Gran Tursimo 4
Is it the best of the best, or overrated iguana crap? Find out in my exclusively late review.
Published: March 11, 2005
Gran Turismo 4, developed by those kooky folks over at Polyphony Digital, is a watershed moment this generation. While there is still some competition yet to be released, the chances are likely that GT4 will be forever written into the history books as this generation’s best simulation racer. I’ve attempted many first drafts to this review, but the best way to review the game would be for me to just outline my experiences with GT4 over the last week.
As a little background, I have played, purchased and completed Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo 2 and Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec during their respective periods. I’m also an avid car guy and know my way around an engine. I loved all the previous titles in the series and was sure I’d enjoy GT4, but wasn’t at all hyped for it. I knew I’d pick it up eventually, play through it, enjoy it and be done with it. But time came for me to go pick up the much more personally-anticipated MVP Baseball (read my review here), when I saw it sitting on the shelf. Not really screaming for my attention, just giving me the ol’ wink and the gun, saying “Hey babe. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Let me know if you aren’t too busy with any of the other games you have and I’ll give you a good time.” No “XTREME” in the title, no flashy cover art, no misplaced celebrity endorsement… just pure, sexy Gran Turismo 4.
“What the f?” I said to myself, while thumbing through my wallet. “Gimme MVP Baseball for PS2 and oh yeah, GT4.” I didn’t want the salesman to realize my internal dialogue. “But MVP is a steal at only $30, so $80 for the pair is a good deal, even if it’s nothing special,” I assured myself. “…nothing special” would be my famous last words. Flat out, GT4 is the best sim racer I have ever had the pleasure to play. Best, because it is the total package. The game has three different modes available: Simulation, Arcade, and Photo Mode. Each is beautifully thought out, each wonderfully satisfying. Sure, GT4 has some faults and errors, but so does Heidi Klum and that doesn’t stop her from being wonderfully satisfying too.
Like in previous outings, Sim mode is the proverbial meat of the game. You have your Sunday Cup, your FF/FR/MR Cups, etc. This is why I initially felt GT4 would be nothing but more of the same. GT3.5. Good, great even, but done before. Starting off, GT4 should feel the same, it should feel comfortable, but then I began to discover the differences, subtle and blatant alike. First and foremost, the physics are the most remarkable feature of the game. Every car just feels “right,” and when you’re a car guy, the feel is the reason you love cars in the first place. The exotics are blindingly fast and deftly responsive, while the muscle cars are fast as well, but fat in their control. Don’t think you’ll drive your AC Cobra headlong into the Seattle hairpin and whip that bitch around the turn without trouble. Sim mode is also much, much deeper and much, much more demanding. I estimate I put a solid 50 hours into Sim mode alone, and as of writing this review, I am not close to being done. In fact, I am only 43% done and still have rally racing, ice racing, a few more endurance races and all the license tests to get gold in (which won’t happen).
A helpful and welcome addition to GT4 is B-Spec mode, where instead of driving the car yourself, you can let the AI driver (who gets more skilled with time) pilot the car while you tell him how hard to drive the car. On a value of 1-5, you can tell him to just cruise along, maintaining a steady pace and being mindful of tricky corners, or you can push him to go balls-out while taking little care for keeping the car on the proper line the whole time. 5 will get you to the front, but only if he doesn’t spin off the track, which is more likely the harder you push him to drive. B-Spec also features a time-elapse feature where you can speed up time by 2x or 3x to make a long endurance race go faster. I even left my AI driver on the Nurburgring endurance overnight, being sure to set him on a steady 2 pace. The AI will even pit automatically as tire wear or gas becomes an issue.
Arcade mode is where you can just pick up and race and is exactly like GT3’s, but here is where one of the minor faults of the game arises. While you can use cars from your Sim garage, they don’t come equipped with any of the modifications you made. Not that big of a deal at all, just more of an odd omission. Other than that, Arcade mode is very familiar and plays just like GT3’s Arcade mode.
The Photo mode is the diamond-in-the-rough of GT4. You use a simple, easy to use interface to take digital photos of any of your cars on any number of pre-chosen locals, or pause a saved replay and take a picture in a race. It sounds like a nice addition at first, almost a bonus feature, but Photo mode is absolutely addicting. Because GT4 boasts such impressive physics, you get hundreds of chances to flex your digital driving skills, but you have never been able to explore any of the artistic prowess of the game, other than enjoying replays. Images can either be saved to the memory card, at a file size of ~100k, or if you have a compatible USB pen drive, you can save your photos there, with an increased file size of ~200k – 300k. Many gaming-related message boards already have galleries of photos submitted by members, some even have contests. I will be disappointed if Photo mode doesn’t make it into GT5 for whatever reason, as it feels like it should have been a standard feature from the beginning.
Among the many deep and rewarding modes of GT4, there is a single two ton elephant that is sorely missing from the room – online racing. Initially promised years ago when development started, the online racing feature was ultimately scrapped after a handful of delays couldn’t remedy lag issues. Apparently, the online mode would have just taken too long to implement correctly, so the team moved ahead and put out the game, promising the possibility of an online expansion disc within a year or so. To be fair, a nice LAN mode did make it into the game and works wonderfully. You can even go online via tunneling software, but its not the same without official leader boards, weekly racing series, and so on. Also, GT4: Mobile for the PSP, an almost direct port of GT4, is slated to have Wi-Fi multiplayer, so you might not have to wait until GT5 on the PS3 to be able to go head-to-head with friends over the internet.
In a further effort to push the boundaries of realism, PD teamed up with Logitech once again to release a force feedback racing wheel that features a full 900 degrees of rotation. Upon writing this review, I have not received my wheel, but I promise a follow-up article as soon as I do get my hands on the wheel. In the meantime, everything I have heard about the Driving Force Pro wheel has been aces the whole way – responsive, tight and a lot of fun to use.
Gran Turismo 4 exceeded all my expectations, minus the whole online thing. Online racing would have been nice, but if PD couldn’t get it to work without lag, I wouldn’t want it anyway and it would only hurt the review. I review the game, not what the game “could have been.” In short, GT4 is brilliant, engaging and wholly fulfilling in every way. If you are a fan of the previous three Gran Turismo titles, I encourage you to go out and enjoy Gran Turismo 4. If GT4 will be your first venture into sim racing, hold on, strap in and protect any valuable reproductive organs, as you’ll be blown away. It pushes the boundaries of realism and sim racing, while retaining the essential core of the franchise that has been built over the last 8 years. You won’t find a better value.
As a little background, I have played, purchased and completed Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo 2 and Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec during their respective periods. I’m also an avid car guy and know my way around an engine. I loved all the previous titles in the series and was sure I’d enjoy GT4, but wasn’t at all hyped for it. I knew I’d pick it up eventually, play through it, enjoy it and be done with it. But time came for me to go pick up the much more personally-anticipated MVP Baseball (read my review here), when I saw it sitting on the shelf. Not really screaming for my attention, just giving me the ol’ wink and the gun, saying “Hey babe. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Let me know if you aren’t too busy with any of the other games you have and I’ll give you a good time.” No “XTREME” in the title, no flashy cover art, no misplaced celebrity endorsement… just pure, sexy Gran Turismo 4.
“What the f?” I said to myself, while thumbing through my wallet. “Gimme MVP Baseball for PS2 and oh yeah, GT4.” I didn’t want the salesman to realize my internal dialogue. “But MVP is a steal at only $30, so $80 for the pair is a good deal, even if it’s nothing special,” I assured myself. “…nothing special” would be my famous last words. Flat out, GT4 is the best sim racer I have ever had the pleasure to play. Best, because it is the total package. The game has three different modes available: Simulation, Arcade, and Photo Mode. Each is beautifully thought out, each wonderfully satisfying. Sure, GT4 has some faults and errors, but so does Heidi Klum and that doesn’t stop her from being wonderfully satisfying too.
Like in previous outings, Sim mode is the proverbial meat of the game. You have your Sunday Cup, your FF/FR/MR Cups, etc. This is why I initially felt GT4 would be nothing but more of the same. GT3.5. Good, great even, but done before. Starting off, GT4 should feel the same, it should feel comfortable, but then I began to discover the differences, subtle and blatant alike. First and foremost, the physics are the most remarkable feature of the game. Every car just feels “right,” and when you’re a car guy, the feel is the reason you love cars in the first place. The exotics are blindingly fast and deftly responsive, while the muscle cars are fast as well, but fat in their control. Don’t think you’ll drive your AC Cobra headlong into the Seattle hairpin and whip that bitch around the turn without trouble. Sim mode is also much, much deeper and much, much more demanding. I estimate I put a solid 50 hours into Sim mode alone, and as of writing this review, I am not close to being done. In fact, I am only 43% done and still have rally racing, ice racing, a few more endurance races and all the license tests to get gold in (which won’t happen).
A helpful and welcome addition to GT4 is B-Spec mode, where instead of driving the car yourself, you can let the AI driver (who gets more skilled with time) pilot the car while you tell him how hard to drive the car. On a value of 1-5, you can tell him to just cruise along, maintaining a steady pace and being mindful of tricky corners, or you can push him to go balls-out while taking little care for keeping the car on the proper line the whole time. 5 will get you to the front, but only if he doesn’t spin off the track, which is more likely the harder you push him to drive. B-Spec also features a time-elapse feature where you can speed up time by 2x or 3x to make a long endurance race go faster. I even left my AI driver on the Nurburgring endurance overnight, being sure to set him on a steady 2 pace. The AI will even pit automatically as tire wear or gas becomes an issue.
Arcade mode is where you can just pick up and race and is exactly like GT3’s, but here is where one of the minor faults of the game arises. While you can use cars from your Sim garage, they don’t come equipped with any of the modifications you made. Not that big of a deal at all, just more of an odd omission. Other than that, Arcade mode is very familiar and plays just like GT3’s Arcade mode.
The Photo mode is the diamond-in-the-rough of GT4. You use a simple, easy to use interface to take digital photos of any of your cars on any number of pre-chosen locals, or pause a saved replay and take a picture in a race. It sounds like a nice addition at first, almost a bonus feature, but Photo mode is absolutely addicting. Because GT4 boasts such impressive physics, you get hundreds of chances to flex your digital driving skills, but you have never been able to explore any of the artistic prowess of the game, other than enjoying replays. Images can either be saved to the memory card, at a file size of ~100k, or if you have a compatible USB pen drive, you can save your photos there, with an increased file size of ~200k – 300k. Many gaming-related message boards already have galleries of photos submitted by members, some even have contests. I will be disappointed if Photo mode doesn’t make it into GT5 for whatever reason, as it feels like it should have been a standard feature from the beginning.
Among the many deep and rewarding modes of GT4, there is a single two ton elephant that is sorely missing from the room – online racing. Initially promised years ago when development started, the online racing feature was ultimately scrapped after a handful of delays couldn’t remedy lag issues. Apparently, the online mode would have just taken too long to implement correctly, so the team moved ahead and put out the game, promising the possibility of an online expansion disc within a year or so. To be fair, a nice LAN mode did make it into the game and works wonderfully. You can even go online via tunneling software, but its not the same without official leader boards, weekly racing series, and so on. Also, GT4: Mobile for the PSP, an almost direct port of GT4, is slated to have Wi-Fi multiplayer, so you might not have to wait until GT5 on the PS3 to be able to go head-to-head with friends over the internet.
In a further effort to push the boundaries of realism, PD teamed up with Logitech once again to release a force feedback racing wheel that features a full 900 degrees of rotation. Upon writing this review, I have not received my wheel, but I promise a follow-up article as soon as I do get my hands on the wheel. In the meantime, everything I have heard about the Driving Force Pro wheel has been aces the whole way – responsive, tight and a lot of fun to use.
Gran Turismo 4 exceeded all my expectations, minus the whole online thing. Online racing would have been nice, but if PD couldn’t get it to work without lag, I wouldn’t want it anyway and it would only hurt the review. I review the game, not what the game “could have been.” In short, GT4 is brilliant, engaging and wholly fulfilling in every way. If you are a fan of the previous three Gran Turismo titles, I encourage you to go out and enjoy Gran Turismo 4. If GT4 will be your first venture into sim racing, hold on, strap in and protect any valuable reproductive organs, as you’ll be blown away. It pushes the boundaries of realism and sim racing, while retaining the essential core of the franchise that has been built over the last 8 years. You won’t find a better value.
