Sega GT 2002

"GT3 beater? No, but who cares?"

Lately I've seen a lot of people compare this game with GT3, and in my opinion this not an entirely fair comparison, GT3 is a PS2 game, and Sega GT is an Xbox game, but if you want my opinion, I must say that GT3 will beat Sega GT senseless in just about any category you can think off, but like I said: you should compare Xbox with Xbox games and Ps2 with Ps2 games, so let's do so.

Graphics

The graphics are nice, nothing spectacular though. The cars look nicely detailed and are nicely shiny, the scenery looks decent and the weather effects are nice. However, the audience is nothing more then a bunch of 2-D bitmaps and are absolutely horrid to look at.
Tire tracks and smoke effects are pretty good, though there are some weird glitches concerning these, like the fact that cars sometimes leave black rubber tire tracks in the sand or the grass, which is pretty bizarre.

Graphics: 8/10

Sound

Nice, all kinds of beats to be heard, and should the standard ones start to get irritating, you can always import some numbers of your own from a cd. The soundeffects are good, although some sounds, especially the one of the skidding of tires is extremely poor and irritating.

Sound: 7/10

Gameplay

There are 3 main game modes: Sega GT, Quick battle and Chronicle mode, let's start with the Sega GT mode.
The controls are good, the cars let themselves be controlled well (a little to arcade-like if you ask me), although a cars handling is easily destroyed when starting to tune it even just a little.
Yes, that's right, just like in every other self respecting racing game you can tune your car with all kinds of things ranging from tires to engine blocks, brakes, coolers and much more.
Sadly enough there are some things here that are completely moronic, like when you put in something that boosts your hp.....YOU CANNOT REMOVE IT ANY MORE!!! The worst thing about this is that this kind of tuning, is also the one that can completely screw up the car most of all types of tuning. So be sure to save your progress before you start altering your car. Also there is a shop that sells second-hand parts, but you should avoid this one like the plague, no matter how low the prices are, because their parts are horribly unreliable and often break down in the middle of a race. Also the game has a very high civilian-car rating: most cars are civilian-type cars that can often be seen on the streets, the game has very few real racing cars.
As for the races themselves: there is a series of main races, and a series of unofficial ones. There is not much difference between these two, but there is far more money to be won in the unofficial ones.
Only part of criticism here is the small number of tracks. There are about 8 tracks and their scenery looks almost similar. Winning some races awards you with a new car, while others win you money.
The quick battle mode is nothing new, it let's you just pick a race, a car, and go, while the chronicle mode is pretty original. It let's you pick a classic old-timer and you advance through different races, across 6 different timezones.

Gameplay: 7/10

Replay

Anyone can beat the Sega GT mode flat in 8 to 12 hours. After that, you probably won't be going back for another race due to the lack of both tracks and cars. The game brags about having over 100 cars, but the sad thing is that lots of them are very similar (perfect example: the game has 5 different NSX's, but they all look and drive the same!), and while the chronicle mode is pretty original, you can beat it in a few short hours and you'll never do it again.

Replay: 5/10

Buy or rent?

Racing freaks may buy it blindly, but others should rent it first. It's not a bad game, but there are just so many things that keep it from greatness.

Good side/ bad side:

+ Chronicle mode
+ Lots of tuning
+ CPU opponents are mostly pretty good
+ Second-hand partsshop is a nice addition

- Lack of tracks
- Lack of different cars
- Where are the REAL race cars? (Jaguar XJ 220 / GT
one/ 787 B/ etc.)
- Screwball tuning

Overall score: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/02, Updated 12/27/02