I can't believe this worked...

I also can't believe how much fun Gran Turismo 2 still is, even after all these years and despite me having not played it at all back then, so there is no nostalgia clouding my judgment. Driving physics are delightfully fun and bouncy (if nowhere near as realistic as claimed), track design is superb, cars are perfectly recognizable despite only consisting of only a few hundred polygons, AI opponents are more believable than in some modern games and the career mode still feels surprisingly modern. It's a highly accessible and equally enjoyable racing game that has easily stood the test of time and is definitely worth playing today. It also has no scummy microtransactions and always-online nonsense, unlike a certain recently released sequel, so there's that.

As you can see by this irresponsible maneuver, I'm not treating it like a driving sim, because - and I'm sorry GT fans - it really isn't one, but this doesn't mean it isn't an absolute blast.

This is the famous corkscrew corner of Laguna Seca, in Gran Turismo 2 plus, a modded version of the game with lots of improvements and bug fixes (including the ability to 100% it now).

I'm also using a number of Silent's patches for this game, including 60 fps (requiring an overclock to 300 MHz), better draw distance, widescreen and full detail opponents (requiring 8 MB of RAM). The emulator is Duckstation (available for various platforms, including PC and Android), which supports PGXP, a feature that eliminates the infamous wobbly geometry every 3D PS1 game suffered from. I kept the unfiltered textures, but I'm running the game at 12x original resolution, added scanlines (barely visible due to video compression) and a slight bloom to simulate the look of a fabulously high-res CRT that never existed. The scanlines also help hide some of the visual imperfections.

By selecting the NeGcon controller in the emulator's controller settings and assigning my controller's triggers to axis I and II, I get full analog throttle and brakes, which would otherwise not be possible in this game.

My aim with these settings was to have the best possible version of this game. It's like an enhanced re-release that doesn't destroy the original's character and carefully updates the game by removing most of the technical and visual issues it had due to the limitations of the hardware it was originally designed for.

Purists may scoff at this, but I'm not looking for nostalgia or authenticity here, because I've never owned a PS1. This is all about having a quality racing game experience and because I think others should experience it too, I wrote this annoyingly long text under a recording of a silly little maneuver.