Awesome games produce awesome sequels and GTR2 is not a dissapointment.
So, GTR2 is made by the veteran company in racing simulation games 'SimBin Studios'. It is based on the FIA GT Championship 2003-2004, so get ready for some extreme challenge. The game has a stylish presentation right from the menus (although I have heard that the first game also had exactly the same kind of menu), but becomes a bit complicated when you go down deep in it. Since it does not have any story or any sort of things, there's not much to talk about this part. It is based on a real championship and is not the arcade style racing game.
For a game like this, the first thing that a person will note is its graphics. It is simply mind blowing. The tracks and the cars have been given a special amount of details. As it should be, they look extremely real and will blow your faces. Almost every possible detail has been given in the game to make it look and feel real. The cars look shiny, its interiors are excellent and you even see the hand movement of the driver all the time. The tracks look equally good. Overall, the whole graphics system of GTR2 is excellent. The damage system of the cars is also descent, and dirt and debris come out the cars when you crash in them, just like in real life. Coming to the gameplay aspect, the game shines here also. Since I have played 'Live For Speed', and it proved to be very tough for me, the same story goes here too. This was my first feeling but after playing the game for about 3 hours, I got the hang of it. Even though the practise lessons are not present in the demo version, the game's learning curve is great. So, the game is quite easy to handle than 'Live For Speed'. The A.I drivers are the best that I have seen till date. They are very smart, and will pounce on you if you do the smallest of mistakes. They are challenging enough to keep you on your toes. Handling your car is easy than Live For Speed but it is still rather tough and gets even tougher when your tires start to wear out. When they start getting weared out, your car starts going against you and it proves to be quite tough to handle it then. Now this is something called real, because you won't find this feature in any arcade racer. There are three different difficulty levels: Novice, Semi-Pro, and Simulation. As you can guess, while playing at novice level, you will constantly be getting a bit of advice about at which gear your car should be running at particular turns, and many more aids. At Semi-Pro, most of these aids will be disabled, and at Simulation level, the only help you will be having will be your skill behind the wheels. One bit of advice that I would like to give is that no matter at which difficulty level you play, try not to let your car go into the muddy or the grassy area. If it happens, then it will cost you a lot of time to get back to the track and overtake the other racers who took the advantage of your mistake. There are many different camera angles from which you can play and although my favourite view is from the cockpit, I really liked one which was just near the tyres. The car engines sound are also great, and really give you the feeling that you are right inside the car and driving it.
There are many different championships and competitions in the full version, but not so in the demo. In the demo, you are only provided with 'Time-Trials' and 'Race Weekends'. Time-Trials are good to practise and improve your skill and lap time. Race Weekends have 2 practise sessions, 2 qualifying race, 1 warm up session and finally the race itself. One very little grudge that I have about the game is that the crowds are absolutely useless as they show no movement or lend any sort of shouts and support for their favourite team, which is worse than any EA Sport's Cricket games. Then there are 2 cars at your disposal, namely 'Ferrari 575 GTC' and 'Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT', which can show their horsepower on the Barcelona GP track. The background music track is also very good.
This game, in my thought is the best Sim racing game that I have played till now and is a great sequel to the original game. Excellent graphics, challenging gameplay and great sound make this one truly shine out. Buy thisone.
-Agastya Gupta