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Drive, look at pretty pics, do annoying license tests. Trying to be objective these days is becoming impossible. Here’s a game that’s been doing the rounds of the internet chatter circuit for nigh on 4 years, and now it’s out in the wild can it possibly live up to the hype? Well in short yes, aaaaaand no. Can I go home now? What, you want to know more about it? Damn! Given its name you should, of course, have some idea of the deal here – especially if you have any semblance of knowledge of the other three. Let’s ignore the 20 quid, “keep the punters at bay for a year” Prologue version, shall we? What we can expect from a Gran Turismo game is this; a glut of cars you can buy (or win); some men from KwikFit with nice parts and tools to make those cars go a bit better; lots of tarmac (or gravel, or snow) to drive them on; and some wee challenges to keep you occupied from here ‘til eternity. All of those boxes are duly ticked in GT4, but this time the sheer amount of it is almost too overwhelming.
An initial evening of driving very slow cars round bits of corners and following a car round a racing track is all very well, and although I can sort of see the point you do wonder if you’re actually learning much. There does appear to be a test missing though, that of using other cars as brakes when entering a corner too fast. Maybe the PS2 needs to do some licence tests as well because it clearly hasn’t mastered the art of racecraft. Not all of the tests are as “interesting” as this, though. Take the Graduation Test, for instance. Simple really. Drive the Nissan Group C Sports Car with 800bhp down the 'old' Mulsanne Straight at La Sarthe, Le Mans (nearly 4 miles and no silly modern chicanes), then brake stupidly late at the end and follow the rest of the course to the finish line. It sounds easy enough until you find yourself bouncing off the rev-limiter at 233mph trying to keep the thing pointing in a straight line. And boy does it feel like 233mph as you rumble down this part-time race track over ripples in the road that seem like waves in the ocean. I had to do it about 15 times before I nailed it, but boy did I enjoy every single one of them. The sense of speed is simply scary!
You do have to wonder how many people really want to race ‘People Carriers’ around the fantastic Laguna Seca circuit though (one of the early Licence Tests has precisely this little gem). Because, let’s face it, for most of us the chance to drive fast and expensive cars around the world’s best racetracks is the compelling reason for playing a Gran Turismo game. I’m not suggesting the technical achievement of simulating 20+ variations of the Subaru Impreza isn’t something to be in awe of, but of the 700 cars, how many do you really want to race? Talking of technical achievements, high praise must be given to how flipping lovely this game looks. Sure a well-specced PC can probably do better, but we’re talking here about a 5-year-old console you can pick up for 100quid. It matches, or rather betters, Project Gotham Racing 2 on the Xbox.
The detail and realism of the tracks is truly breathtaking. Driving the tortuous 13mile Nordschleife in Germany is staggeringly difficult but you still find yourself with a huge grin on your face as you battle manfully to stay on the road. With this beauty you can understand why those clever folks at Polyphony Digital added the Photo Mode aspect.
And it’s Photo Mode that is this games masterstroke - never before have so many hours been wasted not playing a game whilst playing a game. I spent 2 hours doing this one evening and it was only my second day with the game. Finally there’s a use for the USB port on your PS2 for something other than that Camera thing – plug a £20 memory stick in the front and save your finest moments to your PC. Gran Turismo 4 is a bit of a surgically enhanced dumb blonde. It’s big, not too clever, a bit of a looker and sometimes totally uncontrollable. But despite all this, she keeps me coming back for more. All signs point to “good”. April 2005
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