I picked up GTR Evolution from Steam, only $18 to pre-order (now $20 for the expansion, $30 for the pack including Race07).
I fired up Nurburgring Nordschleife and did a few laps in different cars. Lots of fun, and that’s probably what I will play with exclusively in the addon. There is no GT championship season, unless you build a custom (I don’t think they were able to acquire the proper licenses).
I was thrilled to see that SimBin has some default setups for each car and track that “should” work okay. This may have existed in Race07, but most of the time I spend in GTR2 is finding a decent setup that works for my driving style. I don’t put enough time into it to tweak things, so this is a great feature for a casual sim racer such as myself.
It feels almost exactly like Race07 (at least given my limited experience with it) only with GT cars, so not much new here if you weren’t a fan of the original. [EDIT] It’s worth it to me just so I can pretend to be Hans Stuck. :)
It looks like they’ve also added a new WTCC Extreme class, not just the GT cars. And there’s a new ‘arcade’ mode with a Forza-style minimap of the track and opponents, that seems to have a slightly more forgiving driving model (it seemed a lot harder to induce oversteer, at least). It seems a bit pointless though, since it’s restricted to that small handful of WTCC Extreme cars.
But yeah, otherwise it’s pretty much just a Race07 expansion pack, no matter how strangely they market it. (Buy GTR Evolution and get Race07 for free! Just like how you can buy Burning Crusade and get the original WoW for free! (…if you buy the Battle Chest…))
Yeah I was confused about the r-cade mode that didn’t allow any use of GT cars, so I didn’t even start a race in that mode. Maybe that’ll be patched in. Didn’t notice the WTCC Extreme class either. What is the deal on those cars? Mostly-FWD with more power and suspension work?
As a completist and someone who wants companies to keep making racing sims with single player modes, I’ll be buying GTR Evo. For whatever reason, however, the Race07 physics never have worked for me as the physics in GTR2. I’m not talking real world because I’m not a real world racer, but the fact I seem to be able to get closer to 10/10 out of a car in GTR2 but I seem to always leaving too much time on the table in Race07.
On other news, two mods are launching/about to launch that I’ve been waiting for
Part 2 of the Power&Glory mod for GTR2 (60s sports cars, plus improvements to the physics…pt 1 of P&G is my favorite single mod) dev blog at http://gtlw-blog.flyingpig.info/index.php
It doesn’t seem to correspond to any real-world WTCC class; it’s just some of the traditional WTCC car models tuned up to GT-ish specs, around 600hp. They didn’t really feel all that powerful, but I’ve only tried them in that ‘r-cade’ mode so far.
Well I’m an idiot. The Corvette is a G2 car. I must have set up the season incorrectly or something because it lists me as GT class. I don’t even seem to race against the G2 and G3 teams except at Spa. shrug Speaking of which, I was having a great time during that race and had a chance at a top ten, but my engine blew with an hour left. I know it’s supposed to be realistic and all, but I had to ask myself if I was really having any fun in my videogame watching fire come out the back. :)
I’d go for the Lamborghini, it’s the fastest GT that won’t try to kill you on every corner. The 550 is faster, but hard to drive.
I tried the Lambo for a race in the 2003 season and ironically ended up about the same place as I usually do with the Corvette. I’m still leaving a lot on the table, but I was hoping I’d be higher up in the pack just from switching cars.
I figured out the obscure buttons to press to go against other people’s ghost cars in time trials, but even when I see where I’m slower, I have a hard time figuring out what I’m doing wrong. It’d be nice if the game saved the car configuration with the recorded lap.
Yep, its a sim but that has to have been a real downer. You probably need to turn down the rev limiter by 200-300 RPM to prevent this, or shift yourself earlier. The other cause of engine fail is overheating…which you solve by changing the radiator opening settings. That is unless the engine fail was due to a missed shift (wanted 4th but grabbed 2nd).
Yeah I have to admit I haven’t even thought about it, just been blasting through gears in a way I would never do with a real car. It was on acceleration up to Blanchimont at Spa, and I just cheese with the paddle shifters so I doubt I hit the wrong gear.
I run GTR-X2 so I would’ve seen if the engine was overheating. Maybe they were just simulating the enduro “well shit breaks sometimes” effect.
I thought of another way that might be nice to learn from the pros: watch a video of them driving, with their inputs and listening to the sounds. I don’t hear much tire squeal or anything when watching a recorded lap, so the benefits of practicing against a faster ghost car seem to be lost on me.
We had something similar happen in a GTR2 24 hour race (there was a few of us doing the event, we’d drive long enough for one legitimate stop then change over at the next pit stop by saving and emailing the save to the next driver) - unfortunately Dave forgot to drop the rev limiter down after qualification, so about 8 hours in when it was my stint we grenaded the motor :)
Yeah I thought about inviting my buddy over even though I was only doing a 3 hour enduro, but it’s kind of hard to just throw someone at sim controls without a few hours to get acclimated.
Actually someone else did the setup if I recall correctly and we were many many hours into the race when it went bang. Still the second attempt went much better.
It was always a hugely fun and stressful driving experience knowing you had to keep the pace up, keep the car intact and well sorted to hand over to the next driver, with many others waiting in the wings for their turns.
Sadly, no, mid-race saving is one of the features still missing from the Race07 engine. There aren’t any 24H events either; you can set a race to be 50 laps or 120 minutes at most.
I’m pretty impressed that there is a magazine dedicated to sim racing. Anyone a big fan of AutoSimSport that could recommend a few really good back issues to read?
I’m a fan of autosimsport, but I cannot think of any single older must-have issues. That said, the last 2 have been great…I have really enjoyed their coverage of iRacing, and thought the coverage of Pt2 of Power&Glory was very good. I also enjoy the hardware reviews. I guess it depends on what you are interested in…just browse the tables of contents and download the ones you like.
There is also a video blog called something like Sim Racing Today that is good…I’ll try to find the link when I get home.
