Gran Turismo 4

The first time I ever played a Gran Turismo game I was in the computer science department of the University of Montreal. Some students had hooked up their Playstation to a classroom projector and I played a couple arcade races on a HUGE screen. After that night, I didn't touch GT until some friends of mine bought it and showed me the Simulation Mode. I was so impressed by the idea that I had to get myself a copy. It didn't take long for me to be impressed by the large amount of things to do.

As much as I loved the GT1, I played GT2 once, and only once. The differences between the sequel and its predecessor were just too small for me to be impressed. If there WERE more significant differences, they were not apparent quickly enough for me to get a feel for them. When Gran Turismo made its leap into the current console generation, I got to play a demo of GT3 at Siggraph 2001. Again, I enjoyed the brief experience, but the graphics weren't enough to reel me back in, and by then my memories of GT1 were so blurry that I never had any reason to dig deeper into the game.

About a month ago I bought a copy of Gran Turismo 4 without even trying it. It was a spur of the moment kinda purchase, which is rather typical of me. I can honestly say that was a great move. After several hours of gameplay, and a couple licenses, it's like I've learned how to play it all over again. I had forgotten how much fun GT can be. In fact, I had gained the false impression that something BUGGED me about the gameplay. I'm a big time drift freak when it comes to racing/driving games, and controlled drifts are quite a challenge in Gran Turismo. That's actually a GOOD thing, although I couldn't remember why.

Gran Turismo's driving engine puts alot of emphasis on weight transfer. You can't just hit the brakes as you enter a curve and expect to corner it perfectly because you won't have enough weight on your front wheels. You really have to brake early enough to maximize your car's handling. Rear wheel drive cars have the added challenge that if you start accelerating too early, you'll spin out because all your weight will be on the front wheels as you burn rubber. This makes the driving experience very different from other driving games where going through a hairpin curve can be as easy as hitting the handbrake.

Simulation Mode takes this tight driving system and slaps a nice little "career mode" onto it. The things you do off the track are just interesting enough to keep the endless cycle of "Win races, get money, upgrade car, win more races, get more money..." from getting boring. Of course, if you have a clear cut preference for arcade style controls that are very forgiving, you'll probably hate this game. Otherwise, it's worth at least a rental.