Evolution GT Review

Gabriele Tarquini is happy that you have heard of him.

Things don't even begin well. GT's contrived format is taught to us via an unbelievably ill-advised introductory tutorial, presented by an over-dubbed champion race driver Gabriele Tarquini. "You must drive headfirst," his dislocated non-voice informs us.

Tarquini introduces the special features which define Evolution GT's numerous failings. The first of these is 'intimidation', which is implemented via a small slider bar attached to the cars of your opponents. Put the pressure on them by keeping close and their nerve will eventually fail, allowing you to overtake with ease. And hey, as I type I realise that this sounds okay in theory, but the implementation in the game itself is impossibly naïve. The bar goes down, the bloke in front's steering goes wobbly and you overtake. It makes no real sense, and makes a mockery of the racing skills you'd want to exhibit in a game like this. It's not a simulation, but an aberration.

Worse, far worse, are the same effects of intimidation on you. If other racers keep close behind you then your vision starts to blur. Yes - YOU GO BLIND! Insane as it might sound, otherwise fairly sturdy Italian developer Milestone has created a racing game which portrays the pressure of furious bumper-to-bumper driving by making you lose the ability to see. It's ridiculous.

Then there's 'the cunning overtake'. I have almost no idea what this is supposed to represent, except that you are occasionally able to go faster for no reason that I can fathom. Tarquini seems happy about it though, so we'll leave it at that.

This is what it looks like when I'm racing normally and confidently.

The last ability is what Tarquini claims racing drivers call 'The Tiger Effect'. Attempting to simulate the uncanny ability of drivers to predict what will happen moments before it happens, the developers have seen fit to include a 'rewind' function where you can, at any moment, rewind what just happened and get that corner just right, or avoid slamming into the scenery for the sixty-fifth time. Actually, to give due credit, this is a feature that actually works okay. It's quite useful and it goes a long way to alleviating the problems that arise from not having learnt a course all that well and making a mess of it on the first few runs through. But it does seem like the equivalent of the quick-save in the FPS: you might as well hit rewind and start that braking sequence again and again. A built-in cheat.

Anyway, all these special abilities reflect a certain element of stat-crunching that goes on as you progress through the game's career mode. Each of these elements, as well as obvious things such as handling, have driver-dependent statistics associated with them. Gaining experience from racing allows you to spend points pumping up your abilities. In the first few races you'll go regularly blind as other cars approach from behind, but if you don't want to drive by sound alone you'll be able to combat this effect by spending points on concentration.