“Gran Turismo 2”

Sony Playstation

Not often does a game pack in so much excitement, realism and pure quality fun as Playstation’s “Gran Turismo 2.”

The car racing game includes a variety of activities and over 500 cars to choose from.

It comes as a double-disc, with the first disc primarily for racing a friend or against the computer. With three different classes of cars and over 50 cars to choose from, it can provide a few hours of enjoyment.

But it’s not until you get to the second disc that the fun really kicks in. You begin with $10,000 to take around to different parts of a city and visit a car dealership for any and every car you can possibly think of.

But with only ten grand you are forced to buy a used car, usually from Mitsubishi or Nissan, and go from there.

You can then choose from different races that pay out certain amounts of money. You begin racing and trying to raise money for either a new car, or items to improve your second car.

The best idea is usually to raise enough money to buy a newer car and begin building that one up.

Some of the options for improving a car include new tires, brakes, transmission, turbo systems, exhaust, custom wheels and much more.

Once you think you have a pretty fast car, you can race and try and earn yourself racing licenses, which in turn will allow you to race in other countries, race more challenging races and make a lot more money.

You can eventually deck your car out to where it has a racing sponsor painted all over it. For example, you can get a very cool looking car sponsored by Puma, painted white with a green Puma stripe down the side.

Of course to do all of this at one sitting would take about three days straight, if not more. So you need a memory card to save up all the upgrades you make, which is about $10 extra but is worth it.

Another sweet thing about “Gran Turismo 2” is the background music of each race. You hear music from bands such as Stone Temple Pilots, Soul Coughing, Garbage and Rob Zombie, adding cool theme music as you tear through the tacks at high speeds.

Even if you don’t usually care for car racing games, definitely give this game a try. Its addictive nature will cause you to drop everything and do nothing but race.

Not recommended for drunk driving practice.

4 1/2 Stars

— Kyle Moss