Gran Turismo - Epilogue

[Renown]

This has been such a delayed topic (on my behalf) since the forum has been underway, and I've been asking myself as of late why it's taken me so damn long to create a thread about the game that I worship day in and day out, no, not Forza Motorsport or not even Project Gotham Racing, although both are good games, there is only one "Real Driving Simulator" and that's the Gran Turismo series. Some of us may argue that Forza excels in a lot of places that GT has fallen short over the past several years, and while such might be true, Gran Turismo has an immense popularity factor.

Why?

Two reasons: One - Gran Turismo gets you as close to experiencing what one would experience in real life as possible, and it offers what no other current racing game (whether it be simulation, arcade, or a mixture of both) brings to the table - content. Are you thinking "Hey, what's this guy mean by content? Last time I checked Forza 2 has the capacity to expand ever so often with DLC." While that is indeed true, the time period waited for new content isn't always on-schedule, but enough of that, Gran Turismo has brung hundreds. and hundreds of automobiles to the table and has often been the object of pushing the Playstation (PS or PS2) to it's outright limits.

Two - Content, content, and even more content. Until Gran Turismo 3, I had never played a game that required you to participate in licensing tests just to participate in races further up the ladder, so to speak. The license tests served one purpose and that purpose was to familiarize yourself with what GT brought to the table, to hone your skills, to strive for the gold medal lap timing, and essentially gloat to your mates about who was the king of the I-A or I-B license. The licensed automobiles placed an even greater emphasis on what Gran Turismo was all about - class. While GT3 didn't have such an elaborate library as Gran Turismo 2 due to it coming out so early in the PS2's life cycle, the selection was still one of a kind for a game of it's stature.

GT3 brought a lot to the table, but some would say it didn't bring enough and this is where such games as Forza Motorsport excelled, in one way or another. The topic being damage modeling, something that would have been included but was removed for various time-related and hardware-related constraints at the time. I never had any gripes with the serious because it lacked such things as damage modeling, Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, and Porsche's, if I really desired to play with these cars I would turn on Need For Speed or something of that sort. Also, for those who don't know, originally Kazunori wanted to and would have licensed such automobiles from Porsche, but decided to use RuF instead because of the similarities, etc...

Gran Turismo has such a strong fanbase that others question such by referring to where Gran Turismo lacks finesse, and would often quote it's own impromptu promise of a "Real Driving Simulator" and while these points are well placed, but nevertheless, the points are for the most part incoherent and at the same time misplaced. While GT has lacked damage modeling and the aforementioned cars from those manufacturers it fails to displace what a great game Gran Turismo has always been, and that alone is one of the prime reasons GT is as popular as it has become.

This is just the beginning of this thread, and I promise it to be of tasteful length and full of information and my own thoughts, opinions, and past experiences.

To be continued...

[Renown]

Where has the time gone? It's already been two weeks or so, and I feel now is the time to continue to "Ongoing Review" of sorts. This isn't about any one of the four games, or it's several iterations or "Prologues." nor is it about the upcoming fifth Gran Turismo, which is supposedly due in 2009, nor is it about it's upcoming Prologue, due April 17th.

No. This is about all of the games, every refining moment, every cuss word that ever surmounted from my mouth, every controller I've ever broken or just thrown elsewhere, every picture I've ever taken, everything I can possibly remember about the utterly groundbreaking game that defines like no other should or, dare I say, could.

For those of you who are reading this and mumbling to thyself "Forza Motorsport 2 is far more realistic, and it includes damage modeling, car customizations, and among other things more realistic engine sound reproduction." Let me just address the few or the many, doesn't matter which, let me correct you by saying "Yes, Forza Motorsport 2 excels in a lot of ways, but at the same time it forgoes on what would have made it better than GT, at least from a feature-laden perspective.

I just quoted myself didn't I? How odd. In any case, Forza 2 may indeed have a rich customization system with nearly endless possibilities and it provides the recollection of no two vehicles looking exactly alike when personal preference comes into play, no, that's the one thing I could never take away from Forza 2, ever. Yes, Forza 2 also features more accurate engine sound reproductions, another thing I can't take away from the game, among other things. However, Forza Motorsport 2 fails to bring such things as a real live pit crew, operable air brakes (functioning rear spoiler) for those vehicles that have them (SLR McLaren, Audi R8, etc), oil changes, accurate damage modeling, lengthy endurance races, etc. to the table? The list could go on and on, but do you see how the very small things can hurt the reputation of a game, that all by itself, claims to be superior for the most part?

Good. I'm glad I cleared that up because aside from one thing mentioned there (and that one thing obviously being accurate damage modeling, or just damage modeling in general) Gran Turismo 4 (for specific comparison purposes) offers all of those things, and then some. However, this isn't a review with the intent to bash another racing game, so on with the review...

...My obsession (so to speak) began with Gran Turismo 3, and instantly I fell in love with everything. At the time the first thing that caught my eyes were the visuals, and to this very day I'm still amazed at how crisp those visuals are, for a PS2 game nonetheless. There's nothing wrong with that, no doubt, but in this day and age with the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii, GT3's visuals haul some serious ass. I lie to you not. Everything about GT3 hooked me in right from the beginning; hook, line and sinker, if you will. The insane difficulty (at the time), the licensing tests, the cars (some of which I had never even seen or heard of before being that I was still relatively new to the whole automotive scene), and probably last, but definitely far from least are the track options you're given.

After getting used to Gran Turismo 3 for a month or so, I decided to bring the experience to my own television set, but I didn't begin with GT3, I went back to the old-school Playstation era - Gran Turismo 2. This was the beginning of my pure fixation with the game known as Gran Turismo, and GT2 delivered an even better experience than GT3 had. Why? Gran Turismo 2 simply had more of everything; more tracks, more cars, more races, more license tests, basically just as I said beforehand - more everything.

Just as things were getting good here, I'm going to cut this short. Mainly because I'm distracted by other things at this point, but when I pick this up right where I left off, the review shall continue.

[Renown]

Despite what I said in relation to the closing of my last post, I won't be picking up exactly where I left off, instead let's jump the gun a little and let's talk about what lies down the road - Gran Turismo 5. Gran Turismo 5 itself isn't due until 2009, if I had to guess, I'd say second or third quarter, give or take. Gran Turismo 5 brings so much more to the table (or at least GT5 Prologue suggests such a transition). One such thing is the inclusion of automobiles from the one and only Ferrari, and one such vehicle I chose to name in particular is the inclusion of the 900+ hp, 19,000 RPM, 2.4L F2007 F1 racer, driven by the man himself, Michael Schumacher.

Oh yeah.

Not only does this mark the first appearance of any Ferrari-branded vehicle in the Gran Turismo series itself, but it also marks the appearance of a true F1 racer. Although the basic inclusion of F1 racers (or at least their IRL counterparts) began in Gran Turismo 3 with the F090/S, F686/M, F094/F, etc. Gran Turismo 5 is expanding ever so, and the Prologue promises to give you just enough to leave you on the brink of total salivation and with that said, GT5 Prologue is due April 17th in both Blu-ray and PSN download trim, or you can pick up the Japanese version which should be available at a game retailer that deals with both regions. Since the PS3 is region-free, or region-less (if you prefer) it won't make much of a difference if you decided to splurge on the Prologue now because you can't wait, such as myself.

GT5 also gives us the awesome, extremely sexy R35 GT-R, Skyline for those of you scratching your heads. We're also getting some insane visuals, admittedly so, I'm not all that surprised at the initial results because for the most part Gran Turismo has always pushed the Playstation's hardware to it's utmost practical limits, or at the very least the closest you'll ever get, either way Gran Turismo has always been a visual showcase and the same remains so with GT5.

In any case, I close this section of the ongoing review with some F2007 awesomeness courtesy of GTPlanet...

link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1459208169/bctid1476789250
link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1459208169/bctid1476789256

Edit: In the spirit of writing this rather extravagant review, I overlooked one very small detail and that detail is Michael Schumacher doesn't pilot (so to speak) the F2007. Why? Very simple, he retired after the 2006 F1 season. Now to correct myself the drivers for the F2007 are Felipe Massa, and most notably (more or less) Kimi Raikkonen.