by:	April 10, 2004

Gear up for the definitive car racing simulation. Featuring more than 100 current and classic high performance vehicles, amazing control, and deep game play, Sega GT 2002 gives you the most realistic racing experience yet seen on the virtual road. Each car was created using the exact handling and performance specs from their real-life counterparts. Put on your grease monkey duds and get under the hood to tweak your car's engine and body to perfection. Then when you're ready to race, choose from multiple modes, tracks, and environments to show what your mean machine can do. Chronicle Mode puts you behind the wheel of muscle cars from the 70s and 80s, while the Quick Battle Mode lets you jump right into the action with precision-tuned modern racers. The Sega GT 2002 Mode is where your true test lies: win races and collect the necessary cash to buy new cars and upgrade the classics. You can even showcase your cars in the Virtual Garage alongside your mementos - and most important - your trophies!

Graphics
Sega GT 2002 is truly a mixed bag when it comes to graphics. On one hand, you have truly amazing car models with better-than-average reflections to look at. But on the other hand, you have a fairly shallow draw distance, and track details are so sparse it's hard to get excited about them. Another major flaw is particle effects, or rather the lack of particle effects. When you drive into dirt, the car throws specks up. These specs are so small, chances are you will miss them. That is a shame, because we all know how great the Xbox is with particle effects.

With all its pluses and minuses, it's on par with Gran Turismo 3, but it could have been so much better. A few extra weeks in development, some realistic particle effects and a little tweaking of the draw distance, and this game would destroy all. Another graphical feature I despise is heat waves. I just don't like them. True, they look realistic, but they give everything in the game a sort of low-res look. I wish there was an option to shut them off.

A really cool feature in Sega GT is the replay system. After a race, you can take snap shots of your performance and post them in the garage, which is a really interesting, and great for keeping those memories fresh, but replays get even better when you save them. After saving a replay, you can go back and load it up to watch like normal, or you can edit it by applying graphical filters. These are interesting, and it is pretty fun to play around with them; they add a great deal to the already fantastic replay system.