Gran Turismo 4: It's crack, pressed into a DVD

Gran Turismo 4 was, quite possibly, the most anticipated PS2 game of 2004. Too bad it didn't come out until 2005. (Japanese market not withstanding.) 750 cars. 51 tracks. With Forza Motorsport and Enthusia breathing down it's neck, Polyphony had to deliver. Well, they didn't actually. It could have been a blank disk and still sold a million copies on the name alone. Thankfully, Sony chose to actually give us something. Admittedly they dumped online so they can gouge fans who want that a second time, but I'm not one of them, so HA!

So, after all the hype and nonsense, was it worth it? Did Polyphony pull a rabbit from the hat? More importantly, was it a live, or a dead rabbit?

Gran Turismo 4 was, quite possibly, the most anticipated PS2 game of 2004. Too bad it didn't come out until 2005. (Japanese market not withstanding.) 750 cars. 51 tracks. With Forza Motorsport and Enthusia breathing down it's neck, Polyphony had to deliver. Well, they didn't actually. It could have been a blank disk and still sold a million copies on the name alone.

So, after all the hype, was it worth it? Did Polyphony Digital pull a rabbit from the hat?

When Gran Turismo 2 came out, I had an hour long trip to get the game. For Gran Turismo 4, I increased that, taking three times that long to get to the store and back. I still think it was worth it. Even if it did involve public transportation.

Gran Turismo, as if you didn't know, offers you a staggering array of vehicles. Ranging from the most ridiculously overpowered sports cars, right the way back to the first Benz carriages that had a staggering ONE horsepower. (Don't try and take them up hills.) The track selection is magnificent, too. With real tracks, fictional tracks, and tracks laid out around real roads in locations like New York and Paris. In short, you're bound to find at least one track you like. Of course, you will also find an arch nemesis dressed in asphalt and sponsor decals.

Let me state, before I go on, that I love this game. I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence it will be my game of 2005. I could spend the entire review writing glowing praise, but I've already said I love the game. So rather than do what every other review does, I will highlight the flaws, of which there are, sadly, a few.

The biggest flaw happens when you open up the box. The Japanese, from what I gather, got a spectacular manual. We get a crappy manual. In fact using the word "manual" to describe it could lead to allegations of fraud. Half of the pitiful booklet is advertisements or other nonsense. What little information is contained inside, is wrong in places. For example, in the B-Spec part, it says you can accelerate time up to 5X. It's actually 3X. A simple mistake, but one that should have easily been caught. There's also a total lack of information regarding some controls. No indication that, for example, pressing L1 on the main GT World screen automatically takes the cursor to your Home icon, or R1 dumping the cursor to the home country icon of your car. So if you happen to pick this game up used in a month or two, and it has no manual, don't worry. You're not missing a thing. A game as complex and deep as GT4 needs a decent manual. Sony should be ashamed. The move is, no doubt, to shift more copies of the obligatory strategy guide. Because God forbid you should spend $50 and actually get a decent manual with your game. No, it's your job to be fleeced again to find the information that you should have had in the first place. Very poor show. Rather than buy the guide, just go to GameFAQ's. Most of the information from the guides will be on there in minutes. Let's get together and put Prima out of business...

Now the next flaw. One that, luckily, didn't happen to me. That being the game flat out not working. The official line from Sony is GT4 uses parts of the PS2 never used before. There's some fancy dual layer mojo going on for example. This means if you have an older Ps2, you may not even be able to boot the game. Some machines just ignore the disk. Other systems get to the first screen, then die. Other people get the game working, only to suffer monstrous loading delays. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this either. It's a lottery. Given the return policy of some stores, I think I'd actually recommend taking your PS2 with you to the store to test it. Unless you're fine with possibly buying another Ps2 just or GT4. If you do encounter this issue, I'd recommend cleaning your PS2. I did that just for the hell of it the other day, and the system is running better all round.

Now, you've booted the game. What's this? Yep, more bloody idiotic license tests. You can import the two lower licences from GT3 if you've earned them there. If not, be prepared to be treated like a complete idiot who has never seen a car before. Then there's the later license tests. Maybe I expect too much, but When a video game license test, required to gain access to the higher level races, has harsher rules than any real world racing series, I think somebody needs to sit back and have a rethink about the design.

That same rethink is needed regarding the rally events. If you hit something, you get a five second penalty. Think that's bad? The game doesn't distinguish good or bad hits. On many occasions, the AI crashes into you, and you're given a penalty. Idiotic design. It's like saying "Here, you just messed up. So we're going to punish you, just to make your job that much harder." Bad design. A lot of people have written off the rally events as a bad idea because of this design.

Now you've completed the licenses. You complete 25% of the game, and gain access to the endurance races, where, among others, you'll see three 24 hour races. One at the Nurburgring, the other two at Le Mans. (One version with the chicane on Mulsanne, one without.) 24 hour races. An entire day. Can you save the game mid-race? Nope. You can switch from A-Spec (you driving) to B-Spec (the AI driving) and back, but in short, your PS2 is going to be on a very long time. There's also no day to night and back again transition.

Speaking of B-Spec, this is the much vaunted manager mode, where you tell an AI driver how much to push, when to pit etc... It's largely hands off. If you want to just sit back and do nothing, you can. It's fun to tinker with the settings though, see exactly what they do. However, the AI driver (which I've named "Stig", in honor of BBC's "Top Gear" TV show) is brain dead. How brain dead? He tries to overtake cars by driving through them. Seriously. It's painful to watch. When he comes up to pass cars, especially lapping them, the first move always involves driving straight into the rear of the car in front. Admittedly this does work sometimes, with the other car flying off the track. B-Spec is a fun mode to play with. In fact it's great for dealing with races you don't want to drive. (Like said endurance races.) It does, however, get very irritating to see your driver crashing into the opposition when he tries to pass them. Though it does generate moments of comedy on occasion. Like seeing my ridiculously overpowered 1967 AC careen into a Fiat 500 on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, and seeing said Fiat then accelerate to a speed far beyond what it can handle, and watching the AI panic.
 

Now, the graphics. I could go on and on about how gorgeous this game looks. It really does look stunning. I fired up Burnout 3 recently and the difference was amazing. Burnout, no slouch in the graphics department, and my game of 2004, looked a bit... Well, old really. GT4 has pretty much hit the upper limit of what the PS2 can do, and it shows. A common glitch experienced by most users is flickering. It happens when there's a lot of detail on screen. In short, the interlaced picture can't be updated quick enough, causing flickering. It's not that annoying. Just irritating. Supposedly, if your TV can support progressive scan, switching from interlaced to progressive scan fixes it, but, sadly, I don't have the hardware to test this. The flickering is more noticeable on replays, as the trackside camera quite often shows more detail than you'd see while racing. I found it a little more annoying on the replays, but the replays are still a thing of beauty.

Now after all this, you'd think the game sounds pretty bad? The fact is, the game is STILL fantastic, but these little annoyances take a bit of the shine off. It's like winning a gold medal, rubbing it, and discovering it's actually a silver medal covered in gold paint. Sure, you still have a medal, but it's not quite what you'd been hoping for. GT4 is a truly amazing achievement. If you are even remotely into cars, you will love this game. If, like myself, you're a racing junkie, this game will satisfy like a season ticket to the series of your choice. The AI has a few issues, but I've always felt the AI in GT drive a little like drivers in the British Touring Car Championship. In other words, bordering on psychotic.

So, is there anything in particular I really like about the game? Well I've not even touched on the much vaunted photo mode. The fact is all the pictures in this review were taken by me. I simply had to spend $10 on a USB thumbdrive to get them off the PS2. Bargain. As a graphics junkie, it's great to be able to mess around with the mode. I've taken a whole pile of pictures. To what end? It was a fun break from racing, and it beats playing with Photoshop.

Then there's the music. The biggest problem with games these days is the amount of crappy licensed music that has no relation to the game. (I'm looking at you EA!) The first thing I do in most games with licensed music is turn it OFF. In GT4, I turned the music off during racing, but left it on for replays. (The "sync" mode would be pretty pointless otherwise.) The selection of music is very appropriate in most cases. There's a good range of styles, and any time Joe Satriani and Yello are woven into the same game soundtrack, is a good time. There's also a selection of classical music, which was a very pleasant surprise. The best part is you can create your own playlists, so you only hear songs you like. Also included is some of the Japanese music, including the proper Moon over the Castle mix, used in the Japanese intro, and replaced by a crappy Van Halen song in the US release. Plus there's the music from opening and closing sequences of GT4 Prologue as well.

One final music comment: It was an act of sadistic genius to have Yello's "Oh Yeah" play when you fail a license test.

This game has eaten a massive chunk of my time. A major session of PS2 baseball (which will be documented for the first week of the season, here on the always lovely Joystiq) a couple of weeks ago not withstanding, GT4 has been a permanent resident in my PS2 since I got my sweaty little mitts on it. When I fire it up, do I want to race? Manage my AI driver? Kick back and watch some replays synced to the music? Take some pictures? Or simply trawl the car lots and drool over the cars? Very few games offer you such a vast experience. This past weekend I even got the 24 hours of the Nurburgring out the way. With accelerated time and my driving, it took 18 hours. PS2 didn't fail. We (as in me and "Stig") won by 12 laps. Of course it was with an overpowered car. The fact is, I don't want to have to do it again, so I figured annihilating the opposition was the only reasonable idea. For my trouble, I won a Formula Gran Turismo car, which is an F1 car in all but name. Nice.

In short, Gran Turismo 4 is fantastic. It was worth the wait. I don't care that there is no online play. The game is like a warm hug on a cold night. It's like an old friend. It's like getting to sleep with your high school crush ten years later, and finding out they really ARE every bit as good as the fantasy. In three words: Damn near perfection.

For all your GT4 needs, you can visit GTPlanet, linked below.