Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition and DLC Switch Review
Gear.Club Unlimited 2 is the Switch exclusive racing game developed by Eden Games and published by Microids that just keeps going. Yes the original was a port of a mobile game but this is not, this is geared towards the Switch with more to do and slightly longer races making a much better game and now the second DLC; Tracks is here and also available as an all in one physical edition. Tracks adds endurance racing to the mix which means you now have to manage tyre wear, three compounds of tyre wear, fuel loads, take part in pit stops and there are 5 circuits added. Four imaginary ones and the world famous Le Mans 24hr circuit. The tracks are undulating weavy rollercoaster joy rides that put Hermann Tilke to shame, especially in the faster cars.
What’s on offer here are 4 four race championships, one for each class of car A-D, so you can start in the slower cars and work your way up to LMP1 cars. You can choose to start in any tier though I’d recommend starting with the slower cars to get used to the endurance system. First you qualify then take part in a roughly 15-18 minute race complete with pit stops, tyre wear, a choice of soft, medium or hard tyres and fuel loads. The pace difference of various tyres and at different phases of the race reminds me of an exaggerated DTM or Formula 2 where cars can often be 3-4 seconds a lap faster but here in the most extreme it can be up to 20seconds. This makes for some insane races with a crazy amount of overtakes as you can easily gain or lose 6 places on a lap. Then there’s the Circuit de la Sarthe Le Mans, the world famous event as a 30 minute race, this one’s only available for the two fastest tiers with a prize of a GT40 MkI for winning them both.
Don’t feel disheartened if you qualify last every race, the CPU are just unstoppable at qualifying and while their tyres are fresh, the endurance races are races of patience, accepting you’ll qualify bad and lose lots of places in various phases of the race will help you win in the end which just adds to the thrill of the race.
Sometimes it can be hard to know which tyre to be on as you don’t get given your lap times and the pace varies so much lap to lap anyway depending on the compound. Just know when the tyres go off, they really fall off a cliff to the point that one race I pitted a lap late and was just being overtaken by the cars that I was with the lap before when they had pitted. I had lost a whole pitstop worth of time in that one lap.
If you buy the physical edition or aren’t too far into the main game fear not as Tracks provides you with a car in classes A-C and if you complete those events you can then afford one of the two class D LMP1 cars for the final events, either the Nissan GT-R lm Nismo or Porsche 919 Hybrid. This is particularly important as very few cars can actually take part in the endurance races as they are automatically given special GT body kits.
Unfortunately there’s a few strange decisions such as the tarmac run off areas slow you down to the point that it’s like slamming on the brakes if you even put 2 wheels outside the white lines on the edge of the track when near a corner. Even though I’d put Gear.Club 2 strictly in the arcade category when you’re doing endurance racing you would expect the physics to follow real racing a bit closer as in real life it’s only when all 4 wheels are off the track that drivers even get a warning.
There is a hell of a lot of content in Gear.Club 2 with the addition of this second DLC but there’s no new music so it does get quite repetitive now. The cars still sound fine though.
It’s very strange in this day and age to have pit stops with no pit crew, you drive into the pit lane and the game handles the driving while you pick your tyres and fuel load then the invisible crew get to imaginary work.
Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks DLC offers great value for money for £7.99 with each championship will taking over an hour and it’s quite unlikely you’ll win every one first try as the D tier LMP1 championship separates the men from the boys. Then there’s the two Le Mans races. It really adds a completely different style of race compared to the rest of the game so if you enjoyed Gear.Club Unlimited 2 the Tracks DLC is a must have. If not read our review of the base game here and previous Porsche DLC here. The physical Tracks Edition is the complete package and comes with a wealth of content in this unique and fun Switch exclusive game.
A huge thank you to Microids for providing the review code for the Tracks DLC. Gear.Club Unlimited 2 Tracks Edition is available now physically as a complete package or digitally as DLC for £7.99.
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