The true driving simulator - Gran Tourismo 2
Written: Nov 17 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Realism, number of cars and races
Cons: A few minor glitches - read about them in the review
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| bigjohnson's Full Review: Gran Turismo 2 for PlayStation 1 |
Gran Tourismo 2 is one of the most entertaining, highly replay-able games on the market. It truly is a driving simulator. Real physics are applied to each individual car in this game to actually give you the feel of what it is like to drive that car at high speeds.
Very little was changed as far as graphics go from the first Gran Tourismo. They leave a little bit to be desired, but they are visually stunning nonetheless. Attention to detail is paid on every car right down to that angled antenna that attaches to the middle of the top of a Mercury Cougar’s windshield.
There are close to 500 new and used cars to choose from to purchase in this game. There are also a good number of non-purchase-able cars that you can win from certain races. You can play this game for hours a day and find yourself only finishing about 5% of the total game itself.
As I said before, the physics applied to these cars are very realistic. Every car has its own quirks in its handling that you must get used to.
The game starts off giving you $10,000 with which you must buy a car and start racing to gain more money. As you gain more money, you can add more cars to your garage and build them up with supplemental parts, as you so desire. You also must complete license tests, which will allow you to race in more competitive heats, winning you higher prizes and better cars.
My recommendation for those just beginning this game is to purchase a used Toyota Celica or Nissan Skyline (if you can find one). This game is made in Japan and I think the makers gave the Japanese cars a slight edge in performance over the others. The Celica and Skyline are 4-wheel drive cars, which are easier to handle if you’re just starting out. Once you win more prize money though, you’ll definitely want to get better cars. Most of the higher performance cars are rear-wheel drive cars. Rear wheel drive cars are harder to handle, but once you get used to them, you’ll win more races. Once you get your licenses, try and take either a Subaru Impreza or a Nissan Skyline to the middle race of the Touring Car cup in the Special Events category. Once you win this, you’ll get a Nissan Sylvia racer that you can enter into a lot of the more competitive races and win easily with. Plus, if you go back to this race and win it over and over, you can win the same car again and again. It is worth $125,000 if you sell it. You can build up money quite easily at an early stage of the game this way.
The game itself has over double the amount of tracks from the first Gran Tourismo. In order to complete the game, you’ll have to race on each track dozens of times perfecting your driving before you can beat the high powered racers with your International-A license. Add in the fact that some races have you do the tracks backwards and it seems that there’s and endless amount of tracks for you to race on.
Improvements over the first Gran Tourismo are as following: The obvious ones – more cars and more tracks. There are also checkpoints at various parts of each track that tell you your split time and how much you are trailing the leader (if you’re not in the lead of course). The soundtrack includes songs from real artists like Stone Temple Pilots and Rob Zombie. Rally racing has been added. It’s a fun part of the game that is a completely separate type of racing that you must learn to master. You also pretty much have to gain completely separate cars to modify and adjust for the rally races. License tests are a bit easier this time around. A game status icon will bring you to a screen in which you can see your stats of the game you are playing. Some of these stats include total prize money won, number of cars owned, total wins, total races, average finish position, total value of cars owned, and most important – percent of game finished. Beware however, you can only finish up to 98.25% of the game. There was supposed to be a drag race section that never made it onto the finished product and the last 1.75% of the game was dedicated to that.
Also added into this game are various events held by each car dealer. Not all dealers have special events, but most do. This means that in order to finish the game, you’ll have to buy and race a racing modified Ford Focus, or Dodge Neon, along with many others. Many of the races in this game have horsepower limits, so that you can’t enter in your ultra-powerful 900 horsepower machine against 300 horsepower cars. This makes you really think about what races you want to finish before you build up your car too much.
Inside each of the dealers is a tune icon in which you can add parts to modify your car to make it better. This was also a feature of the original GT. This time around, more features have been added. There are icons labeled “for professionals.” It is here where you add parts that enable you to fully adjust the settings of your car. You can adjust almost everything possible on your car including spring rate, damping rate, toe, camber, ride height, gear ratios, limited slip differentials – everything. It really takes you into the engineering of a car, and completely simulates what you need to give your car the edge to compete against professional style drivers in high-powered racecars. I’ve found that by adjusting these settings in the “for professionals” parts that I did gain an edge on the computer’s cars, which normally would blow me away every race.
Also new to Gran Tourismo 2 is a “shop” where you can buy custom designer wheels to your car. I found myself not using this feature however. You can only really notice your new wheels when you watch a replay of a race, which I rarely (if ever) do.
One thing I love about this game over others in its class is the fact that you can test your own machine yourself. Each car doesn’t just simply give you its acceleration and top speed data. You find that out for yourself by driving your car on a test track. There is a top speed test, and two acceleration tests.
This game isn’t without its flaws. The biggest complaint I have is that there are no Pontiac, Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Porsche dealers on this game. (They put Daihatsu and Suzuki on here, but not these?!?!) Although with the number of dealers that are on here, you’ll hardly have time to notice. Now that I’ve beaten most of the game, I want to make a Grand Prix racer and race it against the Taurus in a Nascar type race, but I can’t. (Another complaint is that there is no Monte Carlo in the Chevy dealer!) One minor glitch of the game is that track records are never saved from each race. Unless you write down your times from each race by hand, you’ll never know what your record on each track is. The part about the game that I hate is that it automatically kicks you into the replay mode after every race whether you want to or not. I never watch a replay so I have to waste a few seconds while the machine loads the replay, then I exit from the replay and wait while it loads the next screen. It’s a minor annoyance, but after the number of races you’ll end up in, they really build up and anger you.
The game’s flaws hardly bring its quality down though. I’ve played this game for endless amounts of hours and won seemingly endless amounts of races and I’m only 70% done! Plus, this review only covers the simulation portion of the game. There is a separate disc, which includes the arcade version of the game. It’s a whole other game in itself.
One last bit of advice for those either just starting out, or having trouble beating certain races – the two cars that I’ve found to be the best in this game are the Venturi Atlantique 600 special racer (worth $2 million) or an Acura NSX special racer (which you can either win or buy from the Honda dealer.) The Mid-engine rear wheel drive cars are the hardest to handle, but they turn on a dime so if you can master using them, you’ll come out of turns at higher speeds, which is the true secret to this game. If you can’t handle a rear-wheel drive car, then you’ll probably have trouble winning all the races. Although, the best 4WD car that I’ve found is the top of the line RUF car (worth about $400,000). Of course you’ll need to modify it completely, but this is truly one great car for a 4WD. Also good for 4WD is the Unisia Skyline, which you win. It doesn’t turn as well as the RUF and it is heavier, but it’s still one of the best 4WD’s. Give them a try!
I was never a racing game fan. There are countless amounts of racing games out there, but Gran Tourismo 2 is head and shoulders above the rest. I wouldn’t even consider comparing other racing games to this one and its predecessor. Gran Tourismo 2 is the most addicting, realistic game that exists. Even if you’re not a fan of racing games, pick this one up. You’ll be enthralled by all the cars to choose from and all the races you must win that you’ll spend hours playing this. I was captivated from the start, and you will be too.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bigjohnson
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Member: Scott Johnson
Location: Erie, PA
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 17 members
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