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Gran Turismo 4: Just Another Sequel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: January 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you're looking for something better than Gran Turismo 3 - keep looking. I've been playing GT4 for some time and I'm still disappointed.

I began hoping I could make enough money to keep racing through the game, without transferring the $100K from GT3 as GT4 allows. But I couldn't do it. Even though I'd gone through GT3 without such help, amassing millions of dollars and almost every car in the book, I bombed out in GT4, frustrated with winning bogus, completely useless prize cars like the Toyota Triathlon and Nike One - cars that can't be raced or sold, cars I suspect are in the game because somebody paid to have them included.

And don't believe all the hype about "better graphics" - what game dealers always spout to get you to buy a sequel like GT4. As far as my TV and eyes are concerned, GT4's graphics aren't any better than GT3's. Make no mistake, they're great and probably the best of any race game today, but I don't see any improvement. Likewise, "more cars and more tracks" was an frequent selling point before the release of GT4. But hey, GT3 had enough, so who cares?

Seems to me there are two reasons a company makes a sequel to a great game like GT3: 1) they actually found ways to significantly improve the game, or 2) they think they can make more money by fooling those who bought the previous version into thinking the sequel will be significantly improved. I think the GT4 folks chose the latter, cosmetically altering GT3 with a facelift and a couple implants, hyping it as GT4, the great makeover. But I liked GT3 for what she had on the inside, not the size of her, um, car list.

Yet even the cosmetics, such as the main screen where you find your way to your garage, tune shops, races, etc., fails. Instead of a simple list of these places, GT4 opts for a quirky map where you have to move your cursor along using the joystick, up, down, diagonally, step-by-step until you find your way to where you want to go. Why not just a 2D list you can move up and down through? Seems easier to me. I don't want it to play like a "Monopoly" board.

And for my final gripe, for the moment: the 1971 Plymouth `Cuda 440+6. This, folks, is my dream car. And I was lucky enough be around when they hit the streets. In fact, I had a '69 Road Runner myself. So I know how those babies sound. How disappointed I was when I finally got enough money to buy the `Cuda in GT4, only to discover my dream car sounded like a vacuum cleaner! Nothing like the real thing. Makes me wonder now about all the other car sounds. Just how realistic are they?

Well, I'm not saying don't buy GT4, even though for me it doesn't beat GT3. I'm saying you may want to wait another year until the price comes down, or maybe pick one up used, as I did, so you won't be so disappointed. I'll do the same for GT5.

GT 3 Expansion pack

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Is it just me, or does this game really feel more like an expansion pack for GT 3 A-Spec? Don't get me wrong, I love Grand Turismo and everything about it (other than the sometimes wretched AI and that damned Super License test!). We'll do a pros and cons comparison:

Pros:

Improved graphics
Many additional tracks
over 600 cars
ability to carry over stuff from A-Spec (100,000 credits, A and B licenses)

Cons:

Same old GT AI and the lack of damange models
No online support
A number of the vehicles that you win cannot be sold, which REALLY annoys me.

All in all, I give this a 4.5 stars. The realistic physics and sheer number of cars is fantastic. This game will keep you busy! And for all of you that complain about how hard this game is, stick to kiddie games like NFS: Underground. You obviously aren't skilled enough for GT4. This game takes finesse and an understanding of a car's handling characteristics. If you think you can take a hairpin at over 100 mph in real life, well...

THE GRAN-DEST TURISMO OF ALL !!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing racing games on various game systems for quite some time now and I've never come across a better series of games than Sony's "GRAN TURISMO". And this one, the fourth inCARnation is, without a doubt, THE BEST!!!

Why? Where do I begin? Ok, the cars. There are hundreds of them. From just about every car company in the world. Old classics like the Plymouth Cuda, Dodge Charger, Corvette Stingray, 1949 Volkswagon and, my favorite, the 62 Buick Special (with a top speed of 208 mph BEFORE tuning). And new vehicles like the Dodge Viper SRT, Plymouth Prowler, new Ford Mustang and many more! There are so many cars it will take you hours just to browse through them all. And do they look and drive great!

And the tracks ( 50 in all ) are wonderful to race on. All the tracks have been rebulit and it seems are much easier and more fun to race on then ever before. The corners are a bit easier. The walls have been pulled back in many cases giving you more room to turn. I love the New York, Yellowstone, Seoul South Korea and Hong Kong tracks.

The new B-spec mode is fun, too. You guide your driver through each race, telling him when to pass, to slow down, to cruise, drive steady, etc. It's a nice addition. It allows you to not have to race tracks you don't like or are having a tough time beating.

The photo mode is also nice but I could do without it. Still it's a pleasant enough deversion. And the replays are quite nice. The graphics are so nice I love watching the replays after each race ( something I don't usually do with many racing games ).

My one major complaint are the license tests. I HATE THEM!!! Come on, guys. Lets get rid of them for the next game. They are a waste of time. All the time I spend taking these dumb tests, I could be spending buying, tuning, and racing cars. Which is what I really want from a racing game. And, its just a feeling, but I feel everybody hates them, too. Well, at least you can transfer two of your licenses from GT3 to this game, as well as 100,000 credits. So that makes it easier to take. But still, I hate those TESTS!!!

There is also, of course, the arcade mode which is a lot of fun, too. There you will find many of the hidden cars that must be unlocked in sim mode (like the VW Beetle, Chevy Chevelle, etc) that can be played right from the start. Also in arcade mode now you can make minor adjustments to your car. You can change tires (soft, medium, hard), adjust the power, weight, etc. Its a great deal of fun. The whole game is. And as of this writing ( March 4th ) I've only completed 7% of the game. So I have a long way to go and I'm loving every minute of it. Well, almost every minute. Those darn TESTS!!!

To wrap it up, what are you doing still reading this? Go out and buy it and play it! It's a masterpiece!!!

Not Chrome but more of a good polishing

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: February 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Overall this is a very good game, but it may not be for everyone who just wants to jump in a car and drive fast. There are several others (NFS Series, TOCA, Ford Racing, Midnight Club series, Burnout Series,EA Nascar Series, and Project Gotham) that you can just jump in and learn the style of driving and compete. On the Arcade side you have cars that you can get in and go but most of the higher performance ones turn poorly on twisty tracks (Best one to use BMW M5 very fast and turns well) and with rolling starts it is difficult to catch the lead cars unless you have installed nitros or your car has the power to catch up. I think the more hardcore gamer\driving enthusist will enjoy the many aspects from the aquiring the cars, licenses, set ups it will require to play. But be forewarned if you get this for some it is not a piece of cake. You kinda have to learn this one. If you want to tweak the suspension, rear end, motor, exhaust, and other areas you have to be aware that you have to aquire a balance between the things you change as it will affect the cars behavior. For some it will take a lot of trial and error. I learned from GT3. It will keep you playing for months as there is a lot to do and is sure to be a PS2 Greatest Hit later on so if you want save the cashola!!

Now for those who are fans this one is more upgraded but it is the same game. There are no HUGE changes remaking to it really from GT3. It is basicly an upgraded of the GT3 template. The Graphics are almost flawless (some of the race crowds outside of the rally still look like cardboard cut outs with exception of one track I think it is Italy where streets are very narrrow and you can see the peoples heads turn as you go by. Take the time to watch the replays of your races it is amazing the amount of detail they came up with. I AM GLAD the Muscle cars are back but they still have problems getting variations of the High performance V8 engine sound right. Camaro, Chevelle, Mustang GT350, the GTO and a few other sound like V6's or hot 4 bangers. However the Cobra and GT40 Race car have got it down. Screens and menus have been upgraded and some you will have to get use to. Here are some strange things from this edition:

1. You have to pay 5 credits everytime you want to practice
2. You can't race the cars in your garage on the arcade side as well have a guest garage loaded and race.
3. Some Convertible cars have the option of racing with the top down and some don't give you that option (Dodge Viper). If they did it for some why not all?
4. If you race the Shelby Cobra or the AC in arcade with the top down, you only get one opponent not 5. If you put it up you get 5. Did I hear someone say glitch?
5. 17 individual tests to get each license (some are stupid)
6. Extremely low resale value when you want to sell a car. Buy a car for 35k, and it is worth 7k as soon as it hits your garage.
7. Too many cars that you wont even use an too many duplicate versions and years. As well some cars you win have no value and if you sell them you won't get anything for them.
8. NO ONLINE PLAY
9. Picture taking? I read that this is the one of the game designers passions along with racing. I think fans of this game would have rather had some more customizing options, different varity of wheels (not just the same ones from the last edition)and could'nt they have created some of their own or maybe even an option to paint the used car you can buy.
10. Damage could have been an option but this was not all up to the designer some of the manufactures would not give the rights to their cars if they could be damaged.
11. Blurry race start screens.
12. Rolling starts seem hard to catch race leaders.
13. In Series races you used to be able to qualify to gain a better race position, in this one you can't qualify and even if you lead the series with points you start in last place.
14. LAN Play? This is basicly the same as iLink with GT3 it still means you have to have as many players, TV's, and Consoles in the same room! I have read on the sony discussion board that it is difficult to set up and does lock up at times.
15. No color options on race cars (if you go heads up with the same car you have to pay attention to which one is yours. Would it have been too much to just reverse the same colors?)
16. On the GT side you have tire wear in almost every race
17. The only custom body option you can ad to an auto is a rear wing!
18. Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborgini what is the problem? You were in NFS Hot Pursuit 2 why not here? And on some other message boards I have heard that there have been a lot of people with newer PS2 machines that have problems getting the game to load. I hear it is a game programming problem not the with the new units. Check around for yourself.
19. When you watch a replay of your race you can only fast forward, pause, or end it no reversing or slo motion options.


I have been playing this for about a 10 days or so and I am sure there other things I have not found. Some of the new tracks are down right AWSOME and dare I say are the best part of my experience so far. That Nubruguring track is a monster!!! But use a slower car (Mini Cooper S) first to get used to the drive before you grab that 6 or 700hp car and drive flat out! Even with the strange things I have mentioned here it should not be enough to stop the true fan or good gamer from getting it and working through it. It is cool but may be frustrating for your average player or someone who just now wants to jump in. To be honest I had more outright FUN with Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2. I will also check out Forza and Enthusia racing when they come out.....

Gran Turismo 4 hits red light

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Guys, im sorry, but I must advise u about this.. Gran Turismo 4 has been delayed again..

Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that the Gran Turismo 4 release date has moved from December 3 to December 28. The company explains that the game had some unexpected tuning requirements that held up its release. Making the adjustments will cause the game to miss its previously allotted ship date.

Stateside, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) announced a new ship date for US gamers. Gran Turismo 4 moves from a ship date of December 14 to a ship date sometime in the January-to-March window of next year.

This mean.. WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT MORE AND MORE AND MORE AND MORE..WILL THEY NEVER RELEASE THIS AND BE CHANGING RELEASE DATE FOR EVER ?!!?

Prepare to be very tired

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: March 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

You really need to set yourself limits on this game. On the first night, I lost track of time and ended up playing until 2.30am. Not good at my age; I had the racetrack burned onto my brain. What drew me to upgrade from GT3 was realising they'd put on the entire 13 miles of the famous Nurburgring circuit. Driving this circuit in a little 1960s 800cc Honda sports car was an interesting way to assess how this is different from GT3.
First thing you notice is that it's not as easy, although you could always make GT3 harder by taking off the driver aids. But GT4 adds in some instability, which is something you never felt in GT3 and really keeps you on your toes. The little Honda gets very unstable at times! You also notice that it actually feels fast! GT3 never really did, but this is scary stuff, especially since hitting a wall or another car now gives you a real kick (everything goes blurry for a second - ouch). And the Honda being a drop top gives you chance to look at yourself, the driver, a GT4 first. There are other animated humans too, like the pit crew and spectators.
It's bang up to date: the new BMW 3-Series handles beautifully compared to the Honda, but once again, it's scary at 130mph on those awkward cambers of the Nurburgring. But I love th classics and the oddities, like little Daihatsu trucks (you'll need to work the engine hard just to get up some of the steeper hills), and vintage cars like the Model T. Many of these are accessible in the Arcade mode, just for fun, but to get the others you'll have to spend some serious time winning them.
It may be too much of a challenge unless you're a serious nut, that's my worry, but you can have plenty of fun before you have to get serious, even if it's just admiring the beautifully rendered cars.
The graphics, they say, are much better than before. At first I wasn't sure about this. But then I drove the wet night route around Paris and my jaw dropped. The amount of detail and life in this route is staggering, and the wet road looks superb. This part is very close to photo real. The snowy hills of Chamonix are remarkable too, and the new scenery has wonderful vistas, hills rolling for miles and miles. I forgot all about the race and just looked at the scenery the first time round. It may well be the new routes (the hillside town of Citta di Aria and the sparkling Island of Capri are also worthy of mention), the enhanced road surfaces, and now the proper sense that you are going uphill or downhill (that seemed to be oddly missing in GT3) that are the defining features.
I suspect that the limitations of the hardware put a stop to the kind of perfection that's no doubt possible, so you have to put up with the occasionally imperfect wheelarch, or odd looking panel on your new Lexus.
The span of the game is huge, the options almost endless. You could say that the thought of starting in GT mode is a little daunting, knowing how much time it will take up.
This is certainly the best driving simulation yet. Some will, rightly, regard it as a work of art. And by the way, it's also a game.

Where did the time go?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: April 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In order to be impressed by the graphics, you need a HDTV. Without one it's a touched up GT3, jaggies and all. The city tracks are nice to look at, but the actual race courses(laguna seca) are poorly done, especially considering there are only 6 cars per race. I didn't want to use the F word(I'm not even getting it), but the side-by-side video between GT4 and Forza's Laguna Seca is an eye-opener. The PS2 is capable of more than this.

To notice the physics differences, your going to have to have the $150 wheel. This is the only real addition worth buying the game for, but most people are going to skip it due to it being as much as a new console. The bottom line is the game in this day in age feels dated and wooden without the wheel. Now this doesn't apply if you didn't play the other GT's, but what the hell kind of racing fan hasn't.

The interface is pretty much the same as always. Sure some things like races are better organized, but they are just sprawled all over the place on the map. And you know that little Garage icon from earlier GT's. Say goodbye to that.

For all the delay hoopla, nothing meaningful was done except PD playing around with obscure japanese cars. No online play, AI or damage will mark the GT series' downfall. Enthusia, nevermind inevitably forza, might take the crown away this year. Unless you meet the far-fetched criteria needed to see changes, you are better off passing on this game.

Still the Best

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Do not get this game if you're impatient or just looking for some casual arcade-type racing. GT4, like the previous versions, is a far more immersive and detailed experience. If you are interested in things like power-to-weight ratios, suspension travel, back pressure, power bands, chassis rigidity, etc., this is for you. GT4 takes enormous amounts of time to get into. Decide if that's what you want.

The biggest difference I notice from GT3 is that the cars seem heavier, or, to put it another way, the brakes seem less effective, at least in stock configuration. I am having to re-learn all the braking points I learned in the previous game, since it seems to take longer to slow for turns. No longer can you simply stand on the gas until just before the turn, stomp on the brakes for about one second, and glide through corner. This technique will have you spending most of your time in the sand traps.

One final thing I will say in response to some of the reviews here -- if the series ever begins to include NASCAR I will no longer be interested. I am not impressed with the inclusion of trucks. The fact that trucks are here in GT4 means I will never have 100% game completion. Still the best if you like to fantasize about driving sports cars.

Since I originally wrote this review I have run the truck race. Surprisingly, it was OK. I never thought I would like the muscle cars that much, but I got a Chevelle SS 454 and had a blast in the muscle car races. Still, I sincerely hope never to see a NASCAR element in this series.

Overall, the physics engine seems more realistic, and you can definitely notice subtle differences between each car. Just like the previous GT games this one is great fun for gearheads, car lovers, etc.

Pretty pictures; mediocre game design

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played this about 50% through, and there is an abiding sense of frustration with the execution of the game. The things it does well (graphics, multitude of cars, more tracks, etc.), it does extremely well.

The things Gran Turismo 4 does poorly, however, are numerous; and those things suck big wind. Most of the new features (photo) don't add anything to the enjoyment, and some (b-spec) seem to be a cover for extremely poor game design (overly long endurance races).

Without trying to repeat the criticisms of others, there are a few other things to mention. The addition of pace cars to the license test seems to be a pointless exercise at being clever. The license tests are already a source of aggravation to some players. Adding to the complexity is just more fuel to the fire. In the other GT installments, I attempted to get golds for the tests. For GT4, I didn't even care. Not even the promise of some exclusive cars to race is enough to make completing the license test under time worthwhile. Remind yourself that this is fun.

Speaking of cars to race, while it is commendable that GT4 tried to give a feel for the historic development of the automobile (if you're a gearhead and into that sort of thing), the inclusion of cars that you cannot enter into races is again, pointless. Yes, you can drive a Prowler around an empty track, and take a picture of it in all of its solitude, but who cares? You can't take a picture of the best moments from one your actual races, and if given a choice between more tracks and cars or staged photo shoot of the Tank Car, which would you prefer? Ditto Tuner Village advertisment.

The endurance races now go on for 24 HOURS!!! As much as anyone claims how great the game is, I doubt they enjoy it enough to actually race one of the 24-hour tests. Luckily, b spec was added, but this misses the point. Why not shorter races and more of them? Why not a better AI? Why not race modifications to production cars? Why not more than 6 cars racing at the same time? Why not play a different game altogether? I hear for Gran Turismo 5 you don't even have to use a controller. It's just some pictures of cars driving around a track (but it is a very pretty track).

And this is just a short list. I have played all the installments in the GT series. Gran Turismo 4 is probably the worst of the lot. The thing that made Gran Turismo the most successful racing game was the focus on racing. Instead of refining and expanding that aspect, GT4 loses depth and nuance, and shills for the technological achievement instead of addressing the reoccurring problems/complaints of the previous games. I feel gypped.

It is the Malibu Stacy of racing games.

Gran Turismo 4

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I, just like everyone else waited a long time, through all the delays, for this game to come out (to long now I see the final product). I bought it the day it came out, excited to see these photo-realistic graphics I have been hearing about, and I see that they are only a little bit better than Project Gotham 2, which came out almost a year ago and is $17.99 now (albeit on Xbox, but a lot of people have both systems anyway). As for all of the 650 cars, yes you can more than likely drive the car in your garage on your TV, but good luck finding the new '05 Corvette or any Ferrari or Lamborghini. I guess I was wrong thinking the greatest racing game would have the greatest racing cars. Let's say you wanted to play your buddy with two systems, well you better call and tell him to get practice by driving the car he is going to be racing you with over to your house because there is no online play. You would think through all the delays they would add online play. In summary this is a fun game that falls in line with its three older siblings, but they could have done much, much better.

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