The original Gear.Club Unlimited caught a lucky break when it first came out on the Nintendo Switch. For one thing, it was the first non-kart racing game on a Nintendo console in quite some time. It was also the first of its type to release on the Switch at a time when the console was still trying to find its feet and people were wondering if it would be a fad. It was only a short time later that the Switch was declared a hit console, but that also meant a slew of more realistic racing games have hit the platform, from recent titles like Xenon Racer to ports of older hits like Grid Autosport. Gear.Club Unlimited 2 was released in 2018, but one year later, we're looking at the same game repackaged with all of the patches and DLC.

Like the first game, the campaign in Gear.Club Unlimited 2 serves as the meat of the single-player experience, and this time, it comes with a story that is a throwaway tale but gives some structure to the campaign. You play the role of a test driver for a racing team that's owned and run by your father, a racing legend. On the eve of the qualifiers for the season, your contracted driver has bailed out, leaving you as the default driver on short notice. Your performance is good enough to impress everyone, and as lead driver, your task is to lead the team to its first championship-winning season.

Get past the initial three qualifying events, and the campaign gets blown wide open, with access to a world map and almost free rein about where to go. If you're trying to follow the campaign closely, that means participating in a bunch of qualifying races for a class before reaching the championships and graduating to the next class to repeat the process. You can peruse car dealerships to find different car classes and manufacturers, or you can partake in specific one-off races for extra cash. There are even Porsche-specific events that give you a nice break from the campaign grind thanks to the inclusion of that DLC in this package. Overall, you're looking at over 70 cars to obtain and over 250 races to use them.

The racing follows the same structure as before, so you'll participate in a mix of time trials and regular races. This time, you'll do this against a full roster of between 8-12 cars per race, so the pack feels deeper than before. You'll also be racing in much longer tracks, which is a much better alternative to the short tracks in the first game. The game uses an adjustable assist system to cater to racers of all skill types, so those who aren't good at braking or tend to oversteer will get some help. Taking a page from the Forza Motorsport series, the game also features a rewind system, and it works out better here thanks to its more granular nature; instead of succumbing to certain checkpoints, you can pinpoint where you want to restart the race, and you'll even get a countdown to prepare for getting back into the action.

The good news is that the handling is quite good, despite the game having no analog control. The lack of analog triggers on the system means that fine-tuning your braking and acceleration is tricky unless you've come from racing in the PSone or PS2 eras; the lack of analog controls for steering may mean that only the old genre veterans who cut their teeth on polygon racers might be the only ones who can easily jump into this title. The game is responsive enough that players can easily adjust, and it won't be long before they'll be able to easily master any machine. Sluggish controls were a major complaint at launch, so it is nice to see that patches have fixed this issue.

That said, the racing still isn't perfect. Opponent AI is pretty bad, as their strategy is to bump each other out of the way while trying to box you in. If you get close to the front of the pack, they won't put much effort in trying to block your advance, so early on, it's easy to take first place. Your real opponent is the physics, which don't affect you when driving off the asphalt but will wreck you if you make contact with another car or even a fence. The slightest touch can send your car spinning and drastically cut your momentum. The uninspiring tracks may bother some players. While the environments are different, some pieces are reused a lot, such as the roundabout with a sharp left. It gets to the point where several of the courses can be played consecutively, and you'd swear that you're racing the same track multiple times in a row.

The garage system returns in GCU2, and while there's less emphasis on upgrading it, it remains an essential part of the game, since it's where you'll be doing a lot of car customization. Whether it's changing out the engine and tires, modifying the gear shifts, or slapping on decals, this is where it gets done.

However, the process is rather clunky. For starters, you have to place your car in one of the pods by lifting it up and dropping it down. If you're placing stickers on the car, it's clunky to get the exact placement due to the lag on the analog stick, an issue that plagued the racing element until it was fixed via patches. The game also shows cut scenes on each part getting replaced, but they're all terribly done. For example, an engine can be taken out with the hood still closed, or a technician can walk in front of the camera and pretend to do work even though he's interacting with nothing. The most pointless scene is when nothing is happening to denote that work is being done on your car, but you still have to sit and watch it or hit A to skip the scene. When you consider how often you'll change parts to keep your car competitive, you'll wish the garage was swapped out in favor of a faster-performing menu.

While the multiplayer menu seems rather shallow at first glance, it's deeper than the previous title. Four-player local split-screen is back, and thanks to the lengthier tracks, the prospect of playing this mode seems more reasonable. Local play for up to eight players on eight different Switch consoles is also here, for those lucky enough to have enough friends nearby with their own copies of the game. The more intriguing mode is Clubs, where not only can you form your own driving club with other players online, but you'll also get the opportunity to compete in special events to bolster your club ranking and unlock things (e.g., more car stickers) in the process. Considering how the events are still happening on a set schedule, this is probably the best mode that multiplayer has to offer.

The bad news about the multiplayer is that the online community doesn't want to play in direct races. The community does exist, as evidenced by the constant presence of people competing in club events, and the clubs seem to be active enough, but there's no desire for anyone to search for a live race. It is hard to say whether the aforementioned issues regarding racing physics, track design, or lack of environmental factors play a part in this, but it means that local play is your only hope of racing against opponents that aren't controlled by the AI.

All of the above complaints about the game could have been overlooked by more forgiving players if it weren't for the biggest issue: load times. The game is fond of transitioning into a loading screen at every opportunity, whether it's going to the world map, going in and out of a race, or going to the garage for a tune-up. Even the title screen contains two loading screens before anything is interactive. The shortest loading screen you'll encounter runs a little under 25 seconds, and the longer ones take upward of a minute to complete. The last time any racing game saw screens this bad was Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition for the PSP, so seeing a similar situation here is enough to quickly kill any interest in this "portable" game.

The quality of the overall presentation sits squarely in the middle. Except for a few tunes, the soundtrack is fine, and quite a few tracks are perfect for getting into a racing mood. This becomes a perfect foil for the effects, which don't come off as strongly when compared to other racing games on the platform. The environments look fine enough until you see a few tracks with some noticeable pop-in. The cars look fine enough, but the game seems to hold steady at 30fps most of the time, and the dips below that don't happen as frequently as feared.

A year's worth of patches and DLC has transformed Gear.Club Unlimited 2 into an improvement over its predecessor in some areas. The car count is still woefully small compared to the competition, but over 70 is a decent amount, the extra Porsche events give the game some nice padding, and the frame rate and handling are certainly in a better place now. While one can live through the needless garage interactions, the empty online multiplayer and questionable physics system, the long load times kill the game's momentum. This isn't a terrible racer by any means, but when you're up against the likes of Grid Autosport, it becomes hard to recommend this one unless you have played Grid to death and see this title on sale.

Score: 6.0/10