After all the hype, reading the import reviews and seeing the TV adverts I finally had it - The mother of all driving games. I popped the lid on my grey box, stuck the disc, switched on and stood back and waited with baited breath.....
The intro commences with shots of a skyline, a deserted race track and an empty stand as the music slowly starts to build. A garage door lifts and the wheels of a car are seen to be rolled out by a mechanic. The music builds some more. It all starts hotting up as car makers labels are flashed across the screen and the music is building up to a crescendo and the camera pulls up from a race track and the words "SCEE presents.." are displayed. The "Gran Turismo" logo appears on screen and the music stops, then........Engines are heard to be screaming........SMASH! A horde of fine looking race cars blast through the logo and onto the screen and the music starts pumping and the cars are displayed in all their splendour flashing past the camera and drifting round corners. WOW! And that was just the intro.
There are two modes to GT. Arcade and Simulation. Basically the arcade mode gives you a selection of cars to pick from and a selection of tracks to race on. When tracks are completed bonus tracks and items are revealed. But where GT really comes into its own is the simulation mode. Armed with only enough credits to get you a second hand car you must trail round the less prestigious car dealers (the posh ones' don't sell second hand cars) and get yourself a motor. The next problem is you can't race until you have your licence so it's off to the test centre. The are three licences to get 'B', 'A' and International which give you access to different levels of racing. So with car and licence it's off to the race track. Basically the more races you win, the more credits you get and the more credits you get the more modifications you can do to your car to improve its performance and the better the cars you can buy. There are also practice tracks, machine testing facilities and a car wash which does actually improve the look of your car. The race replays are also worth a mention which show the race from TV style angles including car mounted cameras and look superb. I could go into a lot greater detail on this game but I would be literally here all day describing them.
The detail on the cars is amazing right down to the manufacturers badge and they are an excellent representation of the real thing. The backgrounds are nicely rendered even if the do get a little tedious after a while. What makes the visuals stand out so much is little things like the way the street lamp reflection hugs the contour of the car as it zooms past and the way the car suspension dips as you take corners.
A quite repetitive little ditty is played as you hop around from dealer to test centre etc. and it's the usual medley of rock style driving music to accompany the races. I personally think the engine sounds (which aren't bad) are all you need in a game like this as who would be listening to their car stereo anyway if they were manouvering a corner at 200mph
Driving round a series of tracks doesn't sound like it will capture you attention span for a long period of time, but with GT the whole simulation side of it keeps you hooked for quite a while and I think that it is a game that I will keep going back to for some time to come.The difficulty aspect and passing licences to unlock race championships (which means bigger purses and better prize cars) also keeps you coming back for more.
"The ultimate driving experience" is the slogan and boy does it live up to it. Car games are ten a penny these days and I've never been a massive fan but I'm glad I invested in GT. The handling of each type of car is so different you can actually feel it and the car garage, dealers, money, test centre aspect keeps you interested and makes it less linear than most other games of the same genre. I had played the only racing game which I considered worthwile in TOCA Touring Cars but GT has just surpassed it.
