Not for amateurs. No difficulty selections. No assists. Computer cheats. Very steep learning curve. Spin out too easy.

User Rating: 2 | TOCA Race Driver 2: The Ultimate Racing Simulator XBOX
How gamespot managed to give this game a great is beyond me. My best friend and I both love racing games, but we both hated this game to our bitter end. Right off the bat it throws you into the middle of a race and you have two laps to catch up, being about 10-12 cars behind. I'd say good luck, but you'll need extreme skill to pull it off. The first race doesn't matter where you finish, but as soon as you're given a chance to race, you're in a championship and you have to place on the podium to win. An amateur racing against a bunch of computer professionals is going to have a hell of a time trying to improve. Lose. Lose. Lose. Does that sound like fun? Trust me. It isn't. I think codemasters assumed everyone played the first game and that they could start this one off at a higher level.

Every race you start behind the pack. There's no qualifying at all. And as far as I remember, even when I finished first in the first race of a 2-race championship, I still started in the middle of the pack in the 2nd race. What gives?

The announcer, your pit man, is a complete moron. He'll tell you when you're half a lap away from the finish line and super far behind to hurry up so you can try to get on the podium. Half a lap to pass 10-12 cars. Hmm.

As for the computers cheating, they can drive full speed on the grass, whereas, if you do it you spin out every time. You have to drive off slowly. The computers will constantly bump into you, damaging your car, pushing you off the track, and spinning you out, but how often do they do that to each other? It seems nonexistent. Codemasters programmed the driver's with one main goal: to stop you from winning.

The game is extremely hard, especially without a steering wheel and especially if you haven't played the other TOCA. Try to picture an amateur hockey player being thrown up against the 4 best players in the world in a shootout contest and being told to outscore them.

I'll stick to PGR, Forza, and Gran Turismo. Even only spending $3 on this at ebgames bargain bin, I still feel cheated out of money. How pathetic.