Tonight Mary gets the race treatment. It’s time to finish up at Nissan.
Three weight reductions and a racing modification on a car this cheap are the reasons why I have to go earn more cash at the GT World Championship periodically.
The race livery for the 89 March Super Turbo is only available in one color. I suppose it’s appropriately racy.
The March Trophy racing style race takes us to Seattle Circuit Full. We push pretty hard, but it’s pretty obvious we need a power upgrade to go along with our fancy new paint job. We are only able to manage a fourth place win with some very cheap tactics.
Factory turbo’d cars usually accept upgrades pretty handily. I consider going with just intake/exhaust/ECU as these actually see great benefits in turbo cars. But my impatience gets the better of me. We slap on the biggest turbo available for Mary. And get a pretty good power bump!
When we attempt the March Trophy again, we end up at Super Speedway. I’m laughing to myself here as the stock gearing is probably ideal here for such a high speed course.
Imagine going 137MPH in a Nissan March that’s been on a diet! Mary isn’t exactly a rocket off the line. It still takes about 7-8 seconds to get to sixty. But the power is available until we run out of gearing. We are able to kiss the absolute top of fifth gear on the second lap just before the second hairpin.
The big turbo is overkill as the other cars don’t really stand a chance. Oh well. Sometimes that’s how it goes! We take our first place finish.
Mary was fun, and it sucks to sell for 825 credits after investing six figures , but we need the room in our garage for the next car. We’re headed to Honda next.
is the real life car ownership experience that GT does oh so well (as usual, not investing six figures and less racey in RL, but that’s enough to make us bond with the game while feeling it understands …)
There is a normal style NSX Trophy race we need to complete, so we need to buy a normal style NSX!
Nothing about the NSX is normal. I remember it being referred to as “the Honda Accord of exotic cars” when I was a kid. That’s a pretty cool way to look at it. In terms of reliability, I’m sure this saying was correct.
As for performance and engineering, the NSX is very capable and surprisingly raw. We pick up a used '92 NSX Type R in Grand Prix White. We name the car Angel.
I did not know the NSX was the world’s first aluminum production car. I wonder if anyone ever anodized one. The 0-60 and quarter mile times are extremely impressive for a car of this era. And Honda makes some of the best high revving engines in the business.
I’m sure that V6 is quite the marvel. I’ve never driven one in real life.
The normal style race lands Angel and I at Grand Valley Speedway. This is a high speed course that is very unforgiving to unstable cars. We’ll see how stable Honda’s MR platform is here.
Right off the line, the other cars are pretty competitive. We’ll need to focus and try to avoid big mistakes to have any hope of winning. Going 75MPH in second gear is pretty wild!
We inch very slowly among the ranks as this course throws its complex curves at us. I notice right off that Angel’s turn in is very abrupt as is characteristic of the MR platform. The car is stable, but not as stable as I expected to be honest. This is especially true under hard braking.
Still at Honda, we need a racing style S2000 for the S2000 Challenge. Our Mugen S2000, Melissa, isn’t upgradeable to a racing modification. So we have to buy a brand new car just to chop it up!
At the dealer we find one we like in Indy Yellow Pearl. This paint job will last about five minutes before we strip the car and put a race livery on it. We name the S2000 Britney.
I guess Britney is an AP1. That 153 lb-ft of torque means we will have to rev the snot out of the engine to put the power down. The AP2 gained a bit of torque at the cost of 1,000 RPM. I would imagine an AP1 would be a better track car and an AP2 would be a better street car.
Anyway, we get to keep most of our yellow paint job with the new race livery. Polyphony Digital really went all out on this car with their logo plastered on the side!
A 9,000 RPM redline is always exciting to see. And 240HP from a 2.0L four banger is absolutely insane. It becomes evident very quickly that we need to go against our instincts in this car. We try to keep the revs above 6,500 or so at all times. This means downshifting to second gear at speeds that would destroy most drivetrains.
Luckily, the car handles extremely well. It’s a nice breath of fresh air after the hardcore NSX. Steering is predictable and controllable. Car dynamics are stable. This is some of the most fun I’ve had all game!
Once we get to first, we fall behind again a few times thanks to overconfidence and not staying in the power band. We are able to climb back up and win the race though.
I can identify most vehicles pretty quickly just by seeing the body shape. At least for cars that were released in the US. I’ve been obsessed with cars since I was a kid. My mom said I used to name off cars I would see on the road pretty soon after I started talking. I have no memory of this.
I do have memory of the first time I saw a Subaru SVX.
I was driving home from Houston some time in '98 or '99, and I passed a strange looking car on the interstate. It was really sleek looking and had a very interesting split window design. I think I broke a few laws so I could get near it and identify what the hell it was. The back of the car said “Subaru SVX”.
I was dumbfounded as I had never heard of this car at all. In fact, I’ve never seen another SVX since that day.
So tonight we head to Subaru, and I’m supposed to buy something called an Alcyone. I’ve never heard that name before, and none of the cars in the new or used dealer are called Alcyone.
Is it a glitch? Do I have to do a few races to cycle the used car inventory until one shows up? On a hunch, I go back to the used car dealer and spot a lone SVX in silver. When I pull up the description, I see that it is also referred to as the Alcyone. Neat!
We buy the Light Silver Metallic example and name it Barry. The AWD is expected from a Subaru, but the power plant is a flat six. I’m not sure how many six banger boxer engines are out there, but I had no idea that Subaru produced one and put it in a 3500 lb. coupe. What a car!
The Alcyone Challenge normal style race takes us to Rome Night. This is a course I’m not used to driving with a car that is very good at going fast but not so great at handling. Mistake after mistake leave us in third place.
The chassis is just… ponderous. This car is designed to make you feel comfortable at high speeds and stay the course. Quick direction changes and sudden moves are not in its repertoire.
That’s okay! Our second attempt takes us to Laguna Seca. This game really expects me to handle the infamous corkscrew in a Japanese Cadillac!
To my surprise, the SVX does extremely well at Laguna Seca. The wide sweeping turns are a good match for the chassis. The first turn gives us some trouble on both laps, but the corkscrew and even the final turn end up being almost easy. It’s really bizarre! I like it!
In a tightly packed field we end up taking first place. I think Barry has a timeless design and a very respectable mission statement: be quick, comfortable, and lumbering. I can’t wait to see what a race mod does to this car! But at the same time, I feel like it’s probably best left in bone stock form. Oh well!
Eager to get this game to 100% completion, I decide to finish up at Subaru tonight.
Barry just needs a racing modification to get into the racing style Alcyone Challenge. There are three livery colors available. The purplish pink one seems like the best to me!
This car already has plenty of power. Let’s just get it out there as is and see how it does!
We end up at Tahiti Road. This is a fast and fun course that has plenty of opportunities to outsmart the AI on.
Navigating to first takes a bit of risk and some cheap tactics, but we are able to hold it for the rest of the race. First place is achieved pretty easily. I take a lot of pictures because this car looks so good! And the field has a lot of color to it!
So the Alcyone Challenge is complete. As far as I know, I’ve completed all the one make races. I’ve completed all the races in Simulation mode. At least I thought so.
I found the missing races! I had to search the internet to see that there is another license called the Super License! This is the first time I’ve heard of this, but I need it to unlock the “Event Generator”. I’ve never heard of that either! How did I go two decades without knowing about this?
The Super License test consists of ten time trials. What sounds monotonous and difficult ends up being a total joy! This feels like Gran Turismo’s greatest hits! They could release an entire game that is just these ten time trials, and it would be worth full price.
I can pick any car in the garage for these races. Why not try something goofy? I don’t think Heath the cursed Chrysler Phaeton ever got any action, so let’s give it a go!
Normal time! I remember Albert the Sileighty being shunned from competing in the 180SX and Silvia race. So we’ll give Albert a chance to race elsewhere!
Ugh this car looks so cool! And it has my favorite layout and enough power to be quick but not a chore.
What the hell?! 100% completion? I haven’t done Hard or Expert yet in the Event Generator.
This reminds me of my friend who had like two semesters left of college and his diploma just showed up in the mail so he was like “uhhhh I guess I’m done?”
I’m going to complete those last two events for the hell of it. I don’t consider this playthrough finished until they are. But thanks, game!
Moving on to Expert, we grab Carol the GT40 Race Car. This will be our final event to complete. Once this is won, we will have won every single race in simulation mode.
I’m not sure what I expected, but Expert mode ends up being a five race series. Carol is basically cheat mode here as this car is unbelievably stable at speed. The other cars don’t stand a chance. The difficulty ratings were essentially reversed for us based on car choice I suppose.
Apparently having Opel and Vauxhall both available with this patched version enables completion to 100.91%. There were ways to do it with non patched versions:
The Vauxhall dealer is exclusive to the European version, replacing Opel if the language is set to English. Changing between languages allows the player to complete both Opel and Vauxhall race events and reach up to 100.91% completion.source
Anyway. That’s that! We’re done! It’s been a long journey, but I finally fully completed GT2 after over two decades.
I will probably bump this thread every now and then as I play some other GT games and revisit some of the more fun events in GT2.
Seconding the praise itt, this thread was a pleasure to follow each update, and don’t even think a second about saying this was a halfhearted effort, it has been one of the sources of joy in these rough times and made me feel
… and above all, you made Gran Turismo cool again, after PD spent a decade+ erasing any good memories we had from GT3.
n.b. the SVX has a watercooled flat6? :thinking:
The 996 Porsche launched in 1998 iirc? So the Scooby predates that, cool!
Also, the Legacy B4 3L had a flat6 that got some input from Porsche Engineering, listen in on some pov vids on ytube
, but we need the room in our garage for the next car. We’re headed to Honda next.
