Gran Turismo 2

Gran Turismo 2 is a racing video game released in 1999 for the PlayStation and developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the sequel to Gran Turismo.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Improved visuals from the first game.
 * 2) Great gameplay.
 * 3) Over 650 cars. In addition to the returning manufacturers from the first game, the game features new manufacturers such as Daihatsu, Plymouth, Suzuki, Venturi, Lister, Alfa-Romeo, Lotus and Volkswagen, bringing over 36 car manufacturers in total. Even better, there's a good chunk of cars that never appeared outside of this installment (such as the Nissan Pulsar GTi-R)!
 * 4) Some of the more famous Le Mans competitors like the Ford GT40 Race Car '69 and Toyota GT-One Race Car '99 make their debut in this game.
 * 5) Lots of replay value.
 * 6) Plenty of races to enter in "Go Race" including Dirt, Special, and Endurance events.
 * 7) * Speaking of races, they even add more events that became a staple of the series. Those events are:
 * 8) * MR Challenge: As the name implies, it is restricted to mid-rear engined cars. Those cars are a lot unstable and requires precise driving to avoid spinouts regardless if the car as TCS (Traction Control System) or not.
 * 9) * World Classic Car Series: Known as Historic Car Cup as the name implies, it is restricted to cars from 1970 or older.
 * 10) * Japanese 80s Festival: As the name implies, it is restricted to japanese cars made in the 1980s.
 * 11) * Race of NA Sports: Known as Tuned NA Car No.1 Cup, as the name implies, it is restricted to NA (naturally aspirated) engined cars.
 * 12) * Race of Turbo Sports: Known as Tuned Turbo Car No.1 Cup, as the name implies, it is restricted to Turbo engined cars.
 * 13) * Gran Turismo All Stars: A high end tier event in where the player faces with racing cars just like Gran Turismo World Championship (in Gran Turismo 6, the opponents are driving high end road cars).
 * 14) * Laguna Seca 200 Milles: It is an 90 lap endurance race in Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca (now known as Weathertech Laguna Seca).
 * 15) * One Make Races: A series of events in where the player must pick a specific car of the event. Examples are the Tourist Trophy (an event restricted to Audi TTs), Evolution Meeting (an event restricted to Lancer Evolutions) Civic Race (An event restricted to Honda Civic models) and so on.
 * 16) * Rally events: A series of events in non-asphalt tracks. Gran Turismo 2 and Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec featured dirt tracks while Gran Turismo 4 and onwards featured also snow courses. The player must wear dirt/snow tires and drive it carefully especially in later entries after Gran Turismo 4 which features an speed penalty.
 * 17) 27 racing tracks, now featuring the Midfield Raceway, Red Rock Valley Speedway and many more. In addition, rally courses, such as Tahiti Maze and Smokey Mountain, make their debut in the series.
 * 18) Amazing soundtrack.
 * 19) Featured the Gran Turismo 2 Plus mod where fixes bugs and restores all cut or hidden content such as Mercedes-Benz CLK Race Car and the Honda NSX-R LM GT2 as well adds more colors to some cars such as the Ford GT90, the Jaguar XJR15, and the Lister Storm V12 etc and now both Opel and Vauhall delaerships are available to buy without needed to use cheats as well Honda and Acura are added like it was Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec and onwards. After the Beta 5.1 the Toyota Chaser LM Edition appears in this game.
 * 20) It popularizes the money farming in where the player can win lots of money faster in order to get the powerful things earlier to beat the game easily. The third race of Gran Turismo All Stars in Redrock Valley is a famous example in where the player wins a TVR Speed 12 which can be sold for a whopping 500,000 credits plus 50,000 credits per winning the event making a total of 550,000. Using the Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak version makes the event even easier and this event can be completed in just 5 minutes ago. This means that the player can win a whopping 6,660,000 credits per hour which is even bigger than the amount of credits the player can win in World Touring Car 600 in Tokyo Expressway - East Clockwise, World Touring Car 700 in Circuit de la Sarthe and World Touring Car 800 in Sardgena from Gran Turismo 7 or even the Deutsche Touring Car Meisterchaft from Gran Turismo 4 with the AMG Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR Race Car '98.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game has slightly worse framerate than the first game, and there's no unlockable 60 FPS (Hi-Fi) mode either.
 * 2) Various bugs in the early NTSC and Japanese versions. The most devastating glitch is the garage glitch, triggered by setting nine Maximum Speed Test records, which in turn damages your garage info.
 * 3) The game was rushed to meet the Christmas 1999 deadline. As a result, the drag racing part was cut, meaning you cannot attain 100% completion percentage in the early copies; this was fixed in later copies, such as the Greatest Hits re-release and European version.
 * 4) * Also, some race modifications were cut, but Gran Turismo 2 Plus restored these cut content.
 * 5) Despite that there are 650 cars, the garage limit is still 100 like in the first game.
 * 6) Somewhat false advertising: The dials featured on the American cover are from the McLaren F1, but the F1 doesn't appear in the game, and McLaren will not appear in the franchise until 11 years later! Oddly enough, the McLaren F1 GTR race car appeared in Gran Turismo 4 albeit being listed as a BMW car, due to using a BMW engine.
 * 7) Some events has opponents whose cars exceed the horsepower limit. Those events are:
 * 8) *The infamous Historic Car Cup event in Rome Circuit with a 305HP cheating Ford GT40 (which became a meme because of this) despite the event being limited to 295HP.
 * 9) *The third race of the aforementioned event in Grindelwald uses a 434HP Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (C2) '67 despite the event limited to 394HP.
 * 10) *The third race of MR Challenge in Red Rock Valley uses a 638HP Wiegert Vector W8 TwinTurbo despite the event limited to 591HP.
 * 11) *The Trial Mountain 30 Laps Endurance uses a 680HP Vector M12 LM Edition despite the event being limited to 295HP. This makes the race impossible to win unless the player uses the Dodge Concept Car with racing modifications (obtainable by getting gold in National A Licenses). However this is fixed in the subsequent releases of the game as well in the PAL version.
 * 12) Unlike most of other Gran Turismo series, hacked/modded horsepower car values by either swapping engine or using part modification codes via Gameshark or Action Replay Max, they cannot reach more than 650km/h (403 mph). Instead, the cars go reverse automatically then throttles which means that the cars doesn't even reach more than 1000km/h even using Turbo Boost
 * 13) The game was so huge that the Arcade and Gran Turismo/Simulation modes were split over two discs. The player must change their disc to be able to access the other mode, meaning, if one disc is heavily scratched/damaged, that mode becomes unavailable.
 * 14) Getting Gold medals in the license events can be frustrating due to unforgiving time limits, especially in the Super License.

Reception
Gran Turismo 2 was well-received upon release, shipping over 9.37 million copies as of April of 2008. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a perfect 10 out of 10, while IGN gave it a 9.8 (Amazing) out of 10. It holds a score of 92.42% on aggregate site GameRankings and a score 93 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Videos
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Trivia

 * The soundtrack in every region is different. However, unlike the first game, the menu music was kept the same across all regions.
 * The North American release features licensed music from Moby, Fear Factory, Apollo 440, Rob Zombie, Filter, Garbage, The Cardigans, Foo Fighters, The Crystal Method, Boom Boom Satellites, The Dandy Warhols, Stone Temple Pilots, Soul Coughing, Creed, Hole, Beck and Gearwhore;
 * The PAL release has licensed music from Ash, Everything But The Girl, Fatboy Slim, Mansun, Propellerheads, Stereophonics and The Cardigans;
 * The Japanese release has original music composed by Masahiro Andoh and Isamu Ohira. (The same thing also applies to Gran Turismo and 3: A-spec)
 * There are plenty of unused tracks that were intended to appear in the final version of the game, but were ultimately cut. One of them were Cote D'Azur (finally make it's debut in GT3) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (reappeared in GT5).
 * On certain copies of the game, if you rub the label of the second disc (the Gran Turismo/Simulation mode disc), it will give off the scent of asphalt.
 * As previously mentioned, drag racing was going to make its debut in this game, but it was cut, and wouldn't appear in the Gran Turismo series until Gran Turismo 7.