Gran Turismo 2

Gran Turismo 2 is essentially the first game with major tweaks made under the hood and the amount of content cranked up about eight notches.

The game was notoriously rushed to meet the Christmas deadline, leading to a significant amount of content being cut. It’s also notable for its bugs, to the point where 100% completion was rendered outright impossible in early versions. Not that this stopped the game from being a monster hit anyway - the only games on the console that outsold it were the original and Final Fantasy VII.

As an aside, it’s also the first game to be supported by the "bleemcast!" emulator project.

Sub-Pages#

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Bugs

Resources#

Arcade Mode DiscUnused stuff intended for or found on the Arcade Mode disc. Gran Turismo Mode DiscUnused stuff on the GT Mode disc. CarsCars that are in the game but only attainable by cheating. CoursesUnused assets pertaining to courses: the tracks themselves, skyboxes and minimaps.

Version Differences#

Regional DifferencesLicensing and marketing choices resulted in lots of changes between regions. Revisional DifferencesPolyphony rushed to fix issues caused by rushing.

Leftover 'GT HiFi' Code#

Watch on YouTubeThe original Gran Turismo features an unlockable game mode known as GT HiFi, which allows the player to run time trials on stripped-down variants of night courses at 60/50 frames per second. While this mode was excluded from GT2, code responsible for increasing the framerate cap as well as disabling tire smoke effects and the rear-view mirror is left unused, being accessed by setting a specific byte in the loaded race parameters to 01.

Unused Graphics#

The following graphics are unused on both Arcade and Gran Turismo Mode discs.

Demo Title Screens#

Found unused in gzip archives in the arcade directory of GT2.VOL are graphics for two title screens originally used in demo builds of the game.

Early Communication/Data Transfer Panels#

Unused	Used

Also in the arcade directory, early graphics for the Communication/Data Transfer menu options can be found in topmenu_panels.tim. The unused sheet, dated four weeks before the file used in the first Japanese retail version, differs in terms of artwork and dimensions.

Unused Text#

Platinum Prize#

PLATINUM PRIZE!
MEDAILLE DE PLATINE !
PLATIN!
PLATINO!
¡PLATINO!

A text string present in data-race.txd shows that a fourth prize was planned to be earned in the license tests. It is even translated to other languages.

Check Grid#

Check Grid
VñÓifier Grille
Startplatz pr—Çen
Controlla ordine di partenza
Comprobar parrilla

Another text string inside data-race.txd indicates that the feature of checking the starting line-up in the post-race menu — previously seen in the original Gran Turismo — was meant to return in GT2.

Song Titles#

Similarly to the original Gran Turismo, the game's main executable contains titles for its streamed music which are never seen during normal gameplay.

M01J
M03J
M04J
M05J
M07J
M08J

Apollo 440 - Cold Rock the Mic
Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid
Rob Zombie - "Dragula" Remix
Soul Coughing
Stone Temple Pilots - Sex Type Thing
The Crystal Method - Now Is The Time

Alex Grifford - BIG DOG
Ash - Death Trip21
Everything But The Girl - Blame
Fatboy Slim In Heaven GT2 Remix
ManSun - Take It Easy
Stereophonics - Bartender & The Theif

The first set of songs depends on the game's region, corresponding to the first six tracks in internal order. The Japanese version has short four-letter codes for its entries (with "M02J" and "M06J" skipped), while the other two attempt to list the artist and song titles with varying degrees of success.

ohira_01
ohira_02
ohira_03
ohira_05
ohira_06
ohira_07
ohira_08
ohira_09
ohira_10
ohira_11
ohira_13
ohira_14
ohira_15
ohira_16
ohira_18

The second set corresponds to the other 15 tracks, which include pre/post-race menu music, race start/finish jingles and other short pieces composed by Isamu Ohira.

Unused Music#

Two short musical pieces are left unused within MUSIC.DAT, located next to the normally used start and finish jingles in internal order.

Unused Tuner IDs#

"Tuner" is Polyphony Digital's term for manufacturers and brands present in the Gran Turismo series. In this game, a tuner ID defines which dealership a given car can use for tuning (triggering the "Your car cannot be tuned here" message otherwise) as well as which used car list it may appear on. While 36 tuners are defined in the game — listed in alphabetical order — three tuner IDs are not assined to any car:

• $C — located between Honda ($B) and Jaguar ($D). A possible candidate is Infiniti, which appears as a trackside sponsor despite only existing in-game in the form of a name and logo swap for Nissan Primera sedans in North American versions of GT2.
• $F — located between Lancia ($E) and Lister ($10). The most likely candidate for this slot is Lexus, as it appeared as a standalone South City dealership in prerelease footage of the game. In the final product, Lexus-branded cars are sold and tuned in the Toyota dealership, with certain Toyota Altezza models also being rebranded as "Lexus IS" in Western versions of GT2.
• $14 — located between Mercedes-Benz ($13) and Mini/MG ($15). Mercury is a strong candidate for this ID, as it also appeared as a standalone South City dealer in both prerelease screenshots and demo builds. In the final game, Mercury-branded vehicles are sold and tuned in the Ford dealership.

Unused Demonstration Replay File#

Built-in demonstration replays are stored in compressed replay files named demofile.gmr (with _eu, _jp or _us suffixes in versions from December 8 onwards), found within the arcade directory of GT2.VOL. However, an unused, uncompressed demofile.gmr also exists, containing a set of five replays that appear to have been used for testing purposes. This file is dated about five days before the one used in the earliest Japanese retail build, and attempting to load its contents in-game results in broken replays due to car data and file structure differences.

Deprecated Replay Directory#

Watch on YouTubeAs mentioned above, retail builds of GT2 store their demonstration replay data in the arcade directory of GT2.VOL. Older demo builds, however, keep it in a dedicated directory labeled replay, which still exists and is left unused in the final product. While most retail builds contain only zero-byte files in it, the original Japanese release contains 18 more files corresponding to individual demonstration replays seen in the demos:

• scea files are used in the North American demo from August 30, 1999;
• scee files appear in the European demo from September 7, 1999;
• scei files date back to the Japanese demo from September 21, 1999.

    0 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.000
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.001
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.002
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.003
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.004
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.005
18048 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.006
    0 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scea.999
    0 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scee.000
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scee.001
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:21   scee.002
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.003
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.004
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.005
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.006
17768 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.007
    0 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scee.999
    0 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.000
17784 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.001
17784 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.002
17784 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.003
17784 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.004
17784 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.005
    0 1999/09/21 23:08:22   scei.999

Hidden Text#

Developer Credits#

A few car texture sheets are inscribed with the word 'polys' in out of the way or unused portions of the image. This refers to Polys Entertainment, the original name of development studio Polyphony Digital. These tags originate from the original Gran Turismo, as the cars are mostly carryovers with no significant changes to GT2 aside from updated wheels.

Lancer Evolution Identifiers#

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution models first featured in GT2 are singled out for special treatment. Possibly owing to the fact that they differ only slightly, most of their textures forwent the Polys writing in favour of identification text. The only exception is the Evo II, whose texture sheet is directly based on the Evo III, a GT1-era car with no hidden text.

References#