Let’s drive! It’s time to head back to the rally challenges with Shelley to finish up what we can.
We head to the Tahiti Dirt R3 Reverse course to challenge three different cars in succession. The first car is listed as “Familia”. I know it as the Mazda Protegé. In rally wagon form, I know it as the 323 GTX.
I know a few fun facts about this car. The 1.6L engine is the same engine Mazda used in the first generation Miata. They just pulled off the turbo and rotated it for the FR layout. That explains the awful oil filter location! It also explains why Miatas handle boost so well. The engine was made for it! Can you tell I hope to win this as a prize car? Shelley wins the race easily.
The final challenger is the Opel Tigra Ice Race Car. No idea what the Ice is all about! This car puts up a major fight like the Evo did. We barely eek out a win by going maximum attack.
Not ready to face the Suzuki monsters, we decide to go ahead and try to clean up what we can from the GT Nationals races. Some of these rally cars we’ve won are not Japanese!
Megan is 2hp under the limit for the second and final French Nationals race at Tahiti Road. Let’s see if Megan has the stuff! Megan does have the stuff! I’m not sure if rally cars come with street tires, but we manage just fine and win.
Good deal! What else can we do? I know Jack is German. Jack falls under the limit for the third Deep Forest race in the German Nationals, so we head out to see if we can win that. The competition looks pretty sophisticated next to this goofy four-door Golf. I love it! Jack wins because Jack isn’t a boat!
Prize car time! It’s a RUF CR4. I remember being disappointed that there were no Porsches in GT2 back in '99. I think this was due to EA having the rights for Porsche Unleashed or somesuch nonsense. Anyway, apparently German laws allow you to make a few small changes to a car and totally rebrand it as your own. Enter RUF! I may have explained that all wrong, but what we have here is a beautiful non turbo Porsche 911? in my eyes. We’ll call it Sheila. There is no info screen, so I don’t have the goods on what makes Sheila tick.
Sheila fits the bill for the second German Nationals race at Deep Forest! We head there immediately. Sheila handles very well, and has a nice rumbly engine note. Once again we take care of a pack of German boats and win.
I got a little carried away taking screenshots of Sheila in action. This car is extremely photogenic! The remaining German Nationals race has a 216hp limit. This will have to wait until we have a slower German car!
For the final race of this session, we head to the UK Nationals Trial Mountain race with a 394hp limit. The car is Margaret. TVRs are a bit obscene in my limited video game experience with them. Margaret growls like a distant thunder storm. Margaret also handles a bit like a boat, so we have to adjust our driving style. The raw power of the Tuscan Speed Six is enough for the win! I dig Margaret’s alien looking face!
Oh and our prize car for Margaret’s win is a Vauxhall Vectra! I was trying to place what Chevy this car was based on, but it turns out it’s a rebadged Opel. The only thing that would make this car better is if I could have it in brown! We name it Oliver.
I now need a sub 200hp Italian car, a slow German car, and a mid range British car in order to finish the Nationals races. I am not sure if anything else in the garage can finish what we have here. Our next session might have to be a shopping spree.
that Vectra, in the yellow-golden paintjob, as a fast-back version, is a cool car.
Yeah, I just said that for real, sorry… the 2.0L 16V engine was also featured in the Calibra, where i had the chance to drive it for a while on ze german Autobahn at 170-180ish kph, taking turns with my brother en route to a friend of mine we visited. Great times!
(n.b. you got that Ruf-story right I think, EA sat on the Porsche license for too long, to ensure that nobody would make that same mistake again.
If you think about it, we dig those japanese or oddball US/EU late 80/90ies heroes just because licensing mess meant they had to give us something to race against, hence we know our Saleens, Venturis, TVRs and Autozams by hard, whereas we know Porsches in the passing, instead of intricate detail (like an R32/R33, or NA1 NSX/Type R NSX).
Kinda wild how they dropped the ball on that)
For what it’s worth with Ruf’s, while the chassis is Porsche the rest is either Ruf parts or high-performance aftermarket upgrades.
Occasionally customers will come to them and have their Porsches rebuilt as Ruf cars, though those won’t have a VIN that would match a Ruf that had been built from the ground up on an otherwise naked Porsche chassis.
Also, small sidenote, but the Ruf CTR2 was briefly the fastest road legal sports car in the world, holding the title with a top speed of 350 kmh/217 mph from '95 to '98 right up until the debut of McLaren F1 with its top speed of 387 kmh/241 mph.
Tonight we go on a bit of a shopping spree, but first I want to give Oliver a shot at the UK Nationals Trial Mountain 345hp limit race. Oliver has less than half the power required, so this might get ugly! It’s actually not as ugly as it could have been, but we do finish last. Good try, Oliver!
Ok let’s get serious. Let’s buy a British car that has close to 345hp. I do a bit of digging. It seems like the UK offerings in this game are either very lightweight with low HP or tanks with high HP. We’ll just head to TVR and buy something mad!
We go with a Chimaera 5.0 and call it Jackie. TVR doesn’t really believe in safety features. They add unnecessary weight and give the driver a false sense of confidence. So how do their cars still remain so heavy? They are beautiful, though! And Raspberry Metallic is a beautiful color!
Anyway, we take Jackie to the race Oliver couldn’t handle. It… doesn’t go well at first. We completely lose control of the car in one of the early turns. It’s a DNF.
You can’t really tell, but we’re facing the wrong way here :\ I don’t even know what I mapped reverse to
We take another crack at this race with Jackie with our renewed sense of caution. I feel like a controller can’t really convey the precision needed to drive a TVR properly. I’m not sure what that says about my skill or TVR cars in general. We are able to win with a Lotus and another Chimaera putting up a tough fight!
That’s it for the UK Nationals. Now we look for that sub 197hp Italian car we need. I briefly consider a base Lancia Delta, but my thoughts shift to Alfa Romeo instead. There is a one make race for 155 and 156 Alfas, so we might as well get a 156. We find a gorgeous 156 V6 and buy it for under forty grand. This is Antonio.
We take Antonio to the Italian Nationals Rome Short Course race with a 197hp limit. We are just under that, so this should be in our favor. We do manage to win, but it’s another tight race as far as the other cars reminding you every time you make any mistake. Italian styling rules! Every one of these cars fucks!
Today we take care of the last German Nationals race. We acquire an Audi S3 in lovely Mocha Brown Pearl Effect. We call it Bianca. Bianca’s specs are very impressive for the time. I’d love to have this car today!
We head to the German Nationals to take care of the last of the Nationals series of races. They were not kidding about the “spleen-rupturing” lateral forces. Bianca goes around corners like a roller coaster! We win against the parade of Germans.
We’ll start in the Euro-League in the Euro-Pacific challenges. What could we possibly have in the garage that can compete in three races with a 591hp limit?
I have a crazy thought. The Lancia Delta Rally car (Louise) just might be able to handle it even though it’s got 350ish horsepower. We might as well give Louise a shot before having to buy something more powerful. I’m afraid to get back in a TVR, so let’s go Louise!
The first race takes place at Apricot Hill. Things are about to get extremely dirty in this series. We are outclassed by much faster cars here, so it’s time to pull out all the dirty tricks. We push Louise well beyond 11/10ths. We RAM other cars in turns, we block, we take shortcuts, we’re basically fighting heavyweights with every dirty trick we can pull from the book. And it works in the first race! We win!
The second Euro League challenge takes place at Grand Valley. Louise felt a bit slippery in the last race, so I make sure to fit the softest racing tires. Were we racing on dirt tires? Oh well!
This course makes me nervous because of the very long straight section. The higher HP cars will be able to catch up and pass us if we’re not careful. We go maximum attack here and come up second.
Damn! Surely Louise can do this! Let’s try again, shall we!?
We try again and fight even dirtier than before. The AI are a bunch of bullies anyway, so fuck 'em! We manage to get first despite being terrorized by a Cerbera that eventually goes off course and the RUF BTR2 that sometimes remembers it’s fast as all hell and flies past us.
That’s two of the three Euro League races complete! I am too exhausted to try the third now. Louise pulled off the unthinkable in a lot of ways! Way to go, Louise!
We win a Zexel Skyline GT as a prize car. We name it Valerie.
Just got a free Nismo for winning the second tier FR challenge, so I’m using it to try and win the first race. I really like how it feels to drive, snappy and responsive with turning like the Corolla
Yoooo I managed to get some of the glitchiness under control in GT2 using beetlepsx hardware in retroarch. There are still some odd ones here and there. I’m down to talk about configuration settings here if anyone wants to share theirs or is curious about mine.
Today we take Louise to the final GT Euro League race at Rome Circuit. Once again we are outclassed, but there are plenty of turns to prevent the other cars from using their power advantage to take a large lead. We slowly claw our way to the top and manage to stay there for the win!
I’m so glad Louise was able to handle the Euro League without any help! It was a truly monumental task! For our troubles, we win a Kure R33 GT. We name it Stan.
The next series of races on page two of the GT Leagues is the GT Pacific League. This is limited to American or Japanese cars with 542hp or less. Freddie should do nicely here! It should be an easy set of races with such a lightweight and powerful car! It is! We win all three races easily and just enjoy the drive!
This will consist of five consecutive races of five laps each. There is a scoring system based on how you place. I should probably take Edmund out here, but I go with George instead. Mistake? We’ll find out! I don’t like lining a Supra up next to a GT-One!
The first race takes place at Trial Mountain. We are among world-class competition here! Getting ahead of the pack takes hard driving, but it’s all easy after that! We take first!
How is a Supra like George doing so well against these other cars? I guess that description about how much work was put into these Supra race cars was serious.
The next three races take place at Apricot Hill, Rome Circuit, and Midfield Raceway. We place first in all three races. We win the World League!
A mistake is made at Apricot Hill due to overconfidence, but we are still able to pull ahead.
That it for the World League! That’s it for the GT Leagues! The only races unfinished are the two Pikes Peak hill climbs. After that we’ll have a lot of one make racing to do!
It’s time to finish the rally events. That means we have to buy the most powerful car in the game! Anyone who has played GT2 for very long knows this legendary car. It was designed to do one thing (climb hills) very well. You can also take it out into normal races and absolutely crush anything else out there. We will not be doing that today. Maybe not ever? But it’s time to drop two million credits on the Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak car!
Two turbo V6 engines power this thing! It’s ridiculous! I take a breath and press the “buy” button. I am given a rather anticlimactic screen immediately.
Dammit! I NEVER bothered to consider this game might have a garage space limit. Apparently it’s 100 cars. I have to sell something I remember there are two Spoon Civics in the garage. I sell one off to make room for the Escudo Pikes Peak. We just spent two million credits on a car that will be driven for a total of four minutes or so We name it Stacy.
Stacy heads to challenge the Cultus Pikes Peak car at the Pikes Peak hill climb. It’s an easy win as the Cultus was later replaced with this superior car in the real world.
The final rally race is on the same section of Pikes Peak against another Escudo Pikes Peak car. We are racing ghosts here. You would never see two of these racing side-by-side up Pikes Peak in real life! I wonder how hard this will be, but I pull it off on the first try. The ghost car is not far behind the whole time.
The race menu is completely filled out now. We are finished with all the challenges in the game outside of one make races and possibly getting golds in the license tests. The status screen shows just how much is left out there.
I will now have to start thinking about what cars to sell in order to make room for cars to use in the one makes Maybe I’ll sell off some of the many Type R Hondas I was gifted. Maybe shed a few Skylines? I really don’t know.
I remember there are two Spoon Civics in the garage. I sell one off to make room for the Escudo Pikes Peak. We just spent two million credits on a car that will be driven for a total of four minutes or so 
