Gran Turismo

Zx Spectrum, Sega Master System, PS1,2,3,4... that's my history.. Car games - always my favourite.

I love cars, couldn't drive til 93 - so I'd play car games!

Why is GT so good? Simulator The choice of bloomin cars!!! The noise The graphics The Replays - what?! Replays?!?! The tracks.......

Hands down - the best ever roadcar video game (series) bar none...oh the hours spent enjoying this game...love it!

Before GT, most racing games were below average. GT set a new benchmark for the rest of the industry to follow, and have followed up really well with GT2 AND 3. If you have a Playstation 1, this is a game you really must own. 10/10

When I bought this game I was so interested and fascinated that I played it for 2 weeks continuously. Now, a year later with about 1000 driving hours I´m still playing it. I´ve never before played a game with such motivation in the single and multiplayer mode. It´s simply brilliant and the makers of this masterpiece know how to utilize the PSX and what game design really means.

Recently I saw a demonstration of Gran Turismo for PSX 2 which is able to represent 66 million polygons per second. Although it was calculated in realtime it looked like the intro of the old Gran Turismo, almost real. I hardly wait to play it.

I´ll try to enumerate the positive aspects of Gran Turismo

The realtime graphics and the intrographics are very good, especially the graphics of the cars. You can even see the springs of the cars and rotation of the wheels. I suppose it isn´t possible to create a better graphic representation on this console. The graphics of Ridge Racer 4 is a little bit better but the physical driving capacities are not so accurate and you can see only one car at a time. I personally prefer the game design of Gran Turismo because interesting game capacities are more important than a small improvement in the graphics.

The physical driving conditions are calculated with absolut accuracy. Even if you have a lot of driving experience you have to learn to drive at least 10 hours before you are be able to so well. Perhaps it is a little bit laborious but you´ll have motivation for months and the driving experience is very dynamic and interesting.

The idea of finishing 3 different driving tests is absolutely brilliant. It is very important to pass these tests because you learn step by step to improve your driving competence and you are allowed to play tournaments on a higher level. This is absolutely necessary if you want to have any chance to win.

The idea of buying new cars and improving them is brilliant as well. There´s a lot of motivation because you are only able to win in higher tournaments when you own a fast car and because you have to learn the different driving capacities of cars ranging from a little 100 HP family car to a 600 HP racing machine.

After a race, you can watch it again in different video positions. It´s interesting and important to realize your driving faults or to see unfair driving maneuvers from your opponents (or from you).

Evaluation 10/10

Gran Turismo is, and will always stand as a classic. The game has better graphics than most other driving games, it has tons of cars and excellent gameplay. The game itself will take you months to complete, earning money by winning races to buy new and more powerful cars to race against the big boys. It is all very addictive and will keep you glued to your playstation for months. If you haven`t got this classic game you should pick it up right away. There really isn`a single excuse not to buy this since it is really cheap now. 10/10

Before this you had basic arcade style racing games that felt fast and jerky and handled nothing like a car really would and then Gran Turismo arrived on PS1. What a game. The slick feel, the creativity, the graphics and gameplay were all amazing and next level. This game paved the way for proper simulation games and at the time blew all competition away. If you were lucky enough to have this delivered by Santa on Christmas morning you were truly happy that day!