I recently decided to revisit one of my favorite PS1 games that really opened my eyes to what real driving enthusiasm is. I’m talking about Gran Turismo of course! I posted a few stories and screenshots in the Fading Brakelight thread and Den of Screenshots, but I decided to make my own thread to chronicle my play through of Gran Turismo 2.
So let’s get to it!
First thing’s first, this game was broken as hell on release. The copy I had in 1999 was actually impossible to 100%. You could enter two-door coupes in the wagons only races. Some cars had engine sound and rendering errors. There were plenty of strange bugs to deal with. It came out right before Christmas, so I’m assuming Polyphony Digital had to rush it out the door.
For this play through, I’m using a rip of the greatest hits version patched with the “Gran Turismo 2 Plus” community patch that fixes a lot of bugs and restores content that was previously removed or disabled. I’ll be playing in an emulator, so my screenshots might evolve over time as I play with different shaders and rendering modes.
B class licenses are typically pretty easy to get in the GT games, and GT2 seems to have made it even simpler than GT1. I didn’t fail any of these tests. I didn’t get gold ranks in any of them either, but all I care about is getting at least the bronze so I can get the license. Maybe I’ll revisit for better times later.
Once you’ve acquired a license, you need a car to race. The game starts you with 10,000 credits and an empty garage. Your only choice is to go buy something used and try to make the most of it.
Typically the best used car selections are in Japan. A lot of dealers in other countries don’t even have a used car option. So off to “East City” I go.
GT1 introduced me to a ton of cars I had no idea existed, and GT2 continues that tradition. I still find cars I’ve never heard of.
I’m sure I’ve heard of the Suzuki Alto Works, but we don’t get Kei cars in the U.S., so I’ve never seen one in the flesh. I found a used one with a sweet two-tone paint job for around 7 grand. Let’s go!
I know the intro shows mostly high speed race cars, but a lot of the GT experience will be driving every day cars. This is especially the case in the very beginning. If you don’t enjoy driving slow cars against other slow cars, you’ll hate it here.
GT2 introduced “one make” races, so I might as well try to recoup the cost of my car by participating in the Alto Works Cup at the Suzuki dealership!
This seems to be a single two lap race on a random course with a grand prize of 3,000 credits. I wish real racing was this quick and profitable! I’m not going to buy any parts or do any tuning. Let’s just get to it in factory form!
Francine looks great on the track though! I’ll be naming every car I get in this game if I remember to. The first attempt goes somewhat okay with me placing 4th out of 6.
We end up in Seattle for the second attempt. It goes better, but I only get second. I NEED to win so I can get those 3,000 credits and mark this race off the list.
I get a hard-fought first place on the third attempt. We race on the test course. I can’t begin to explain how ridiculous six bone-stock Kei cars racing on an oval track is.
Passing the license tests was always the worst part of Gran Turismo. The last time I played 2, I was trying to fuck around with tuning to get drifting working and feeling right.
I was really big into the Mitsubishi GTO for a while because of Gran Turismo.
So apparently a lot of Spanish-speaking people decided to watch me do some extremely slow racing tonight. That kinda rules!
I entered Francine in the Sunday Cup’s first race which takes place on Tahiti Road and has no license requirement. We got smoked! We can’t compete with this particular group of cars at the moment.
Damn. Well second is a lot better than sixth! But I’m almost a full second behind the first place car. I tried this race a few more times and consistently placed second. Time to upgrade Francine!
It’s a Mazdaspeed Demio! I never knew Mazdaspeed gave Demio the treatment! RIP Mazdaspeed. Now I have two weapons to attack some races with! Everyone say hello to Diego!
Diego’s racing debut is in the Rome Short “K” cup race. I’m really not sure if a Demio qualifies as a Kei car, but the game allows it. This could be a leftover bug from this buggy as hell game. Diego wipes the floor with those go karts. Unfair really.
The last “K” cup race requires an A class license. We’ll acquire that another day.
I’m remembering how generous this game is with the gift cars. Fine by me! For driving two laps around Rome Short with Diego and winning, I’m awarded a Mugen Beat. This one is called Mara. And we’re going to put Mara to work soon!
Back to Mara. Let’s see if there’s a one make race for Beats. Yes there is! My plan is to do everything I can with the cars I have before buying anything else. So we’re off to beat the beat. It’s at Midfield Raceway. Mara makes quick work of the lesser Beats.
If I remember correctly, only the engine type races and one-make races in GT2 have any kind of validation beyond the HP limit. Otherwise, the title of the race refers to what you are racing against only.
Feeling invincible, I move to the next two races in the Sunday cup. First up is the High Speed Ring. Diego is immediately put to shame taking third place.
You can’t expect a stock Demio to hang with this sort of company. I’m amazed we did as well as we did with less than 100hp. It only gets worse in the next race at Red Rock Valley where we take fifth. We advance to first a few times in the corners, but the lack of straight line speed is evident here.
A car vaguely similar to the Lotus Elise in concept in that it is rocking a power to weight ratio that makes it way quicker than its horsepower numbers otherwise belie.
… all names i have not seen in such a long while, man. Idgi why they were so obsessed with virtual FIA approving Grand Valley and bits of Trial Mountain to make it seem more realistic, when they didn’t touch into their backlog and gave us memorable places to race on.
FM7 did fall into the same hole here, and i guess it is probably down to licensing issues or modelling complexity that they killed off some nice places… games taught us that it is not necessary to have only real places to traverse or discovery so why would you apply that to fake places in the first place?
Probably a misguided attempt at solidifying a game as serious medium (which, tbh, worked really well for the genre(?) i. e. sim racing, if maybe not as much for GT itself!)
This morning I decide to go ahead and get that A class license out of the way. I really want to finish the “K” cup. So on to the license test area for some more exciting lessons.
These are not overly difficult, but they are definitely more challenging than B license tests as one would expect. I make a few errors and fail a few of the tests, but I’m able to get through it.
A combination of lack of power and lack of driving skill means Mara doesn’t have the juice. Too bad! We take 5th and decide to tackle this challenge another day.
