Pong and Beyond

819th played so far

Genre: Racing
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Blimey! Games/Simbin
Publisher: ISImotor

Considering the most recent racer I played is one of the less realistic ones, with Carmageddon II, switching to GTR 2 is going in the opposite direction. Based on the book write up, this is one of those games that goes for extreme realism. It’s something that, from experience, probably means I won’t get far, not unlike Need for Speed: Most Wanted‘s trouble.

One difference here is that this is all track based, based on the FIA GT Championships, and so there will be a lot of real life elements. That usually means something blander, as we can’t have the real life expensive cars get blemished. We’ll see how that holds up.

Our Thoughts

It’s interesting how compressed other games make the act of racing. You get a qualifying lap and two or three rounds down the circuit and you’re done. GTR 2 has options for time compression, but there’s a default option and the game clearly likes it. You get the real amount of time to qualify – you can speed it up as you wait and play with that, but the option is there. The race takes the real number of rounds and time and you could race for two hours if you wanted. I’m not sure how the Le Mans race works, but I assume there’s some pattern. It’s a nod towards realism that the game wants to go for everywhere.

The racer feels realistic beyond that as well. The game is licensed and you’re racing your cars on real circuits, in real seasons, and the way the car handles and moves around the circuit is the same. I’m not sure quite how realistic the damage is, but beyond that I struggled hard and the game doesn’t seem to give you much help. It’s a challenge – not one that I always got along with, but it really felt I was putting the effort in. Badly, and shortening the races may have helped with it, but it just didn’t feel right to do it with this game.

The game looks fine but not amazing, but everything else surrounding that fits so right that that doesn’t matter. Although it’s a racing game, GTR 2 feels like a racing simulator, going for accuracy and making you feel like you’re in an actual racing season. That’s difficult, but cool to get into.