Review
October 24, 2006

GTR2 - Part 2
by Jens "McGonigle" Lindblad

Graphics

Weather, Time of Day and Other Environmental Features

GTR2 features a superb sun that given the time of day is right you will race with the sun in your eyes, obscuring part of the track and the cars in front of you. Top marks to SimBin for this very realistic feature which really serves it's purpose of adding immersion and bringing a sense of actually being there to the simulation. Simply brilliant!

Time of day will change, either in a realistic 24 hour cycle, or accelerated. Weather will change from sunny to rainy, and naturally track conditions will change accordingly. Coupled with GTR2’s Live Track Technology which ensures varying grip as the sessions progress and the rubble flying off the ground as the cars race through it, GTR2 is probably the most complete simulator/game on the market right now as far as changing racing- and track-conditions goes.

The settings can be adjusted from 0% chance of rain to 100%, as well as changeable weather. This is done in the summary menu.

Also note that the summary menu is where you set the number of AI cars participating in your race.

Minor concessions to the demands on your hardware, (or was it just lack of time?) means that working wind screen wipers didn’t make it into GTR2. While the water falling on the windscreen resembles real water falling on a real windscreen — the surface tension of the water drops is spot-on — the water never dissipates or spreads upwards on your windscreen.

Enter "flobo's" rain mod to help move that water up and away.

Contemplating what sort of processor power would be required to render these items realistically, I’d guess that the demands on hardware would require trade-off's in other areas, and that the benefits achieved by inclusion of such nitty-gritty details for racers would be outweighed by leaving out other important areas of detail, or by having to make other unwanted compromises.

One item that might take up the processor time could well be the driver's arm reaching out for the gear-lever which moves when you shift gears. And I haven't even mentioned the legs moving when you push the accelerator and brake pedals. Oh my goodness, we are being spoiled!

Car Graphics

Being on the subject of graphics, the cars look absolutely astounding. I can't find any fault with the modeling, the textures, interior or exterior. You have the options of running high resolution car-skins, interiors and low-resolution track graphics. Regardless of which options you use, GTR2 looks incredibly good.

Headlights work very well and look extremely realistic. During an online late-starting race at Donington in the rain, the sky grew darker and darker as the last light faded, leaving the drivers to find their apexes in the dead of night with standing water on the track!

Well done SimBin in recognizing and employing artists such as Perran Truran of Gpx fame, and Gustavo Olivera of the GPLEA. Another familiar and renowned name appears in the credits and that is the name of Jan Frischkorn, leading the art department.

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