Screenshots :.
Gran Turismo 4
PS2
Matt
09-04-2007
"The game still looks really well polished to this day"
"Nissan's new hover car."
"Don't crash, your premiums will go through the roof!"
"Not over compensating for something are ya?"
Admission time. Before this review kicked off just here, I sat staring at an empty screen for countless minutes on end simply filtering Gran Turismo 4 through my head. More so than at any time, the series has become an incredibly dense network of cars, circuits, licenses, cups and races. Before knowing the general thread that this review will end up following, I needed to make sure in my head that I had actually fully grasped just how much scope Polyphonic had managed to cram into the latest installment of their ‘real driving simulator’.
Having said that, the framework of GT4 is very similar in structure to that of previous games. What the development team have done is take this framework and built upon it to extensive proportions, meaning that the game comes packed with over 700 cars and 50 circuits. There’s enough content locked within the Gran Turismo mode to keep you going for months, and any petrolhead will lose themselves for hugely elongated periods of time within the game world.
For those who haven’t experienced a Gran Turismo game before, the premise is relatively simple. Beginning with a series of license tests designed to install some form of technique and understanding on how the game handles, the player is then left to his own devices with a small budget and a number of car garages to visit. Once he has selected something he can afford, the budding racer has a selection of events for which the particular car is suitable. Taking part in and winning these races earns him more cash, which he can use to upgrade his car or buy a new one to partake in a different set of races.
From such small seeds, huge racing careers can flourish. Underpinning the whole thing for GT4 is a slightly tweaked physics model that gives the racing even more of an edge of realism. Even the more modest cars now lurch and slide around like wild beasts when driven on the edge, and given how genuine and intuitive the cars feel a skilled racer will be able to find the outer edge of performance with a little time. What the new handling does mean is that staying perched on that envelope now requires a fair bit of skill, and even the most adept of players will find themselves having the odd shunt.
Ah, the shunt. Those of you praying that their misdeeds would now result in scratched and dented automobiles are going to have to stomach a chunk of disappointment cheese again I am afraid, as once more Polyphonic seem to have strayed away from including damage in their premier series. The reasons for this seem to have blurred as time has gone on, with the original claim of car manufacturers being unwilling to have their products damaged on millions of television screens worldwide put into question by Bizarre Creation’s Project Gotham series quite happily allowing players to dent and scratch their Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
Speaking of which, you won’t find either Italian manufacturer in Gran Turismo 4, along with sports car perennials Porsche. The fact that the game has over 700 cars is quite deceiving, and more than 150 of those are variations on a certain model. An example of this would be the ricer’s heaven that is the Nissan Skyline, of which an astonishing 48 variants exist. That being said, some real gems of cars can be found and raced during your time with the game, the best of which have to be the massively over-the-top steroid-injected Group C sports cars of the early 1990s. Although initially difficult to acclimatise to and requiring a fair bit of white-knuckled precision, this class of vehicle really comes into their own when raced at some of the classic circuits such as the original Le Mans Sarthe circuit or the monstrous 14-mile Nurburgring.
Providing you with a thrilling driving experience unfortunately doesn’t translate into giving you a thrilling racing experience, however. Along with the lack of damage the other main criticism of the Gran Turismo series has been that the artificial intelligence... um… isn’t intelligent. Sadly this remains very much the case, with your opponents sticking to the ideal racing line as if their lives depended on it and rarely taking into account your proximity to them. The dream of a challenging Gran Turismo game where the number of circuits and cars is allied to an epic series of races against some challenging opponents once more eludes us, particularly as the game’s online portion was very publicly cut some months before release.
The major innovations for GT4 come, then, in the form of the B-Spec mode and the photo mode. The former sees you training a computer drone to drive your various vehicles by giving them various instructions during races. The further up the field this AI version of yourself finishes translates into experience points that improve him, and eventually you’ll be able to use him to complete pretty much any race you like for you. This comes in particularly handy when it comes to longer endurance races, and means that theoretically you can turn on your machine in the morning before work and return to it afterwards with your AI drone having won you a race.
Photo mode doesn’t initially promise much, but somehow ends up becoming really quite compulsive. Giving you the option of taking any of your cars out to a number of scenic locations or taking photos of them out on track, the best part of it all is that the game allows you to export your favourite images to a USB memory stick and post them around the internet for the world to see. When allied to GT4’s prodigious graphical prowess the results are incredibly pleasing, with certain shots coming dangerously close to seeming almost real.
That’s pretty much most of the bases covered, then. Gran Turismo 4 is a prime example of a videogame that does what it set out to do so well that some pretty major flaws – flaws that probably would have ruined other games of this type – are viewed as slight disappointments rather than complete disasters. As an immersive, enthralling driving game, the game is unparalleled and offers enormous variety and incentive to progress. As a great racing game, however, the same old faults prevent the series from moving out of the same gear it’s been in since day 1. One has to hope that the continued pressure from critics and fans alike will pay dividend in the end and we’ll end up with the definitive Gran Turismo title some day soon.
Having said that, the framework of GT4 is very similar in structure to that of previous games. What the development team have done is take this framework and built upon it to extensive proportions, meaning that the game comes packed with over 700 cars and 50 circuits. There’s enough content locked within the Gran Turismo mode to keep you going for months, and any petrolhead will lose themselves for hugely elongated periods of time within the game world.
For those who haven’t experienced a Gran Turismo game before, the premise is relatively simple. Beginning with a series of license tests designed to install some form of technique and understanding on how the game handles, the player is then left to his own devices with a small budget and a number of car garages to visit. Once he has selected something he can afford, the budding racer has a selection of events for which the particular car is suitable. Taking part in and winning these races earns him more cash, which he can use to upgrade his car or buy a new one to partake in a different set of races.
From such small seeds, huge racing careers can flourish. Underpinning the whole thing for GT4 is a slightly tweaked physics model that gives the racing even more of an edge of realism. Even the more modest cars now lurch and slide around like wild beasts when driven on the edge, and given how genuine and intuitive the cars feel a skilled racer will be able to find the outer edge of performance with a little time. What the new handling does mean is that staying perched on that envelope now requires a fair bit of skill, and even the most adept of players will find themselves having the odd shunt.
Ah, the shunt. Those of you praying that their misdeeds would now result in scratched and dented automobiles are going to have to stomach a chunk of disappointment cheese again I am afraid, as once more Polyphonic seem to have strayed away from including damage in their premier series. The reasons for this seem to have blurred as time has gone on, with the original claim of car manufacturers being unwilling to have their products damaged on millions of television screens worldwide put into question by Bizarre Creation’s Project Gotham series quite happily allowing players to dent and scratch their Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
Speaking of which, you won’t find either Italian manufacturer in Gran Turismo 4, along with sports car perennials Porsche. The fact that the game has over 700 cars is quite deceiving, and more than 150 of those are variations on a certain model. An example of this would be the ricer’s heaven that is the Nissan Skyline, of which an astonishing 48 variants exist. That being said, some real gems of cars can be found and raced during your time with the game, the best of which have to be the massively over-the-top steroid-injected Group C sports cars of the early 1990s. Although initially difficult to acclimatise to and requiring a fair bit of white-knuckled precision, this class of vehicle really comes into their own when raced at some of the classic circuits such as the original Le Mans Sarthe circuit or the monstrous 14-mile Nurburgring.
Providing you with a thrilling driving experience unfortunately doesn’t translate into giving you a thrilling racing experience, however. Along with the lack of damage the other main criticism of the Gran Turismo series has been that the artificial intelligence... um… isn’t intelligent. Sadly this remains very much the case, with your opponents sticking to the ideal racing line as if their lives depended on it and rarely taking into account your proximity to them. The dream of a challenging Gran Turismo game where the number of circuits and cars is allied to an epic series of races against some challenging opponents once more eludes us, particularly as the game’s online portion was very publicly cut some months before release.
The major innovations for GT4 come, then, in the form of the B-Spec mode and the photo mode. The former sees you training a computer drone to drive your various vehicles by giving them various instructions during races. The further up the field this AI version of yourself finishes translates into experience points that improve him, and eventually you’ll be able to use him to complete pretty much any race you like for you. This comes in particularly handy when it comes to longer endurance races, and means that theoretically you can turn on your machine in the morning before work and return to it afterwards with your AI drone having won you a race.
Photo mode doesn’t initially promise much, but somehow ends up becoming really quite compulsive. Giving you the option of taking any of your cars out to a number of scenic locations or taking photos of them out on track, the best part of it all is that the game allows you to export your favourite images to a USB memory stick and post them around the internet for the world to see. When allied to GT4’s prodigious graphical prowess the results are incredibly pleasing, with certain shots coming dangerously close to seeming almost real.
That’s pretty much most of the bases covered, then. Gran Turismo 4 is a prime example of a videogame that does what it set out to do so well that some pretty major flaws – flaws that probably would have ruined other games of this type – are viewed as slight disappointments rather than complete disasters. As an immersive, enthralling driving game, the game is unparalleled and offers enormous variety and incentive to progress. As a great racing game, however, the same old faults prevent the series from moving out of the same gear it’s been in since day 1. One has to hope that the continued pressure from critics and fans alike will pay dividend in the end and we’ll end up with the definitive Gran Turismo title some day soon.
8/10