The new addition to the game is the driving school for the beginners of the series, a good way to introduce the GTR universe to the newcomers. With an improved graphical engine taken from GT Legends, and with a physics engine utilizing actual racing telemetry data taken from every official FIA GT team, this game sets the standard as the most realistic sim-racing game. I admit that GTR2 is not the first game to use telemetry data, but taking in consideration that in present the game is the only true simulation game on the market we can consider it the best.

So let's start pointing out every feature of this game. The first thing you'll see is the menu. At a first glance seems easy to manipulate, but at the first selection you will realize that it still has the same design as its predecessor GTR.

You will need some time to get used to this old fashioned menu. From here you can choose the game mode which you want to play. If you are a new comer in this field of racing sim, you should first attend the:

Driving School mode, the new addition in this series. It will teach you how to accelerate, break, turn, overtake. As a separate part there are also challenges in which you can learn the configuration of every track, by attempting different parts of the track. Every aspect of driving can be performed by a referee in order to view the breaking and accelerating points, or to learn the sector of that track. When you think you are ready, you can attempt it too. There are more attempts necessary in order to complete a training episode, and every attempt is divided into different difficulty levels. For example the first attempt includes also a perfect line which is showed and the expanded time is acceptable.

If you complete a challenge before the opponent ghost you will earn a golden gear. These golden gears and the number of completing challenges will unlock different championships. To unlock all the championships will be a difficult task for any gamer, so in the end the driving school can become a real challenge.

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Open Practice where you can select whatever car you want and the track to practice. Is like a free roaming available on any track. For a better improvement you should try the:

Time Trials mode where you will test any car to the limit on any track.

The Race Weekend is a classic mode where you can simulate a weekend race with complete practice, qualifying and and warm-up sessions. But the core of the game remains the:

Championships mode where you can play the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT seasons, or Custom championships unlocked by completing the Driving School challenges.

These custom championships gives you the opportunity to try many cars and tracks still in a challenging environment. You can change only the strength of the opponents, without the length of the race which remains at 3 laps/race. Somehow this reminds me of TOCA series where the gameplay is so intense especially because the races are short. This mode represents the only remains of the GT Legends, where the core of the game was concentrated in different category championships divided by car classes. Unfortunately GTR2 has these championships only as a secondary option, Simbin deciding to concentrate on the official FIA GT championship and on the:

24 Hour Races. Because in general the GT Championship is an endurance one, the game includes also the main endurance events from Hockenheim, Imola, Monza, Spa Franchochamps and Zhuhai. These races can be played in a scalable mode, where you will experience the night and day transition without the necessity of playing 24H in real time. < face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> Besides the night and day transition, the weather can change while you are in the race.

These changes will have a dramatic effect in the gameplay, so you will have to use strategical pit stops in order to complete the race.

Tuning

Coming to this point of technical settings I have to admit that GTR 2 is a complete collection of telemetric data. You can tune almost anything on your car. There are three ways of tuning the car.

The first is a more basic one where you can change the type of the tire, the strength of the brakes and the bias, the strategy of pit stops, the steering angle, the gearing, the power distributed to the differential, and the rev limiter. The second one is much more advanced and has suspensions settings, tires pressure settings (for every tire), and ride height settings. The third one is based on online files, which are created by other gamers and exported on the Internet. From those thousands of files, I'm sure you will find the right settings to suite your driving skills.

The game has three difficulty levels. The novice one gives you full access to all the difficulty settings. You can activate or disable every realism effect and can choose the opponents strength to be under 90%. In the semi-pro level you have locked the Stability Help, the Spin Recovery, and the Disable Damage. The opponents strength cannot be set under 90%. The simulation level locks also the Braking Help and you cannot set the damage sensitivity and the opponents strength under 100%.

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I have tested the game both with keyboard and with a wheel. I was surprisingly impressed by the control of the keyboard which in these sort of games was never very well implemented. Even on the simulation level, the game recognizes the keyboard and will automatically give a semi arcade approach to the handling of the game. In this way the difference between the wheel and keyboard users won't be so huge anymore in online or LAN races. Anyway the best approach of this game remains the wheel and the cockpit view.

This is where you will feel all the excitement of every race and from here you will get the best results. With a wheel it will be very easy to accommodate with the handling of the car and in about one hour you will be able to play in the simulation level. Here you can feel every tremble of the car, every slide, every brake and every crash.

Talking about crashes. The damage sensitivity is similar to reality, so if you think that this game can be played in a Need for Speed style, forget about trying it. Every contact with the wall will let big damages to the car. The handling will be the first to be affected by the crashes. Any damage to the spoiler will increase the oversteer effect. You can even have a tire puncture if you are too frequently off the track. A big crash will result in an engine explosion and of course the end of the race for you.

The replay option will show you very realistic the damages taken by the car. That's because the graphic of the game is concentrated on displaying detailed objects.jects.

Although its roots remain old, from the F1 2000, the graphical engine has a lot of new effects. But its main quality is the power of displaying very detailed objects. The cars don't look very flashy, but very realistic.

Let's don't forget the A.I., one of the best on the market. The opponents know how to use the perfect line, and their aggressiveness will make you think you play with human opponents. The qualifying session still remains (as in GT Legends) extremely hard. The opponents will perform very good times, so without a lot of training and with a proper setting of the car, you won't be able to get better times. Somehow I think that the producers are trying to scare you before the race. In any case it will be hard to start from the first line after the qualification session. But if you are skilfully, you can beat in the race. This problem can be found in many other racing games. The producers think that this way they will make the races much more challenging.

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This game has all the ingredients to become the best racing simulation game. Unfortunately this genre is not so popular anymore and it will remain a masterpiece only for the fans. In any case if you are a casual gamer and you want to test some exotic cars in realistic mode, GTR 2 is your only option. Even the acquisition of a wheel only for this game will not disappoint you. Forget about the cars in Need for Speed games. Those cars are far from the real models in terms of simulation

NothinNothing new in this field. The graphic engine still can display detailed objects, but is getting older. All the surrounding environment is full of sprites and the crowd is just a bunch of pixels.

Only the cars and the technicians are detailed displayed. But who needs a high-end graphic when the game is concentrated on simulation. The damage system looks fine, but is not the best on the market. You will see smoke and fire coming out of your engine, if you just had a powerful crash and some debris on the track.

The replay option is spectacular and very easy to use. You can monitor the race from every angle you want.

Up to 27 gamers can play in an online race. The connection is really stable which improves the online experience and makes you trying to become the best. The game has also a LAN support, so you can create a championship with your friends at home. There is a big community who organizes online championships and create new cars and tracks. The links to these fan sites can be found on the official site of the game. My suggestion is to try one of the legendary tracks created by tha fans. Try Nordschleife and you will be surprised.

Some European techno-pop is used as the background music. But being a racing game, the sound of the engine roaring is the thing that the producers should worry about. Simbin did a good job with this one. You can hear different tonalities of sounds for every car model. The best way to test the sound of a car, is to change the camera behind the car. The sound is correctly amplified, giving you the impression that you are behind those exhaust pipes. If you get out off the track you will hear the gravel hitting the body of your car and any brake or fast turning will make your tires cry. Though the sound is correctly implemented, there are other games with a much high fidelity and spectacular sound.

Hardware: 78