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.

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!!!!

This game is how you do driving games. So many things about it lead me to give it a ten out of ten rating.

Let's start with the graphics, whilst not nearly the most important thing in a game, the graphics in this are the best graphics on any console this generation (ps2/gc/xbox) and I think will stay that way.

The circuits, wow... the circuits? Just... wow... how do they do it. There are numerous real world circuits like the famous Nurburgring Nordscheiffe and there are city circuits for new york and London. There are rally circuits and even F1 circuits. The best circuits however, are the custom ones. They are so memorable, each circuit is memorable, the most memorable circuit is possibly the mountain one, where there is a long straight with overhanging trees above creating a beautiful shadowy area where the light shines through so slightly, at the end of the straight you emerge into the sunlight for a moment, before turning into a tunnel.

The cars, I could go on all day, you can buy pretty much every car you've ever seen. They pretty much have them all here, right down the Mercedes Benz "horseless carriage" from the late eighteen hundreds. All the classic vintage cars from the DeLorian from back to the future to the latest Audi TT, from touring cars to race cars to F1 cars. You can upgrade the cars too and fully customise the suspension and drive-train and the game is so realistic that it mirrors real life with its precision.

Everything is pretty much spot on right down to the way the cars lose horsepower very very slowly once the mileage gets high. Changing oil and even washing the car can make all the difference to races.

The races, well the races are there, from specialised races to each brand, right down to pickup truck races and endurance races lasting up to 24 hours. Also in this game is the new b-spec mode which lets a computer controlled driver do the driving while you manage it through an interface, adding a sort of strategy to it.

There's everything you could possibly want out of a driving game in this game, everything. There is nothing I would change, I mean that wholeheartedly, I have thought about it, and with the exception of adding in licenses for Ferrari and Lamborguini, this game is missing nothing whatsoever.

The best part of this game is the realism it imparts to the driving experience. The game has a range of cars spanning over 100 years and over 1000 HP (starting at 1 hp). It has tracks ranging from simple to complex monsters (accurately based on the real life Nurburgring in Germany.) Tracks can be tarmac, dirt, ice, snow, wet tarmac and sometimes a mix. It has driving licenses which help you learn to drive better in the game (I've passed them all, but not gotten perfect in more than half...) It has room for 1000 cars in your garage (I'm at about 800) There are plenty of races that are snap easy, medium, or difficult, short or long.

Most cars can be modified by adding suspension, drive-train and engine upgrades.

So there is a lot of variety in this game. You are not stuck driving one of 10 cars or something, though some races restrict your options to one or more cars, but that is just for that race or series of races.

Above all it's the physics that drives this game above the field. A nice selection of cars is nice, but the feel for the road is the best thing this game has for it.... As the car accelerates or decelerates, you can see the car lunge or dip on screen. As the wheels start slipping, you hear it, and if you don't correct it, you might just loose it. As you hit a depression in the road or crest a hill too fast, the tires loose grip a little, and it just might be enough to spill. Just like real racing, the driver must know the road and the car. Knowing and staying in the limits is vital to racing at your full potential.

This game is NOT an arcade game where you just floor the gas and steer. This game requires you to be more subtle than that. As it's not an arcade game, it won't be for everyone. Even those who don't like driving (like me) may really enjoy the game, as you can get the feel of the race, with out the risk (to your life and property...)

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.