GTR: FIA GT Racing Game review

Get real. That’s the motto of Swedish Simbin’s FIA GT Racing Game (GTR) and for once it’s not just empty pr-talk. I could’ve sworn that I had gotten oil on my hands after my last online race on the super-fast Monza track. GTR let’s you live the dream.

Fans first

GTR may very well be the first step on Simbin’s road to fame and fortune, but the company actually started out as an ambitious modding team with its mind set on creating a groundbreaking modification of EA’s F1 2001. T

he team consisted of familiar faces from the simracing-scene such as Ian Bell, Eric Boosman and Doug Arnao who created the first FIA GT-mod that was later developed into the very popular GT Racing 2002. This mod was far more advanced than anything the community had seen before and with EA and ISI’s F1 2002 it was now possible to recreate GT-racing in a very believable way.

The mod was a huge step forward with its advanced simulation and high-detail graphics, but it wasn’t without its faults – especially the networking part seemed to have been neglected.

But problems exist to be solved and the Simbin crew teamed up with real-world GT-driver Henrik Roos who assisted with a lot of inside knowledge. With a license of the latest version of ISI’s graphics engine the team started developing GTR and the result is finally here for all of us to enjoy.

Arcade – yes you can

You don’t need to be a racing geek to enjoy GTR – the game is playable for gamers who don’t want more simulation than what Need for Speed brings to the table. GTR has an arcade option that tries to combine the rush of arcade racing with real-world tracks and cars from the GT-class. Arcade mode is divided into four categories ranging from Sunday Driver to Alien on Wheels, the latter being a reference to the simracing expression Alien that basically stands for an unbelievably fast driver.

In arcade mode you need not worry about petty details such as practice or qualifying, you just floor it and get going. It’s nice to see that Simbin has tried to cater to other people than its hard-core fans but there are better arcade racers out there and it has probably never been the intention that GTR should compete with them.

Simulation is central

Arcade is like drinking a dram of Bells when the free bar is filled with Single Malts. GTR is a simulator and should be played that way. It has so many fine points that I hardly know where to start, but I’ll try to describe some of the highlights.

GTR includes the 10 official tracks from the 2003 season and every single one of them has been modeled all the way down to the dust specks on the road by means of satellite readings and telemetric data.

The different teams use telemetric data to fine tune their cars to every bump in the road on a specific track. Simbin has had access to these data which have enabled it to model the tracks to perfect replicas of their real-life counterparts.

Simbin use a technique it calls Live Track, which simulates the alteration of a track during a race. Racing tires are incredibly soft and the rubber will rub off on the asphalt, but the tires also have a tendency to crumble. This means you have to pay attention to two things; first, the ideal line will have tire tracks to aim for. These tracks are sticky and will glue your car to the road. Second, outside the ideal line lies the tire lint and driving on this is like driving on marbles.

So to summarize, the further you get into a race, the faster the ideal line gets and the harder it becomes to overtake in the tire lint.

Real-world racing

In GTR, world famous cars such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Saleen duke it out for the trophy, but just because you have a fancy car, it doesn’t mean you can merely put the pedal to the metal and win the race.

For starters, you have to carefully select which tires you’ll equip your car with. All the major manufacturers are represented, such as Michelin, Dunlop and Pirelli. They all have different abilities and of course you also have to choose the hardness-degree of your tires. You’ll essentially be given a wealth of strategic options from the beginning.

Inside the car you’ll also immediately be presented with unprecedented realism. The cockpit contains your best friend – the MOTEC that indicates your speed, temperature for tires, oil, water and breaks and split-times. All very essential to winning races. The MOTEC also submits telemetric data to the pit and these are processed in the authentic MOTEC telemetric-program that comes with GTR. Here’s plenty for all you tweakers out there.

To prove the authenticity of GTR, Ian Bell compared telemetric data from the game with the real world in an interview. The numbers were almost identical.

Lookin’ good

GTR has two classes of cars; the powerful GT-cars and the somewhat smaller N-GT-cars and there are actually well over 70 accurate car models in the game. Well, before you start to drool uncontrollably I should probably tell you that we’re talking about cars from different teams, which means that a lot of them are from the same manufacturer. (Where do all those Porsche 996’s come from?)

Obviously the cars are different according to how the respective teams have chosen to set them up. Speed, acceleration, suspension etc are all different, so you have to noodle around and see what works best for you.

All the cars are modeled to be perfect representations of their real-life counterparts – outside as well as inside. You have the ability to adjust your driving position precisely with the mouse, and the game also supports the exciting Track IR technology from Natural Point that enables you to look freely around the cockpit with simple movements of your head.

Drive against others

Simbin is well aware that multiplayer is key if the game is to sustain its longevity. GTR is most definitely the result of some hard-core beta-testing, a job the Germans found themselves involuntarily doing. When the game was released, the net-code was rather troublesome and many began to suspect that Simbin had just been blowing the marketing horns instead of actually fixing problems.

Fortunately Simbin proved that it was determined to solve the problems and work with the community, and after some patches the multiplayer component now works really well.

As you may know, an FIA GT-race is decided over time and not by laps, meaning that whoever has driven the longest distance when the time is up is the winner, given that the race must not exceed 500 km.

This is also true online where you can cut the time you drive if you are tough. As in real life it’s not enough to just go fast – you have to choose the right strategy and remain focused over long periods of time. You’ll need all the concentration you can muster since the online races can get pretty intense. In fact I’ve had some of my best online-racing experiences ever with GTR.

Drive by yourself

Even though the multiplayer-component is outstanding you’ll probably be covering most kilometers offline if you like to practice. GTR has some positive and negative elements here – let’s start with the good points first.

You can choose to participate in single races or in entire championships. If you choose the latter you can only select cars that took part in the entire championship in the real world. For example this means that you can’t select the Ferrari 575 on the Barcelona track since this car didn’t enter the championship until the ninth race on Estoril.

This is of course perfectly in sync with the idea of hard-core simulation but it still feels like a harsh limitation. But the races are big and you’ll face plenty of opposition from what Simbin calls "realistic and competitive opponents". This is where the otherwise fine game starts to sound a little off-key.

Artificial intelligence

The AI doesn’t live up to the promises and the opposing cars are way too easy to beat in the beginning. They also have quite a few quirks, but they are neither better nor worse than what we have seen before in other sim-racers.

You can select the level of difficulty with a slider that starts at 90 percent and goes up to 120 percent. Furthermore you can choose between five aggression levels: timid, clean, angry and psychotic. This is where the first problems start to surface. It’s like the AI treats you differently from its colleagues. At the aggressive settings the AI behaves a little too kamikaze-like to be serious.

The AI also can’t handle drivers that don’t race properly. If you spin out of bounds the AI politely waits for you to get back on track before it continues to race. It’s certainly very friendly but not very realistic.

My biggest gripe is that the AI doesn’t obey the flags. It ignores stop n’ go penalties and it’s a pain in the butt to be blocked by a car that should allow you to pass. Still, the AI provides adequate practice before you go online.

Free add-on

Not long after the German release a major update was released – the 24-hour race on Spa. It doesn’t quite live up to the otherwise high standards of GTR.

Since GTR doesn’t keep track of the hours of the day, Simbin chose to solve this problem by loading four different versions of the Spa track: dawn, day, dusk and night. When the time changes the game loads a new version of the track. It’s not very elegant especially when you compare it with the rest of GTR’s features. The cars included in the update, Vertigo Streiff, Mosler MT 900 and Seat Toledo, are completely worthy of the high standards of the game, however.

The add-on also enables you to save your game in the middle of a race – a feature I’ve often missed in simulators.

A dull grey day

Races in rainy weather aren’t as impressive as they should be primarily because of ISI’s graphics engine. The feeling of driving on wet asphalt is top notch but the graphic representation of shiny wet asphalt is missing. Quite an annoying flaw given that few sights are more impressive than race cars driving on wet asphalt.

Lock your door and throw away the key

Now that we’ve gotten the few negative aspects of the game out of the way let me make one thing very clear. No game has ever given such a great feeling of driving an actual race car as GTR. The precise modeling of everything from tires to suspension enables me to get an unprecedented feel for the car I’m driving. This makes me understand how a real FIA GT-driver must work and this is what simulation is all about.

The best recommendation I can give is to tell you that the CD hasn’t been out of my drive since I bought the game before Christmas. I simply love this game.

Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Julian Henlov (Progrock)