Jam packed with over 650 REAL WORLD vehicles and 27 race tracks that included some famous circuits that still exist today, Gran Turismo 2 was nothing less than breathtaking in it's delivery of a Simulation based racing game for the Playstation 1. Yes, that's right the PS1. (Better known today as the PSX) Released in December of 1999, this game blew the minds of kids, teenagers and adults alike.
From where I was at in the gaming scene at the time, and for the vast majority of the peers around me, the first Gran Turismo game was something "dad played." It was a rare addition to the library of any teen at the time. It also had a significantly reduced warehouse of vehicles, topping out at 114 different cars. Some of which were exclusive to the Japanese release or only playable in the Arcade mode. Gran Turismo 2 changed the perception of the game. It became cool. My one friend had an unchanging poster of a Lamborghini on his wall for many years, and after he bought Gran Turismo it was accompanied in short order by his favorite cars to drive in the game, cut out from car magazines, or printed off the internet using the schools godawful black and white printer. This game consumed him, and by proxy it consumed us as well.
There's no point in beating around the bush, as this is a gen 1 3D video game, a PSX/N64 era game the graphics aged about as well as dog doodoo over a sunny July. It's not pretty. But the simulation is quite solid. You can oversteer the cars and cause the rear wheels to lose traction to perform drifts that feel much more real than your Mario Karts and Crash Team Racing games of the day. And it wasn't an "arcade racer" like Test Drive was at the time. The closest game to compare it to from that era is Ridge Racer, which is technically an Arcade Simulator, (think of racing games you used to find in the arcade with an ever downward ticking timer telling you to add more quarters.) But Ridge Racer paled in comparison to the scale of Gran Turismo 2.
As I said above, over six hundred and fifty flippin' cars! Granted, some are just different models with the same bodies, but that is still a LOT of cars to choose from. Got a favorite car? I bet it's here. From Alfa Romeo to the obscure Lister brand of British supercars, if it's a pre-'99 car it has a fairly good chance of being here. And with 27 different tracks to choose from - Including Rally tracks! - you won't run out of tarmac or gravel anytime soon. The soundtrack to the game is also above par for the time of its release. With great hits from Rob Zombie, Moby, Fear Factory, Garbage, Foo Fighters... THE CRYSTAL METHOD. Oh My god, and that's not all!
Maybe it is for these reason that to this very day, Gran Turismo 2 still holds a 93/100 on Metacritic It was definitely a cut above the competition at the time. Nay, it was a bar raiser. More was demanded from racing games after Gran Turismo captured the hearts of millions of gamers. Now, that isn't to say that Mario Kart and arcade racers still aren't MEGA popular, but it is impossible to deny that Polyphony Digital's signature Series, Gran Turismo, forever changed the Simulation Racing scene. Making it more popular than ever by bringing it to the home console.
And the game has legs! Gran Turismo 7 was announced for the PS5 home console due some time in 2021. I am beyond excited to see what the next generation of Home Console racing sims looks like. For some comparisons of Gran Turismo for the ps4 and Gran Turismo for the ps1 I have provided a few screenshots from my previous blog on the series.
Oh, how far we have come!
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.... do you have to get your license before you can race in this one? that was one of my favorite parts if these titles ...
Yes you do! It is also one of my favorite parts of the game. I can understand why it's not a requirement in todays day and age of "instant gratification isn't fast enough" but I'm glad you can still go through all the licneces and do them in the newest one for PS4
i always saw that part of the game as a learning curve... the license would get you gaming at a higher level faster than just jumping into races and crashing...
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