What makes this most frustrating is that the guys at SEGA actually developed a rather deep and engaging online mode. They had a great idea but the execution is just incredibly flawed. In many ways GT Online reminds me of EA’s ill-fated
Motor City Online for the PC. Players compete in races, earn cash prizes and then have the opportunity to upgrade their beauties. The problem is that there’s no real incentive to pick on people at your own level so the more advanced players still jump into the beginning races to pick on the newbies. As you may have guessed a Honda Civic is no match against a Nissan Skyline no matter which language you speak.
SEGA GT 2002 was an impressive looking game, but that was two years ago. New games such as
Project Gotham 2 and
Need for Speed Underground have pioneered new technologies that make
SEGA GT Online look obsolete in comparison. Some of the neat haze effects to show the heat rising from the vehicles still looks impressive, but not much else will pop out at the eyes. Some of the tracks are very barren and most of the vehicle models look straight out of 2002. Everything else remains virtually unchanged so don’t expect any sort of graphical revelation.
With the exception of the new indie-heavy soundtrack (which seems to be what’s “in” nowadays) everything is pretty much the same on the audio end of the spectrum. You’ll get 30 or so tracks from some pretty decent Indie labels like Fat Wreck. Nothing that will rival the massive soundtracks of
Amped 2 or Project Gotham 2 but at least you have the option to use your own custom soundtracks.
It’s very difficult to determine if SEGA GT Online is right for you. At the moment some very nagging issues plague the online aspect of the game so you might want to wait a bit to see if those get ironed out. Then again, you’re getting a very complete and extensive single-player game for the budget price of $19.99. There’s a lot to love if you missed out on
SEGA GT 2002, but if you’re looking to pick this one up solely for the online component you should wait and see if SEGA can improve upon the shoddy network code.
More On:
SEGA GT Online Companies:
Sega C-
A decent outing, considering that it includes the full SEGA GT 2002 title at an attractive price point. Some of the network really needs to be reworked though so online racers might want to wait it out for while.
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