The revolutionary game that still holds a place on my shelf since 2000, and here is why.

User Rating: 9.5 | Gran Turismo 2 (Greatest Hits) PS
I remember the days where I took up a hobby, collecting car magazines. Seeing a slick Plymouth Barracuda, Dodge Viper GTS, or any Corvette would make my heart race. I read articles and specs of cars and wondering what it would be like to drive them. When Gran Turismo came around, I wasn't too fascinated with the game, considering I was a foolish young boy. It took the series another try to grab my full attention with Gran Turismo 2. The immense collection of cars, the audio of the cars revving before go-time, a very attractive range of soundtracks, the sense of accomplishment you get when you win 1st place, collect your bounty and have a trophy icon stating you completed the race, It all was worth playing through and through.

You start out with a limited amount of cash and a choice of a wide variety of cars. It's almost like receiving ten dollars from grandma as she takes you to the grocery store, all you want is the good stuff. However, you don't get the good stuff, you work for it by winning races. So going from a Toyota Celica GT-Four to a monster Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version is quite rewarding considering you have to go through hundreds of cars and race to get there. This top class simulation for Playstation rarely gets a thumbs up from the consumer up to Gran Turismo 2. You would have to go to PC.

The process from A to B is quite repetitive if you are wanting the fastest car in the game. You have to win all the races and that could be boring. That is why you have special races for many different type of cars that no game could do until Gran Turismo 5 was able to outnumber with Seasonal Races. The whole journey is quite fun for the driving lovers like myself. The graphics was always a major focus for the game, and it delivered. The audio with the game's soundtrack always leaves an memorable impression each time you go back to memory lane.

The feel of the vehicles in the game is undeniably awesome, each and every time you tune your ride or just plain make a monster out your motor with more speed than strapping ten jet motors on a shopping cart and riding that downhill, you will notice the change, just not that dramatic. The only problem that I face with this game is accessibility to certain areas of the game's main menu such as the tuning shop, and having to go back and forth to the car list and specs as I am looking to buy a car, and menu's upon menu's to get what I want. I don't like to give the game any hard time because of today's standards, so I will leave it at that.

Although Gran Turismo 2 is not for everyone, the game can still give you a reason to keep playing once you start. For, I was a violent hungry, action junkie, shoot em up, ram them down type of child with a questionable case of a attention disorder. I give this game a 9.5/10 for it's wonderful graphics that helped push the bar for driving games, the extensive car list, and its soundtrack lifted the atmosphere of a driving simulator and a pounding audio that makes the experience crisp and clean. As much as it is fun and how bad I want to play it again, now I am tempted to make the shopping cart jet downhill my goal in life.