Rating: - GTR 2 realism redefined.
Without doubt GTR 2 is quite simply the best simulation racing game I have ever played. I am awating GTR evolution, so things may change, but for now GTR 2 rules the roost.

The Simbin development team have thought of everything and this is what dinstinguishes the game from the more arcade style titles such as the Need for Speed franchise. Sure these kinds of games are fun, but what I really want to do is test myself on a realistic track in a car which behaves like the real thing. And that's what you get from GTR: big snorting, fire spitting GT cars which require a mixture of brute strength and ballet dancer finese to ease around some of the world's most demanding tracks.

As soon as you start up the engine in the pit garage you are aware of how much detail there is in this game. The driver's view gives you a close to photo-realistic cock-pit interior where you can see his feet moving on the pedals and his hand reaching for the sequential gearbox lever. Real drivers testing the Simbin titles comment on this level of realism, where visual cues immerse you in the world of the game clueing you into what is happening to the car and things around you.

The physics engine is astonishing, because as you gently ease out of the pit garage and gingerly throttle onto the race track with cold tires there is a flood of visual and audio data to process. Flooring the car in a straight line the car will bounce, tramline and wobble over every bump in the track. You brake into your first corner and notice the drivers head move with the g-force of deceleration and your head cranes left or right as you haul the car through the corner. The world and physics of the game are simply amazing and through a decent momo-force feedback steering wheel you can feel the car grip and slip, forcing you to adjust the wheel accordingly. Watch out for 650hp through the rear wheels and cold tires!

If the visual cues aren't enough, the audio features in this game are simply phenomenal. The engine starts with a roar and the auto-sequential gearbox will blip the throttle for you as you change down through the gears. Your can do it manually if you like with heel toe braking on the right steering system. A spittle and pop will erupt from the rear of the car - depending on which car you have - alerting you of the unburnt fuel flaming from the exhaust(s). Tire squeal, tire rumble, dirt flicking up into the wheel arches, it's all there. Even stationary, blipping the throttle heavily will rock the car from the enormous torque...this is as real as it gets.

This is realism redefined and there is almost no franchise which makes racing so immersive and difficult. The learning curve is steep in simulation mode and it takes many laps to learn the tracks (i've done over 1,000 on Valencia) and work out just how fast you really can go through a given corner. All the cars handle differently and sound differently. The heavy rear end of the Porche's sees them slipping side ways through the corners, whilst the Ferrari 360's are pointy and tricky to avoid oversteering. You learn to adjust your driving style.

I am running a core duo 3.4 ghz Pentium with 2 gigs of ram and an nvidia 7600GT card with 256mb of DDR3 onboard ram. Not too many drama's runnig this game except on the highest resolutions which reduces frame rate.

I love this game, my wife hates the noise of it, but oh...the car details and those engine sounds. Visually a treat, there may be prettier games, but I was happy to see the chalk marks on the front tire recently...realism enough for me.

The game features full championships and practice modes, as well as a driver training feature and challenge feature which unlocks different tracks whilst pushing you to the limit. There is hours of racing and challenging material and after nearly two years of ownership I have yet to conquer all the elements in this game. Definitely worth every penny in terms of longevity. Once you try this game, you won't be keen to bother with anything else.

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