Review
February 6, 2008

Sounds of GTR2
by Jens "McGonigle" Lindblad

Introduction

If you’ve been into racing sims for the last couple of years you will most likely have heard of MethylEthyl and his extensive Sounds of Sims series. MethylEthyl has made and published his sound mods for NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, netKar Pro, rFactor, GTR, GTL and his latest; Sounds of GTR2 which is available in a beta-development version from Sounds of Sims.

The add-on uses real in-car sounds which means that if you’re driving in anything but cockpit view, you won’t hear any changes. Another opportunity for you to get inside the car and abandon that chase view, Monsieur! By the time the sound mod is complete with external and ambient sounds, you'll never want to drive sitting on that roof or bonnet (hood) again!

The Challenge

It’s not very often that we dedicate an article or a review to a sound add-on. This is not because we don’t acknowledge the importance of the sounds in sims. On the contrary, sound is a very important element of a sim that helps the user to better perceive the subtle audio clues. Perhaps it is more due to the challenges presented to the reviewer in terms of sensibly and accurately describing how the audio sounds. It is a bit hard to include some interesting screenshots!

The sound impression is in many ways a subjective evaluation. We may like, or not like, a particular sound purely on the basis of the way our ears pick up the sound and how our brains interpret them. So at the least we need to examine the function of the sound as an important parameter for evaluation. Naturally we also need to assess to which extent the sound rendering accurately represents the real sound coming from the live object. Naturally the sound equipment varies from user-to-user and this should also be taken into account when assessing sounds. I still remember how the sweet sounds for GPL sounded absolutely horrible after a computer upgrade with a different sound card. Then I really appreciated the GPL sound!

When downloading and installing MethyEthyl's sound add-on for netKar PRO it certainly meant for me that the audio was taken to a higher level of immersion. As for Sounds of GTR2... well, I'm getting well ahead of myself.

Installation

Using the JSGME mod enabler, it is very easy to switch in the sound mod and switch it out again should you wish to do so. You can get it here.

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