A Monumental Achievement in Racing Simulations but Arcade Racing Fanatics Need Not Apply
GTR2 is a racing game that simulates the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT racing season. For those that do not follow professional racing, this means that the game is based on racing sports cars from professional racing teams on closed circuit courses; no midnight street racing, no drag, no drift, no stunts, no demolition derby. Race as fast as you can (or dare), earn championship points, and qualify for better and more challenging races. The game has a single player mode against multiple AI opponents as well as multi-player support on dedicated servers.
There are dozens of car models, racing teams, and racetracks represented from around the world. Each is rendered in almost painful detail from the placement of the stands, names and sponsors of the teams, weather, and daylight.
While there is no customization of the exterior appearance, the cars themselves are completely customizable under the hood, including brake bias, wheel alignment, suspension stiffness, gear ratios, etc. The game offers such depth of realism one almost needs a degree in mechanical engineering to fully appreciate every feature available. In fact, one can download a free software package from MoTec™ to monitor every aspect of a race, from g-forces to velocity/acceleration curves to customizable charts on every conceivable metric. Fortunately, the level of commitment to realism is also customizable, from anti-lock brakes to speed sensitive steering control to automatic clutch shifting. Damage can be turned on or off and races can be restarted at any time without a penalty for leaving an active race.
The single-player game offers several modes of play. Firstly, there is a Driving School to teach beginners the basic car handling skills. This is an essential feature because winning at this game requires mastering how to maintain a high speed without spinning the wheels, locking the brakes, or skidding off the track. Rare is the time and place where one is really driving at top speed for long periods of time. Hitting a wall or an opponent's car does real damage. Damage the car enough on the track and you won't even be able to limp into the pits. Substantially exceeding the performance goals in the Driving School unlocks extra championship tracks so skipping this section is not recommended, and the Driving School is extensive. Players should not expect to complete the Driving School in less than a few hours but each goal can be completed separately so one can jump in and out of Driving School at any time and the progress is saved to the player profile.
Of course, one can also jump right into racing. There is Open Practice, either with or without other cars on the track, under any weather or daylight conditions. There are also short championship series of races, usually 2-3 races of a few laps each against 8 opponents on different tracks. There are even some 24-hour races where players will need to swap drivers and make regular pit stops to refuel and replace worn tires and brake pads. All races can include a qualifying heat to establish starting positions, a warm up to heat the tires and the brakes, and then the actual race; or one can jump straight to the race and skip the preliminaries. Finally, the heart of the game is the actual 2003/2004 championship series where one plays with a selected team through a whole season, earning points and establishing placement in the rankings.
The game is not perfect. Most notably, the manual barely scratches the surface of all the settings available. As mentioned earlier, there are a huge number of options in terms of car tuning but players are left to learn what each option affects on their own or from one of the community websites. Also, for some reason, I can't replay races from the cockpit view, nor is there an easy way to configure which races are saved as replays. Finally, while there is so much thought put into the realism of the cars, tracks, and weather (including friction coefficients on wet roads), one aspect that does not seem to be included are the effects of wind resistance. As someone who appreciates physics, there does not appear to be any benefit to riding in another player's slipstream. Similarly, an extra 20 kph cross-wind can make all the difference between successfully completing a high speed turn or crashing into a wall.
I would say that the system requirements are moderately high. I played the game on a 2.8 GHz Pentium P-IV single core system with 1.5 Gb RAM, a 512 Mb Nvidia 7600 GT GPU. Using 1024x768 resolution and all high detail settings I was able to maintain 50-60 fps throughout all the races but I did see some drop in frame rate with lots of cars on the screen. On a more up-to-date 16 pipeline graphics card the game should not have any problems at all. Of course, the game not only fully supports force-feedback steering wheels one is very strongly recommended. Playing by keyboard and mouse can be done but this is definitely a handicap. Players need a pair of pedals to be able to maintain constant speeds through turns.
Because of the strong adherence to actual FIA races and rules and the great depth of customization available, mastery requires a significantly higher level of commitment by the player than any arcade racing game. Just earning all of the Driving School points requires lots of skill and practice, even with all the driving assist features active. Unlike other titles, there is no "rubber band" feature built in to slow opponents down if they get too far ahead or to suddenly improve the performance of the AI players if the human player earns a big lead. This is driving simulation at its purest. Young children will probably be overwhelmed by the number of mouse clicks just to get to a race.
Overall, fans of true racing simulations will find this title an amazing achievement in the genre. This is not only the best racing game I've ever played; it's one of the best games I've played, period. However, I have only barely begun to master the skills necessary to play this game beyond beginner levels so I can see this sucking up a lot of my spare time. If you are a fan of great realism in your racing games you will love this but if you're a big fan of Super Mario Kart you are advised not to get behind the wheel.