There’s nothing I like more than a good hard-as-nails racing sim. Some call the way I spend hours learning how to not spin my various virtual racing cars into the nearest piece of scenery mildly sadistic, but I personally prefer the term automobilistically challenged. This may be a word I have completely made-up myself, but it probably goes some way to showing just how obsessive I can be when it comes to racing games, and tricky racing games in particular. I will not, never ever, be beaten. By much.

Oh, but how close GTR 2 came to leaving me scrabbling for grip in the gravel pit of despair. I have never been afforded the pleasure of driving a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale, a Dodge Viper or even – heaven save me – a Maserati MC12, but any illusions your Project Gothams, your Gran Turismos and your Test Drive Unlimiteds gave you that any of the above are somewhat easily handled will be completely and utterly shattered mere moments into your first drive on Simbin’s latest FIA GT simulation.

You see, to drive one of the cars in-game is hard enough as it is. Gentle, consistent steering and almost angelic control of the throttle and brake pedals might see you making your way around the odd lap or two without shunting, but even when you get to grips with the way your chosen beast handles you’ll still be prone to shunts and smashes, which is the way it should be with any simulation. There is a selection of driving aids to help out the most hapless of drivers, but even with most of them turned on the cars are still handfuls. Yes folks, GTR 2 is a serious undertaking indeed.

So, what have Simbin loaded into the features cannon this time around? Well, the game includes the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT series cars and circuits, as well as a whole host of smaller, custom championships that can be progressed through in order, with good performance in one unlocking the next. There’s a grand total of over 140 cars in total to pick from, ranging from the comparatively meek Porsches to the ridiculously quick Saleens and Maseratis. Jumping straight into one of the bigger, faster cars might appeal to you initially; I cannot stress enough without literally shedding tears on the monitor that you should build you way up slowly. You have been warned.

Another addition is the driving school that gives you a selection of small bite-size lessons to teach you the basics. Whilst initial tasks such as accelerating smoothly away from the start line in a Lotus Exige are simple enough and will probably be completed within the first few attempts, later challenges which see you having to navigate full laps of circuits in a set time are quite tough. Thankfully, SimBin have allayed fears of this leading to the frustration which often blighted the Gran Turismo driving tests and allowed players to select each test at their leisure. Doing well in each test gives you a medal that unlocks one of the custom championships, so practice is well worth the while in more sense than one.

So, you’ve taken a few hours practicing your driving, polishing up your racing lines and carefully getting to know how your car reacts in different situations. You’ve spent countless laps carefully caressing your vehicle around the narrow ribbon of tarmac unwinding in front of you, mentally taking notes on how is best to position your car for each turn. It’s at that very moment, after so much effort, that you realise you haven’t even actually raced against other drivers yet. The AI on display in GTR 2 is very good indeed, with packs of over 40 racers being able to jostle fairly realistically with themselves and even making the odd mistake now and again. Problems do occasionally crop up, but they tend to be the result in some cretinous human driving rather than any flaws with the number crunching going on behind the scenes.

In terms of circuits, we have 15 of the finest here to zoom around, including personal favourites Spa and Monza, Germany’s sadly neutered Hockenheim circuit and every F1 team’s test track of choice, Barcelona. There are also a number of different configurations for each circuit, meaning the total amount of tracks is somewhere around the 34 mark, which adds a bit of variety. Anyone with a bit of knowledge of the circuits from previous games is at an immediate advantage, as they’re almost exactly as they should be, with little details included like the bump on the inside apex of turn 11 at Barcelona. Oh, and yes – I span there too.

You might be getting the impression that GTR 2 is an impenetrable monster and the kind of racing game where you will never win a race and spend most of your time struggling around with a heavily damaged vehicle. Despite initial misgivings, things do get more intuitive though. Ever so slowly you’ll begin to string maybe five or six good laps together, then seven or eight, then a dozen or so. You’ll begin to learn the ideal way to weave your way in between the AI vehicles, maximising your chance of defeating them. Heck, you will even come to accept that in some classes you’re going to be only able to fill the midfield whilst the more powerful cars blast ahead of you at the start, only to be seen again when they appear in your rear-view mirror whilst putting you a lap down.

The sense of achievement when you have clocked all this is immeasurable. You’ll feel as if you’ve really learnt to drive a proper racing car, and you’ll start really enjoying yourself out on circuit. When you’re confident about what you’re doing there’s the option of taking your newfound skills online against a maximum of 23 other racers. The experience is obviously dependent on the usual variables such as proximity and connection speed, but during my time on the game lag was pleasantly scarce and some solid, enjoyable racing was had. It also goes to someway to proving that even the best of racers still have a shunt or two on occasion, which is always reassuring.

When it comes to hardware, the game is pretty hard on the machinery and you’re looking at needing a 3 GHz machine with a gig of RAM and a pretty funky graphics card if you’re ever going to see the full extent of the game’s beauty. The game really is fantastic to look at if you’re fortunate enough to take advantage of the reflection and shadow effects, with each car gleaming in the sunshine and looking frighteningly close to their real-life counterparts. The rain effects are gorgeous too, making visibility a premium and meaning that following closely behind another car will envelope you in an impenetrable wall of spray. The only niggle is that the damage model isn’t quite to the level we’d been hoping, with engine covers, bumpers and wheels falling off but very little else happening even in the most brutal of crashes.

That grumble aside, this is every sim-head’s dream come true. Battling with a gaggle of marauding Porsches around Spa as the sun slowly sets and darkness descends is truly a magnificent piece of gaming, offering a driving experience as close to the real thing as I can imagine we’ve ever seen. Whilst not being the easiest of games to get to grips with, even on the easiest difficulty settings, GTR 2 offers a truly rewarding experience should you lend yourself to some practice. Just be thankful that you don’t have to pay the car repair bills.