID manages to capture their weighty, cumbersome handling perfectly: everything from the very particular approach you have to take to corners – using just enough drift and brake to make it through a bend without losing too much momentum – to minor details, such as the reassuring thud and scraping noises when a car lands heavily after a jump, feels both convincing and satisfying.

This is in stark contrast to the Japanese drift machines. While their light and nimble handling style may be the very opposite of the sluggish Vipers and Mustangs of the American muscle circuit, the manner in which we were able to guide our Nissan Silvia around its dockland course, clipping apex after apex and instinctively shifting from one slide to another with effortless ease, was no less impressive.

Considering GRID will also feature such things as single seater, GT and LMP cars, EGO’s ability to deliver equally compelling driving experiences across a broad spectrum of handling styles is certainly going to be put to the test. However, on first impression, it looks like the engine should be up to the job.

There are, however, a few areas that need a bit of attention. Most notable of these is the AI, which at the moment is a little off. Codemasters is going to great lengths to ensure its AI feels more lifelike by having the opposition drivers getting into accidents and making unforced errors, although at present, this appears to be causing lead cars to spin out on the last lap a little too often.

Another area being worked on is the Flashback system. This will enable you to rewind the last few seconds of play and resume the action, theoretically meaning you can avoid race-ending accidents. Although a potentially brilliant addition, Codemasters admits it’s still figuring out how best to balance its use.

With a few months of development time still left to go, there’s plenty of time to sort these things out. And provided Codemasters can do that, GRID should be gunning for a front row position when it’s released this summer.