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I bought this game for one reason, the Nürburgring Nordschleife.Damn, that track is truly "Green Hell", but it only is worth the money.
but needs improvment in graphics , a future update will be needed. The game is good.
Haven't had it long so I can't tell you how it holds up over the long haul, but since I practice daily and race weekly, I may find out sooner than I think. The title of this review is not an understatement.I got this game in October, 2008 and became completely immersed in it. I played it with an XBox 360 controller for two months and as soon as I got a Thrustmaster Universal Challenge Racing Wheel/Pedal set, I learned the true meaning of car control. That product is GTR2.
That is where this game shines and kills other Racing SIMS. This game's only competition comes from a product made by the same guys. Single player is fun but the REAL fun is when you join a racing league and race against other racers online. You're going to want to download and install STEAM to get the full use of this game when you go racing online.
Trust me. But back to the point of this game.The Graphics are amazing and the realism is astounding. I'm going to tell you up front that you cannot effectively play this game without a Racing wheel/pedal set. You want the MoMo for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are that it has steel paddle shifters and a sequential gear shift.
I'd suggest the Thrustmaster Universal Challenge wheel (which is what I am using at the time of this review), but the upshift and downshift levers are plastic and will brake like mine did (I had to remap up and down shifts to buttons on the wheel, which wasn't a problem)and this wheel measures 8 inches compared to the Logitech MoMo. There are things you can do with a wheel that you just can't do with any other controller when it comes to racing games. You must get a wheel to play this game.
GTR1 and GTR2 had both speed and ability to set for AI drivers. Lots of different tracks to race on in lots of different cars. No career mode to start a low level of racing and work your way up the latter. The physics and the graphics are great.
All the cars have different handling and speed characteristics. I have not used it online so I do not know how it works for that. If you like road racing simulators especially European type racing IT IS A MUST BUY. One other thing the game needs is a car telemetry section so you can set the car up better. GTR Evolution is great fun. First comes the good stuff. Lots of different damage settings. Now for the stuff I don't like.
The types of cars range from street cars open wheel formula BMW and Formula 3000 to sports cars and popular GT cars. GTR Evolution just has skill level. With out it you have to guess a lot and it takes more time if you want to get the most out of the car you are using. In the older versions they could drive slower with higher skill levels making it harder to pass them. A custom season mode to create your own season as long or a short as you like with any of the tracks in the game using any style of car set you like VERY COOL. When you put the skill level down lower the AI drivers go slower and they spin out more too.
Great simulation. Fewer options on setting the strength of the AI drivers. Lots of different views to drive from including an in-car view. No limitation of what car on what tracks. Adjustable race length settings.
You need to stop your server from within the Online version of the game and start a new server with the next track you want to race -- your buddies will also have to rejoin your server. There is absolutely no way to change tracks if you host this way. So, you can actually have two entirely separate Championships going, one in the offline version of the game and the other in the online version of the game (remember, being "online" has absolutely nothing to do with the Championship mode).Here's the really STUPID part of this whole mess. If you launch the Online version of GTR Evolution and have the audacity to actually host a game you are LOCKED INTO PLAYING THE SAME TRACK OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND. You MUST install Steam in order to play online.GTR Offline only contains the game made for offline playing and there is no way to play online once you have loaded this version of the game.
This is a stand-alone application and has no relationship to actually playing the game yourself. It seems that the designers want you to think you have to install the Offline version of the game in order to play a Championship, but this simply isn't true. It is a total blast to race your buddies online and the graphics are awesome, but the implementation of the game as a whole is one of the most retarded bits of programming I have ever seen and I've been playing computer games (console and PC) since the early 1980s. You have to skip, one track at a time, up 6 tracks to get to number 8 (all the time loading in each track as you go, which is a lengthy process). Yikes.One more thing.
Guess what. This is a ridiculous implementation and the first time I have seen such a convoluted design in a game. well you get the picture. The dedicated server will always start at the first track in the list of available tracks that you have set up and will go through them one by one in order. You can play the exact same Championship in the Online version of the game as you can with the Offline version (Championship mode has nothing to do with being online or offline). Since the game play details have already been extensively discussed in prior reviews here, let me discuss what I consider a major flaw in the implementation of GTR Evolution that not one reviewer has covered.The game comes in four parts:1) Steam2) GTR Evolution Offline3) GTR Evolution Online4) Race 07 Dedicated ServerInstalling ALL aspects of this game eats up approximately 9 GBs of hard drive space.The Steam application is used to look for online games (not just GTR Evolution games) as well as chat with your buddies and everything else, except the kitchen sink (basically, it's another version of GameSpy bloatware).
Once you launch the Dedicated Server, which takes forever to get up and running on my well-equipped system, you then have to launch the actual GTR Evolution Online game and look for your dedicated server (either in the LAN or Internet areas of the interface -- LAN will give you a better ping to your own game, obviously). So, here you and your buddies are sitting and loading maybe 5, 6, or 7 tracks in order to get to the one you actually want to play. I have a 4 hard drive (7,200 RPM) RAID array and it still takes a fair amount of time to get the game up and running.GTR Online is the EXACT SAME GAME as the Offline version, except it contains the Multiplayer menu option. Here's where the fun really begins. What you have to do is.Install the Race 07 Dedicated Server application. Instead, you have to exit the offline version and load in the online version of the game.
Let's say you have 10 tracks available and after playing the first two you want to skip to track 8 in the list. that you want to use on your dedicated server. Instead, what you have to do is either step through the tracks in order from within the Online version of the game or go back out to your desktop and step through the tracks one at a time until you get to the one you really want to play. There is no way to tell the dedicated server what track to start with or to simply be able to pick a specific track you want to play at any given moment. There's no way to go BACKWARDS in the list of tracks you have selected to be available. once you select a specific car to race online there is no way to switch to a different car unless you exit the server and rejoin (selecting a different car at that time).Finally, I absolutely love playing this game.
Now you have to loop your way up to track 10 and start at track 1 until you get back to track 7. Buy this game and enjoy it, warts and all, but just be thankful it's a budget title and you didn't lay out $50 for it. Now let's say you are on track 8 and want to play track 7, LOL, guess what again. The load times are horrendous. Here's the real gotcha -- every time you change tracks from either within the online game or the dedicated interface on your desktop, the system loads each of the tracks into the game, even if you don't want to play that track -- too bad for you. Basically, what this does is launch a window on your desktop where you select the cars, tracks, rules for the races, etc.
The silly thing is, if you start a Championship in the offline version, the online version can't see your saved progress (and vice-versa). Pure genius programming.
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