description:

GT-R 400

GT-R 400 is the latest budget title from Midas Interactive to hit the shelves. The game claims to provide “The perfect racing experience” but while playing I failed to see any ladies in the crowd flashing their breasts as my vehicle passed by. However when I sat down to play the game I was pleasantly surprised to see a good bit of work went into this title rather than some slap-bang effort, e.g. you can choose between the Ascari KZ1 and the Mosler MT900R, head for the course and compete against the likes of British GT 2003 Champion Martin Short. While it has obviously not set out to compete against the big boys, the game only barely manages to do enough to compete with its fellow mid-carders.

The best feature of this budget game is that some effort has gone into it to attract potential customers, by including GT cars and Martin Short racing fans will give the game a second glance instead of simply passing by it. There is also a varied amount of gameplay to keep the player’s attention: GT-R 400 offers the chance to race across 16 tracks over three different continents with six different championships available to compete in. The game adds realism by including real car sponsors but unless you are a fan of the GT circuit I wouldn’t think that this inclusion would make too much of a difference. Racing fans can be quite obsessive at times; if you’re prepared to watch Michael Schumacher dominate week in and week out then you might well appreciate this title.

There are various unlockables to play through for but only hardcore racing fans will spend the time to uncover every last detail, simply because GT-R 400 doesn’t offer as much of an in-depth experience as other titles. After a couple of laps it is obvious for all to see that it really does fail to compare; the physics involved are like that of Bonanno Pisano, the architect of the leaning tower of Pisa. Crashes do not make as much of an impact as one would expect and you don’t need to put a lot of emphasis on using breaks as in other titles. If reality TV shows involving high speed chases and huge pile-ups are anything to go by then there is a fair chance that the makers of this game were suspects on those programmes. It’s a case of putting the pedal to the metal but with little regard to the skill involved in driving, GT-R 400 is more like driving go-karts than taking a spin around a professional circuit.

The game claims to have real time damage which affects the performance of the car, what better way to put this to the test than do an about face and rush into oncoming traffic? This litmus test was a clear indicator as to whether your vehicle would actually suffer a few bumps and bruises. Sure enough after one collision I came to a startling conclusion… the blurb on the box was talking absolute rubbish. Then I noticed the clever use of the word “Real time” as opposed to realistic which is obviously some nice excuse for the fact that the vehicle is still intact despite a 126 mph head on collision. So if you want to put together a highlight reel of big time crashes it’s best to get out your toy cars and camcorder because a few bumps on your dinky cars is more than what you’ll see in GT-R 400.

As you might have guessed from the last paragraph, the lack of realistic damage detracts from GT-R 400’s graphics. If that single instance is a good example of what you might expect from the rest of the game then I’m afraid that I will have to confirm your suspicions. If you look at screenshots the game doesn’t look that bad, but just like the saying goes don’t judge a book by its cover; almost everything is static and there is very little happening on screen with the exception of your car moving. The grand effect of all this is a dulling of the senses, as the vehicles speed around the tracks you can’t help but feel that you’re simply watching Scaletrix on a television screen.

The sound effects in GT-R 400 are absolutely dire, you’ll be seconds into a race and then start shouting at your mother to turn off the Hoover. The sad thing is that the noise is actually coming from your PS2… yes, this game sounds like the 100 metre hover dash in the OAP Olympics. How sad is that? Very. GT-R 400 would sound better if they supplied a small child who would constantly make vroom and screech noises as you made your way around the track. Unfortunately those spoilsports over at UNICEF have some silly rules in effect which prohibits the employment of some third world child for this purpose. The audio is one of the worst features and completely detracts from the “Perfect racing experience” that was promised on the box. The perfect example of this is to hit the brakes and then jam on the accelerator, the lights start to shine but the accompanying rev of the engine is nowhere to be heard.

For a budget title GT-R 400 does all that is expected of it, the developers put in a bit of effort by getting some licenses but at the end of the day racing titles are ten a penny. While GT-R 400 wasn’t developed to compete with TOCA or Colin McRae, it is worth pointing out that with titles like Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec available at a similar price you would be hard pushed to go out and purchase this game; however it might be worth holding out for Crescent Suzuki Racing from the same publisher as it looks like a far more entertaining racing experience. In summary GT-R 400 drives more like a Ford Fiesta than Ferrari Testarossa, that might be fine for a Sunday drive but not if you’re trying to rip up the highway.

systen requirements:

Windows 2000/XP
Pentium III 1 GHz
256 MB RAM
Vídeo de 64 MB

website:
http://www.midasinteractive.com

release date: 2007
size: 32mb (only 32 mb xD)
language: english
format: BIN/CUE
FULL GAME

download full game HTTP:

http://rapidshare.com/files/60055316/GTR400.exe

just install and play!
Link checked on Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:43 am [WBB_Linkchecker_Bot]