This port of the PC GTR Evoution title feels unfinished and dumbed down.
The game is indeed a stripped down version of the GTR Evolution game. It includes all the cars from GTR Evo but only 13 of the tracks. Actually 2 of the tracks (Road America and Laguna Seca) are new to Race Pro and added with an obvious intent to attract some American racers.
Many of the Racing modes in GTR Evo are also included and a career mode has been added. The career is set up in a upside down pyramid tiered style with more racing team options available in each successive tier you unlock. You select the team you want to race for and then are given the option to pay full price for the job or run a tryout lap which will drastically reduce the cost if you can complete a lap under the target time. Your options in the first 3 tiers is restricted to the Racial, Mini, Caterhan, and Formula BMW. In the 4th tier you unlock the GT Club car teams and it goes on from there with the higher class cars in the upper tiers.
The career races start as just three races with 2 laps and work up to add laps and races as you move up the tiers. In the career you are given the option to qualify for the races. If you turn qualifying on you get one lap to run your best lap. You start at speed but you are still limited because you aren't always given control in the best place or at a decent speed.
The game features 3 difficulty levels with various driving aids turned on for the lower difficulties. As a veteran racer I chose the Professional level with all assists off which is the way I run GTR Evo as well.
The physics immediately struck me as being dumbed down quite a bit from GTR Evo. The cars seem to brake extremely well and can stop on a dime. They also stick much better to the track and are quite difficult to spin under power. Adding to the dumbed down physics frustration, the game lacks any sort of tire squealing sound and the force feedback is very weak in when it comes to conveying a sense of loss of grip.
The force feedback (which only works if you have the microsoft wheel connected to the second controller setting - a glaring bug that is inexcusable) has some decent off track vibration but lacks any weight and is very weak in tire grip. It's a major disappointment because Forza 2 features much better force feedback and the GTR Evo game on the PC has some extremely nice FFB.
The difficulty of the game also seems to be dumbed down quite a bit. I found myself winning every race in the career mode rather easily with my pace frequently 2-3 seconds faster than the AI. Thinking that the AI strength might be set low in the begining of the career despite my running in Professional mode I tried a single race with the AI set to "Very Hard". Even the very hard setting proved to be no challenge to me on the tracks that I've run so many times in the PC counterpart. Anyone with some time in on GTR evo should find Race Pro to be quite easy. This was a major disappointment as the AI in GTR evo give me a real challenge when set to 97-98% strength.
Graphically Race Pro is also a disappointment. The Lizard engine seems to be capable to run some decent textures and effects but it looks like an alpha build. The shadows flicker and look extremely grainy. The environment detail is very pixelated with no AA to smooth things out. The engine runs nicely with a decent framerate with up to 16 cars on the track but the occasional screen tearing and overal grainy look to the graphics make the overall presentation look like an early alpha demo. Graphically GTR Evo has it's problems too but the overall presentation on the PC looks a little more polished. The UI of Race Pro is extremely bland and also looks like an alpha build that was used as a place holder for the final.
The game features car setup options that are pretty detailed and compare well with GTR Evo but as I said, with the AI being so easy its not likely that you'll feel the need to tweak the car setup unless you plan to race online. In addition the "garage" is hidden in the options screen and doesn't get featured prominently like it does in the GTR Evo game or any other sim.
The engine sounds that are in the game are decent but nothing spectacular. The tire grip sound appear to be mysteriously missing making the engine, off track and crash sounds the only ones you hear while driving. The crash sound is much better than the silly one used in the GTR Evo game and that might be the only thing better than the PC counterpart.
The game was priced at $40 which implies that Simbin or Atari recognized the feature lite format of the game. Unfortunately I can't recommend the game to anyone that has raced GTR Evo or any of Simbin's other racing games on the PC. The game just shouts of being an unfinished port and lacks any serious challenge to anyone with a decent amount of sim racing experience.