I recently received my review copy of GTR2 in the post, the front cover was cool however it looked like the cars were floating a bit, superimposed on the track, I hope this wasn�t indicative of the ISI engine, but lets see!

So here we are... GTR2 the latest version of the hugely popular GTR 1. Now I have been driving the GTR series since F12001? I can�t even remember it�s been that long, one thing is for sure Simbin know how to please their fan base. GTR2002 was in many people�s eyes the bee�s knees and possibly the greatest mod to come out of sim racing.

Following the huge success of their first commercial venture with GTR, GTR2 was the next logical step. With over 100 cars and many different track variations the excitement has been growing for some time. In this version a driving school has been included to help the average driver, it�s a great idea and having done every challenge I would suggest that it should be done even if you are an expert driver just for the fun of it. As a training tool however it doesn�t quite live up to expectation, quite often the challenges are just hard and don�t explain the driving procedure well enough... N2003 training was more interactive and interesting, perhaps due to the voice comms. The training also lacks in respect of difficulty levels, one minute you are doing something easy the next very hard, the training should be a gradual introduction. Similarly as you are racing the AI car in many training sessions you can beat them easily but going faster through chicanes (Enna challenge for example) My suggestion is that next time Simbin should use a real sim driver not an AI car. During this training you win special prizes, unlocks for championships, this is quite good fun, but it would have been nice to see a different movie and background image for the cup you have just won, also it was difficult to find the actual championships in the menu after you have won them.

Training aside we have the standard format of GTR with a more slick menu system, albeit slightly confusing, a more minimal approach with selections ala N2003 would have been better. However it is miles ahead of the current ISI based menu systems which are over clunky and slow as they usually load a huge model into the menu.

What I like about GTR2 is the amount of cars, a vast amount and something for everyone, I've always loved the Ferrari 360, so this was the first car I tried on track in a race session. The first thing I notice is that GTR2 has atmosphere, in many sims we have the model and physics etc blah blah blah but not a lot of ambience, GTR 2 has this, not in abundance however but its an effort... I have always thought a bit of ambient sound and people round the track make a big difference, GPL had this and of course it had the nostalgia factor. Even the animated gif�s of GPL characters are better than nothing!