Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)

I bought this game the day it came out and played endlessly, then, when more or less complete, lent it to a friend and of course never saw it again. That is until last week when it was suddenly returned out of the blue, so, two years after release I thought I'd write a retrospective review having picked it up again for the first time in an age...

Firstly, the graphics are literally awesome, even now two years on, okay so the frame rate does not get up to the speeds of say the Burnout series but nonetheless they are crisp and impressive. The car choice is also incredible, as is the choice of race types, upgrades and special events. The load times between screens is slow though.

Progress through the game is also slow, you pretty much have to complete all the licences first (if you press down on R3 at the start of each test you do get a guide line though so pretty easy - maybe 2 hours if yer good), not just so you can enter all the race types, but also so you can build up your car collection free of charge. Then you have to get to know the cars and how they drive, not to mention the courses, which can take ages too. However it is all very gratifying, for instance, whilst it may seem at first that the cars all handle badly, that would actually be bad driving, patience and you can find the best way to get any given vehicle through a course quickly, Panda or Skyline.

Okay, its not a pick up and blast game like Burnout, TOCA, N4S e.t.c, its a simulator which rewards patience and skill, and as has always been the case, GT4 is the king of driving games, well, until GT5 that is...

this is Gran Turismo! what more can I say? To the millions of people out there it only mean perfection! And thats what the latest delivers! People can say about how none of the cars handle perfectly, but they do, have you ever driven your car at these speeds? And then gone and accuratly measured its performance? because thats what the makers of GT4 have done! OK there could be more cars, more tracks, and yes compared to some pc games the gfx are lacking, but this is on a PS2 system, and this system is over 5 years old and its tech specs havent changed! So if you really think about it the makers are really stuck for improvements due to the lack of system capability, the system isnt powerful enough to handle more than 6 cars, and the AI, and photo realistic cars and scenery all at the same time! but they've done a damn good job at trying!

The graphics are second to none! the tracks do look amazingly detailed anyway, and yes the technology is there to make it photo realistic, don't get me wrong, but its the PS2's capabilities that let the game down, the cars look amazingly detailed, although if you look closely you can see that some of the cars dont have drivers, and the wheels arent amazingly detailed it is still an amazing acheivement! the light effects on all the models in the game is also amazing and does look very realistic, ok you wont go round noticing all these little details but it does add to the atmosphere which is something you do notice! And amazing IT IS!

The pure number of tracks is amazing, although the actual number is nearer 40 in total (including the short and long versions) there are about 50, no game offers so many tracks in such high detail! and the number of cars is amazing too, the game classes itself to have over 700 cars but this again is nearer to 500 as many of the cars race models are included, so technically there are over 500 DIFFERENT cars and over 700 total cars and in this 500 cars they range from the ford model T to the landrover concept version later to be realeased after the games realease! there are cars in all ages going from 1800's to the future!

Many people criticise the gran turismo about the cars which it does include in the game, so i'll try and settle this score, most people notice that porshe, ferarri and lamborghini are not included in the game (personally it doesnt bother me as i dont particually like these cars myself) this is because of gran turismos popularity belive it or not, since the series' realease around 2000 the car companies found that GT made for great advertising and increased car sales (no joke) and so allow their cars to be in the game with out GT paying for liscencing, where NFS does have to pay car companies for the rights to use their cars in the game, the exception to this are lamborghini and ferarri and GT doesnt see the point in paying for liscencing and so hapily does without these manufactures. Porshe is a different story, back in the day EA (the publishers of NFS:porshe challange) made a deal with porshe so that only EA games can use porshe! so for leagal reasons GT cant include porshe, but does include RUF, a company which modify porshes sooo much that legally there a different car! Some people may also notice that GT5 does also include ferarri!

The driving and handeling is amazingly realistic too, this is a driving simulator, so you have to drive properly and not like NFS, real life features of driving such as traction, momentum and air-resistance have been perfectly modeled, and have to be taken into account when driving the cars around the tracks, yes it does take a lot of getting used to, but at the end of the day its as real as it ever could be on the PS2, i feel thst GT4 does get a lot of unfair critisism on this point purely because some people dont seem to realise that its impossible to take a hairpin at 200 in real life!

Although most of GT4's flaws can be overcome purely by advancing technology and the GT5 on the PS3 WILL have overcome most of these issues there are some that are REAL issues which do flaw the game, but only slightly!
1. not all people notice so its not too much of a problem more of a niggle, most of the cars in the game are japanese! and it would e nice to see more EU/USA cars!
2. this 5 second penalty is a little bit harsh meaning sometimes you can end up with the penalty when you are hit by other cars! although this penalty is only included in a small ammount of races so its not something that becomes a big issue!
3. also todo with no.2 the fact that the penalty isnt included in more races, as it does mean that you can collide with other cars on a corner and send them into the side while you dont leave the track, i personally dont do this as i regard it as cheating but i have seen many friends do this and i would like to see it figured out for GT5
4. the rallies are soo much more difficult to drive, ok this is just me being a bad driver about this and i will admit that i can't drive off road, but i would like to see the handeling more like that for GT3 for the rallies
5. the tyres do wear out unrealisticly fast, 8/9 laps for most tracks on med tyres and 5 nurnurgring laps, i do wish they would increase the difference between the supersoft and super hard tyres! ideally i would like to see the med tyres reaching around 20 laps on the normal tracks (the nurburgring is soo amazingly long that it does wear out tyres much more per lap)

over all I (and millions of other people) feel that this game is perfection on ps2! and GT5 will be a million times better, I dont like people who say about how bad this game is when they clearly dont understand what makes a game, and yes, not everyone will like this game, but just because you dont like it doesnt make it bad does it? i'd advise anyone to give it a try at least, a long enough try to get used to it, give it a chance... after all it is the biggest game on PS2 and possibly ever!

Having played all previous versions of Gran Turismo before this one (other than GT Concept), I was expecting this version to be even better than GT 3, which is my current favourite. And I am glad to say that it delivers, in my opinion, slightly better value for money. Usually, I would end this review here, but since no game is perfect, it does have its pro's and con's, so I shall start with the pro's:

Choice: once again the choice of cars that you can get is still impressive; Some 500 new and used cars to choose from. Although it is worth remembering that you probably wont ever use every single car there is. Also, I question why some manufacturers are in the game and others are not, such as Daihatsu instead of Ferrari.

Graphics: for me this is the biggest improvement over time. Remembering back to the first incarnation of Gran Turismo, the cars barely resembled their real life equivalents, but now there is a feeling of realism in terms of the graphics. And it's not just the cars either. The tracks are amazingly accurate and are drawn in impressive detail, and the pit stops are vastly improved over what they were in the first versions of Gran Turismo.

Realism: this is quite a controversial part on the game as I have seen reviews commenting on under steer at slow speeds, and cars that wont power slide easily. And I will admit when I first tried the game, I agreed with these comments. But over time, I learnt to follow the racing line more accurately and that throwing a car into a corner wouldn't get me very far. And after all, if this is supposed to be the most realistic driving simulator going, then the cars must be this bad!!!

And now for the bad points that can be a bit frustrating at times and I suspect that many people who have played the game would agree with:

The five-second penalty: for me, this is the worst part of the game. This penalty only applies if you are racing on a Special Conditions race or on a driving mission. If for instance you were going around a sharp corner and you hit the outside wall too hard, you would be given a five second penalty, which is fair enough for me. You would also be given a penalty if you hit a car too hard, which is also fair. But what I don't find fair is when you are going around a corner NORMALLY, and the car following you, crashes into the back of you too hard, any YOU get the penalty. (?????).

The AI: Sony claim that this is the most advanced Gran Turismo yet for the competition. Well I'm sorry to say that it isn't. In fact, it is as advanced as the first incarnation for AI to be honest. (Which isn't a lot). If you are looking for a game where other cars will push you hard and give you a challenge, look elsewhere.

Progression: If you are looking for a game that can be completed in a few weeks, once again, look elsewhere. Gran Turismo games have always taken a long time to complete, and this one is no different. This is a game that rewards patience and skill, but in all fairness, it is a bit too long, and it can get boring if you are playing it for hours on end.

So in conclusion, this newer version does still have it enough to sway me over from the likes of the Burnout series, but its still not quite there for me. So I shall be waiting for the long awaited release of GT5, when it eventually comes out!