2/7/2024 0 Comments Gtr evolution posterThe tracks and the cars still look good, but the texture quality could certainly be improved and are not up to the standard you would expect from a current generation console title or cutting edge PC game. It’s hard to see any tangible improvements over the previous entries in the Race series, though at least this does mean that the frame rates remain nice and high. If there’s one area where GTR Evolution doesn’t impress however, it’s graphically. Though should you not want to spend hours and hours driving under the bonnet making the smallest of incremental adjustments to the setup of the car (we can’t think why), you can let other people do the hard work for you and simply download setup files from other players that have been shared online, with an integrated voting system allowing you to determine which setups are the most worthy of download and will likely yield the best improvements to your lap times. This makes adjusting the brake balance on the fly while you are on the circuit much easier, and also helps in the task of altering suspension and anti-roll bar settings when you go back to the pits. The sonic feedback is also excellent, with the EAX-enabled positional audio giving you the subtle cues you need to determine when the car is bottoming out over bumps and sense which end of the car is sliding during understeer or oversteer. The sheer depth of the car setups (while unchanged from the rest of the Race series) give the player so much control over how they can get the individual cars to handle. You can compensate somewhat for the lack of traction with different lines around the corners, but (wet or dry) it’s through altering the mechanical settings of the car that you can gain the most advantage over your rivals. The lack of grip sucks away any confidence you have in the handling of the car, making lap times skyrocket. The physics are also brilliantly showcased during wet races, where corners that were merely horrifying in the dry become utterly petrifying. The driving physics are second to none – as you will find out the first time you roll your car onto its roof, after misjudging the entry to the banked Karussell corner, or have the Koenigsegg take off at thirty degrees over the bumps at the appropriately named Flugplatz. It may seem like a contradiction in terms that The Green Hell could possibly be fun to drive, but this is testament to the excellent standard of the modelling within the game. This track, however, suffers a little from the combination of the old and new Grand Prix circuits and doesn’t quite have the same character as the Nordschleife and so is a little less fun to drive. Though if that’s not enough of a challenge for you, also included is a hybrid of the Grand Prix and Nordschleife circuits – the fifteen mile endurance layout. Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, hardened petrolheads the world over consider it to be the ultimate race track. The challenge doesn’t just come from the extreme length, but also the variety of turns: low speed, high speed, off-camber, over blind crests and even turns with banking, the Nordschleife has it all. When driving this wonderful virtual recreation of the circuit today, it’s easy to see why. Sir Jackie Stewart famously dubbed the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit “The Green Hell” when it was still a Grand Prix track in the late 1960s. At just over three miles long, it’s a pale shadow of the much more famous Nordschleife (Northern Loop), which, at just a shade under thirteen miles long, is an immense test of driving skill. The shortest of these is the modern Grand Prix circuit, which is the current host of the European Grand Prix. Three variants of the Nurburgring circuit have been added to the already hefty track roster. The most notable additions in the expansion, however, are the new tracks. It builds on the original title by adding souped-up versions of the WTCC cars for a new arcade racing mode, plus a selection of supercars, including the super-sleek Audi R8 and the monstrous 806bhp Koenigsegg CCX. GTR Evolution is an add-on pack for Race ’07, SimBin’s World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) simulation. So when we heard that the latest addition to Simbin’s racing stable included not only a whole host of new cars, but a faithful recreation of the legendary Nordschleife at the Nurburgring, we were practically drooling Castrol Magnatec in anticipation. Some would consider the idea that people can derive enjoyment out of spending hours tinkering with spring, damper and suspension settings the first signs of mental illness, but we like nothing more than tweaking gear ratios, adjusting brake balances and getting our toe-in and camber angles just right.
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