Some Gamers call "Grid Legends" the ugliest Quest 2 game
Yesterday, Grid Legends came out on Meta Quest 2. Testers and fans complain about the lousy graphics. What do we learn from this?
The Grid Legends port brings the 2D racing game to virtual reality for the first time, and practically in its entirety, filling a gap in the Meta Quest Store. Apart from arcade racers like Death Lap or Dash Dash World, there have been no big racing games or racing simulations for Meta Quest 2 (review).
The VR game has a few limitations compared to the original. Online races have a 16-participant limit and only the touch controllers work as inputs. The VR version also lacks DLCs and cross-play functionality with other versions of the racing game.
And then there are the graphics, which Codemasters had to adapt to Meta Quest 2's severely limited mobile computing power. The original quest, now more or less dead, is not supported.
2D menus and gritty graphics
It goes without saying that the graphics scaled down. But according to the first reactions from testers and fans, the game took too much of a loss graphically. Two VR Youtubers describe Grid Legends as the ugliest Quest 2 game to date, and the reviews in the Meta Quest Store have similar remarks from buyers. Currently, the title has a three-star rating.
I can confirm having tried GRID Legends on Quest....it's probably the ugliest Quest 2 game I've played ?. It plays ok so far but not perfect and I'm not usually distracted by visuals but Sweet Christmas its bad.
- Matt - BMFVR (@bmfshow) January 12, 2023
So how did this happen? pic.twitter.com/BxWFzo588p
- Ben Lang (@benz145) January 13, 2023
So Grid... On Quest 2...
Feels like a VR mod on top of a flat game. Is this bad? No. Not at all. VR need those too. PcVR consider that type of games a plus. I also think it is.
But visually it's the ugliest thing I ever played. If you can get over those 2 issues it's a great game.AdAd- Mikaël Dufresne (@purplemikey) January 13, 2023
The Oculus Quest Reddit has an interesting technical analysis of the VR game, stating that Grid Legends is rendered at a resolution of 1,080 by 1,188 pixels (the Quest 2 render standard is 1,440 by 1,584 pixels) and runs at 36 frames per second.
The frame rate scales up to an acceptable 72 frames per second using Meta's AppSW rendering technology. Codemasters brought out the big guns to get the game to run on Meta Quest 2.
What lessons can be learned from this? Perhaps that you don't have to release every game on mobile hardware - especially if that hardware limits technical optimization.
I can think of a number of PC VR games that look so ugly on Meta Quest 2 that I'd rather not play them at all than with the standalone VR headset. It's not because the developers didn't put in the effort. Some titles are simply not suitable for a mobile hardware implementation due to factors like the size of their game world.
Apparently, enough units of Meta Quest 2 have sold that big publishers like EA are now trying to make a quick buck with hasty and loveless ports. At this point, Meta can also be blamed for not taking a closer look at quality control.
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