Gran Turismo 4

Honestly, it appears that modern games makers believe nobody is going to notice how the game feels rigged against the human player if they keep said human player adjusting a million different settings to get a level of performance that is automatically bestowed upon the computer players. Sure, the game makes a big boast about how real it all is, but that's just the point. If I wanted real, I would go and drive a Holden Commodore at 100+ kilometres an hour down a Sydney highway. Real is not fun. Repeating the same race over and over is not fun. It's boring. It is a sad call on modern video games when the only driving game that improves on the fun of eight-bit magic like Pit Stop or Pole Position is the original PC version of Carmageddon.

To be fair, some of the game starts out vaguely challenging. Learning how to keep on the road with the sluggish controls is distracting for an hour or two. The problem is that as the game progresses, nothing improves. One does the same races again and again to add pieces to a car, ostensibly so it will drive faster and handle better. Then they lose their patience as the CPU's cars seem to drive 50 km/h faster, and seem to turn easier too, since they never go off the road at these speeds that will have your car spinning all over the place. Can we say "unfair advantage" or "computer assist"?

Second to the actual driving as a severe annoyance in Gran Tourismo 4 is the music. To be fair, the jukebox selections try very hard to be varied, but the small number of songs available does annoy after a while. In a roster numbering barely some five dozen or so songs, the number of techno, retard-noise tunes in it should be either zero or negative. Negative meaning the kind who can actually do something with this genre, such as Aphex Twin or Ministry. Oddly enough for a driving game, and one that claims to be *the* driving game, no less, Motörhead is nowhere to be heard.

Not having played the arcade version of the game at all, I won't comment on whether it is worthwhile playing with more players. However, if the meaning I get in my mind when we hear the word arcade applies here, it can only be an improvement. When I think arcade, the so-called realism that gets in the way of the fun quotient is stripped down or left out. Given that a few turns at playing Crazy Taxi was what convinced me to purchase a Sega Dreamcast many moons ago, I guess one can guess that I don't care how much it feels like real driving. In fact, my experiences of real driving mean that if I play a video game that involves driving, the less it feels like real driving, the better. Since I cannot even use this jerky, uncontrollable car to run people over, Gran Tourismo 4 winds up being as much fun as being beaten repeatedly with a rubber cricket bat.

Since I have to have a minimum number of lines, I will also tell you that if you think having fun involves moving in predetermined patterns, then you will love this game. Get one thing wrong, and you've basically wasted your time as well as effort. It doesn't matter if you're beating the computer opponent by a comfortable margin - walking outside the line will be penalised. Like I said, Carmageddon was a hell of a lot more fun than this.

Being a car nut, I was looking forward to this game very much. After several delays, it has finally come out and is well worth the wait. The variety and range of cars is amazing! There are many different kinds including compacts, classic muscle cars, exotics, luxury sedans, and even pickup trucks. There are even a couple of cars from 1886. (No, that's not meant to say 1986.) The tracks are nice too. Along with the city courses, most of which are realistically recreated, are several real racetracks (including the highly challenging Nurburgring) and several of the original tracks the series is known for. In the cities, many of their landmarks are easily visible during the race. On the rally courses, there are actually guys who stand in the track, take pictures of your approaching car, then scurry out of the way.

As for the soundtrack, there's more good variety. I've driven exceptionally long endurance races (some as long as 8 hours, or more) with the default soundtrack set up and it took two hours for the music to cycle around. What played in that two hours was nicely chosen. I heard some good new songs from Jimmy Eat World, The Donnas, Jet, Chronic Future, Dirty Americans, and Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers. Also, I heard some nice older tunes from Judas Priest, Yello, and Van Halen. Everything else was at least worth listening to.

There's also an oddity new the series in this game called B-Spec. With this new mode, you can let the computer drive for you while you manage its pace, tell it when it's okay to pass opponents, and when to go into the pits. This can easily make many of the longer endurance races more manageable.

Recommending this game to car nuts with a PS2 seems almost useless because they most likely have this game already.

This fourth instalment is my favourite in the GT series. Wonderful graphics, hundreds and thousands of cars to choose from, numerous tracks (road and rally) to race on and great background music all combine to make GT4 a unique and superior car racing video game.

As with the other GT games, you cannot damage the vehicles whatsoever, although the pit stop is as realistic as you can get, and you now have the option of refuelling, choosing which tyres to change, as well as having your oil checked! The other three GT games were seriously flawed as far as this was concerned.

I love this game immensely, but I wish the AI cars would alter their racing line at times because they just seem to try and force you off the track....And why is there only one rival in a race when driving with the roof down in a convertible?

As its predecessors, the objective of the game is more or less the same: race and win in GT mode to unlock new vehicles, tracks and cheats etc. The newly introduced B-spec mode is also weak, but GT4 is still a game to put a very big smile on your face!

Sure, Gran Turismo 4 doesn't have drifting, or boost, or the easiest computer in the world, but for the real racing (and not only in video games) fan, this is a long and rewarding game.

You start off driving cars from Peugot and Autobianchi (???), and later on you move on to more competitive cars like Ford and Mazda. As you progress, the stakes get higher and more bigger rewards mean cars like an Aston Martin or a Bentley. There are over 600 cars cars in the game (with A lot of different models of the same car), and every car feels different.

When you are driving a heavy with a lot of horsepower, you can feel how it is hard to stop, turn and accelerate. When you are driving a light car with low horsepower, you'll find that stopping is easier and turning is easier, but it is much harder to accomplish high speeds in the long straight roads. Now there are two ways to go once it gets to the big races: 1.The heavy car that follows other cars up until it takes over in the straight road 2.The light car that falls behind other cars in the long road, then makes up for it with sharp, fast turns. I, for one, worked on and upgraded a car so that it is extremely light and very fast as well.

For some people, this may be very frustrating and annoying game. And without learning how to play the game properly, it should be. The most frustrating thing in the game is the turning. With no help from the license tests, it takes a long time to master turning and customizing your gears and stuff (but only if you want to).

All in all, this is a very beautiful game with nice level environments and a long lineup of cars, including the Nike car and the Jay Leno Junkyard car. There are a few cool features like the car wash and oil changes. Although, I did have a problem with the difficulty in some races and the (optional) 2 hour to 24 hour races. As mentioned before, this is a very rewarding game, following the patience and sometimes sheer mastery of the player. Gran Turismo 4 is a buying game, not a renting game, but I do suggest renting it first to see if it is the right game for you.

Is it just me, or are there missing some very important cars? In Gran Turismo 2 there were cars like the Ford GT90, Lotus Esprit GT1, Lotus Elise GT1, BMW 8-series and manufactures like Vector and Venturi. There were also a Lambo Diablo GT in the Japanese version of Gran Turismo 3. Somehow they all disappeared in GT4!!! Perhaps they will be there in Vision Gran Turismo? But some cars are still missing: Mercedes Benz C111 from 1979 (first concept car that went beyond 250 MPH!), Bugatti EB110 from 1991 (first road car with 4 turbos!), Bugatti Veyron (first road car that whet beyond 400 KPH!) and I could go on for hours...

Kazunori Yamauchi says that he is a big fan of cars, but perhaps he's a big fan of Japanese cars? Is it really necessary to have so many versions of the NSX, the Skyline GT-R, the Supra and so on? There is only one version of the CLK Touring Car, one version of the C9, one version of the TT-R Touring Car. Let's hope that the PS3 and the use of Blu-ray disc will solve all this (I believe that the lack of power and storage is the reason?) And by the way.. get those car licenses for Ferrari, Porsche and all the other missing manufactures. It would be cool to drive an Enzo around Nürburgring

All in all, GT4 IS A GREAT GAME, but it could be greater!!!!