Sega GT2002

Gentlemen, start your engines, and please try not to run over Bennett Ring.

When it comes to realistic racing games, Gran Tourismo 3 is widely acknowledged as being the ultimate title for this genre, and is probably one of the reasons that the PS2 has become as common as lint balls in the belly buttons of guys with hairy stomachs. So it's no surprise to see that the Xbox now has its very own clone, oops... rival of this game, with the arrival of Sega's GT2002.

One of the great things about GT3 was the huge variety of cars just begging to be thrashed around the track, and Sega GT2002 emulates this with over a hundred licensed vehicles that you'd probably never be able to afford in real life. Classic cars from the 1970s are probably all you're going to be able to afford at the start of your career, but you'd be surprised how fast these things can go when they've had a little tweaking under the bonnet.

Each of the cars is upgradeable via the cash you earn through special event races, and you definitely need to whack in some of these racing tuned parts if you're going to have a chance in the higher leagues. These parts can be bought either second hand or brand new, with second hand gear having a tendency to fail at the most critical moments. For those of you who like to play the part of a virtual grease monkey, the lack of tuning options is sure to disappoint. A cool side effect of the engine upgrades are the changing engine noises, reflecting the increased oomph you've tacked onto the standard engine. Once you've earned enough moolah to purchase a new beast, you can put your old car up for sale, but unfortunately the selling price doesn't reflect any additions you've made (which probably ended up costing you even more than the car). So you could spend $50,000 on a car and new parts, and end up having to sell it for $15,000, which sucks pretty hard.

There are two main modes of races in the main career mode of Sega GT2002: Official races, which must be won to progress through the different licenses; and Special Event races, which reward you with bucket loads of cool hard cash. While this system works fairly well, it's not without a major flaw, as we discovered. After completing many of the event races and making our 1980s Mazda RX-7 a beast that even a high end Porsche would have nightmares about, we decided to sell our hotted-up rotary monster to buy something new. Unfortunately we made the fatal mistake of purchasing a Lancer Evolution and didn't have enough cash left over to buy any upgrades, making winning one of the advanced races as simple as pole-vaulting the Empire State building with a chopstick. The end result was that we had to scrap the entire career we'd spent days building up, and start again from scratch. Fun? No. Incredibly infuriating? Yes.

The handling of the vehicles within Sega GT2002 is superb, easily up there with the best racing games on any platform. Just make sure you turn off the traction control and anti-lock brake settings, or else you'll be wondering why the game feels so darn arcadey. The visuals aren't too bad either, with immaculate car models and quite detailed scenery.

However there is a major problem with filtering. Thanks to the use of a depth of field blurring effect, there is a noticeable 'barrier' as graphics sharpen when they get close, with a very annoying flickering effect as objects pass through this barrier. It's quite horrendous at first, but you'll soon learn to ignore it. Due to this depth of field blurring, race replays look incredibly realistic, and are a likely candidate for the finest replays ever seen in a game.

A very cool feature of the game is its Chronicle mode, where you get to race in classic cars from the 1970s and 1980s, with a sweet looking sepia effect over the graphics as each race begins, which gradually fades out to full colour over twenty or so seconds.

Instead of using cash to upgrade your car, in this mode you're allowed to upgrade a single section for each victory you score.

Time for the obligatory music sentence, and boy does the race music within Sega GT2002 bite the big one. It sounds as if they've ported all of the world's most annoying elevator tunes directly from a $20 K-Mart keyboard, which is unforgivable considering how good game music is getting these days, especially on DVD-laden consoles. Oh well, at least you can turn it off.

While the meat of Sega GT2002 is quite tasty, it's let down by a couple of major cheesy flaws, and as a result doesn't come close to the GT3 experience. That doesn't mean it's not worthy of your attention, but be prepared for a couple of really annoying faults that will tarnish your overall enjoyment of the game.