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The finest racecar game ever made.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been into videogames since Night Driver. Grand Turismo 4 is the best racecar game in existence. It is also the finest specimen of graphic achievement on the PlayStation 2. The entire system works. The game is meant for the most capable recent home video systems. Put the game in, turn on the high def television, turn up the surround sound, and you'll be hooked from the moment you see the green light.

The game has a complete sound system work-up, meaning Dolby Surround (II) audio. The rear speakers activate when a car is behind you. The ambient sound in the game is great. You can completely control over four hours of music tracks. You can also control the volume levels of the ambience, the engine noise, and the CD music. The music has a complete variety including rock to rap, techno to classical. You make the playlist. You can make a seperate playlist for a photo show.

The visuals are awesome. The game runs in high def widescreen at 1080-interlaced, plain anamorphic widescreen, or the NTSC 4:3. This is a beautiful game. The in-game menu has picture adjustment controls to get the right look for each viewer's video rig including contrast, brightness, and more, and you can multiply that by two because there are two full sets of controls, one for while driving and another one for the replay. The landscapes of the raceway circuits in this game will have you gaping in awe. You get the sensation of speed by the high frame rate and the landscape model artwork.

This is the best Grand Turismo ever. This game puts the entire race spectrum, of all backgrounds, into the pot and layers music to it, and that's in the metaphoric sense of music. You can prefer Formula, LeMans, Rally, Indy Cart, or NASCAR. You can prefer trucks, SUVs, old V8s, stationwagons, 2-seater spyders, or cars less than 3400mm in length. You can prefer superchargers, turbos, or naturally-aspirated vehicles. You can prefer hardtops, softtops, no tops or moon roofs. You can prefer 2-doors, 3-doors, 4-doors, or 5-doors. You can prefer 4, 6, 8, or 12 cylinders. You can prefer 3 speeds, 4 speeds, 5 speeds, 6 speeds, or 1-speeds. You can prefer extra soft tires, extra hard tires, stock tires, sport tires, race tires, dirt tires, or snow tires. You can prefer rear-engine, mid-engine, or front-engine. You can prefer front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive. You can prefer gasoline engines, diesel engines, electric engines, or engines by hand crank. You can prefer a circuit that has 30-second laps or 10-minute laps. You can prefer oval tracks, mountainous tracks, forest tracks, city tracks, or circuit tracks. You can prefer tracks that really exist or tracks that do not exist, daytime or nighttime, and from a pace car or from a starting grid. You can prefer tarmac tracks, stone tracks, dirt tracks, or snow tracks. You can drive an autobahn in Germany, or let your team drive. You can prefer stock cars, race cars, touring cars, rally cars, or street cars. You can prefer American cars, British cars, German cars, Swedish cars, French cars, Italian cars, Australian cars, Belgian cars, or Japanese cars.

This game truly has everything, and you get to manage a pit crew.

GT4 is the best Turismo game because it perfects its gaming system and neglects any slight flaw of previous Turismos. The ONLY part I missed was Turismo 3's masterful introduction video microscopically touring the inside of an engine to Lenny Kravitz rock music, because it amazes me every time, whereas GT4's intro vid rather promotes it's new photo gimmick: I like the gimmick, but the vid's not as artistic as GT3, even if the Van Halen song's nice. I have only one recommendation: I like having lap records and track records that state the driver, the car, and the record time, which was best done in the first Turismo.

One more thing, the graphics are done so well, I can tell that each vehicle has a different camera perspective in its distance from the ground. For instance, when driving in an SUV, your seated position should be much higher than, let's say, a Formula 1 Ferarri; and in this game, each car's "ride height" is different. I read a negative comment the person can't judge distance very well in this game. (He owns an X-Box.) I sympathize because I have the same trouble; BUT, from a real F1 Ferarri, the driver sits so close to the ground and drives so fast, it's impossible not to have to use landmarks! NO ONE CAN SEE A TURN WHOSE EYE-LEVEL IS ABOUT 2 FEET OFF THE GROUND. This is one of the smarter features GT4 provides. GT4 has, to me, a very credible sense of speed!

Gran Turismo is not for everyone

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been a video gamer for most of my life. I've played games, (especially racing games)on every single console from Atari to Xbox 360 and I must say Gran Turismo is really the best racing SIMULATOR out there. Not the fact that I said SIMULATOR when you've played as much racing games as I have you realise there's a big difference between arcade racers (most of the racing games out there) and simulators (Gran Turismo, Forza)
If you like fast cars and fast races immediately upon starting a game,and you're into the street racing lifestyle check out the Midnight Club games or Need For Speed games. If you like seeing beautiful cars being destroyed while racing the Burnout games are perfect for you. If you're into the feel of powerful cars and understanding basic and advanced driving techniques of professional race car driving, Gran Turismo would be perfect for you. If you've gotten borred with regular arcade racers then Gran Turismo should and will give you a great new experience.
It really is an amazing experience playing this game the dynamics of it are so realistic especially the car handling. I've actually driven some of the cars from this game and they handle just like in real life. Even the tracks are lapped realistically. If you knew how much time and effort that went into this game it helps to appreciate it even more.
I know alot of people make a big deal about it not being an online game but there's always Gran Turismo 5 isn't there?

Great Game-but certain things halt it form being the best

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game for about 50$ hoping it would be even better than Gran Turismo 3, which I loved. And it was, but some things seemed like Sony just gave up on them.

Gameplay: Overall it is a moderately difficult game to learn and play, but if it wasnt hard it would'nt be the game it is! A realistic car simulator. If your expecting to go around turns without breaking and cut every corner this isnt the game for you. This game requires skill, each move you make needs to be anticipated. The AI seems a little strange though. A lot of the time after you have passed what seems like every car, there is one in the front that is almost impossible to catch up too. This made it difficult on short courses because there sometimes wasnt enough time to catch up. What I liked was how each car handled differentely and it actually took some skill to get through the courses. But there is something good and bad about this game. The good: TONS of gameplay time. The bad: You have to be VERY patient. Ive probably played about 25 hours of this game and im only around 11.5 percent through the whole thing! Ive won most of my races pretty quickly, but the game is HUGE.
4/5

Graphics: The graphics in this game are some of the best ive seen. The framerate is COMPLETELY smooth-ive never seen it lag at all. Everything is pre rendered and it looks great. The cities look very realistic and especially the Hong Kong track, with neon lights flashing everywhere. The car models are very nice looking, and I couldnt see any difference between the in game cars and the real ones. The lighting is also excellent, although in some spots the game gets a little bit dark, but how the light cuts through the trees is amazing. I have a high definition TV, which definatally improves the look of the game and makes for a better experience. Even if you dont have 1080i it still looks excellent. The graphics seem even better than an orgional X-box's graphics.
5/5

Driving realism: For a game, it is the best i've seen. Each car drives differentally. For example RWD cars seem to let the back of the car slide out a bit more than 4WD or FWD(especially with traction control off). FWD cars tend to understeer quite a bit more than the others, and 4WD cars seem to also understeer, but when you come out of a turn its much more controllable because of the added traction. Mid Engined cars seem to handle the best through the turns, which is true because their weight balance is more centered. When each car brakes it does have quite a bit of nose dive, which is also very true to real life. A car shifts at different speeds depending on the car. For instance in automatic mode a quick shifting car, such as an Infiniti G35 Coupe will have an advantage over a slower shifting car with the same amount of power, such as a BMW 330i. With traction control off in a RWD car, i often try to spin the rear of the car in time trials just for fun. Its not the fastest way around the track but it has a very cool feel to it. How a car rolls in turns is also very realistic. Cars with soft suspensions such as the Volvo S60 T5 roll around curves more than an M5 would, which is obvious. The realism is fantastic.
5/5

Sound: The sound in this game is good, but worse than I expected. A Ford Mustang sounds weak and high pitched, where as in real life its deep and grumbly sounding. A Nissan Z and Infiniti G35 have deep throaty V6's with a hollow pitched sound in real life, but in the game they just sound like any old V6. I have to give Sony credit for making each car have its own sound though. Games such as Need For Speed Underground 2 only have about 5 car sounds, where this game has a different one for each car. Also when you add certain engine/exhaust tuning parts your car starts to have its own unique sound. Also, the low end of the engines dont sound so low, even with a good subwoofer you wont get a deep sound. The music in the game however is a random mix of every genre you can think of. Its not a great thing to have in the game..because if you think about it, racing to James Brown is just plain weird. You can set up your own playlist though, which i have done, and i have about 25 songs out of the 64 in it. Also i have to mention that about 15 of those 64 are classical, which is terrible racing music. It makes me want to just stop the car and do nothing. With surround sound you can hear a car coming behind you and to the left of you and as it passes you you can hear it in front of you, it seems like real life. Also you can hear wind rushing by your car at high speeds, except when you draft another car it goes away.
3/5

I rate the game a 4.5 overall. It has fun gameplay and if you like realistic games, this is the one for you.

Where are all the improvements over GT3???

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 30
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was so looking forward to this game and now that I finally got to play it, it is a HUGE disapointment. Sure there are some minor improvements over GT3, but they certainly aren't worthy of all the development time that went into this game.
Those minor improvments are: better graphics, improved physics engine (so they claim), more race tracks, slightly better car selection (a few more American cars now, but still none of the top racing brands, and way too many obscure Japanese cars that no body cares to use anyway. Sure there are 600+ cars but most of them are just cheap filler, like 20 versions of the same car). Most of the added features are just cheap gimmicks, like taking pictures of your cars; who cares???
The biggest thing that's missing is ONLINE PLAY!!! What happened? They promised online play for GT4 and it's not here! With out this major feature there really isn't much reason to buy this game! Now we'll all just have to wait and hope that Forza Motorsport for XBox (which will have online play) will be able to deliver on what GT4 didn't!!
Save yourself $30 hard earned dollars and spend $20 on GT3 instead, and if you already own GT3, don't waste $50 on this minor update.

Impressions from GT4 prologue version

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: December 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Playing the GT4 prologue version at a friend's place,I was highly impressed.The physics model has been tweaked up from last time around.While still not perfect(nothing is perfect anyways),it is much improved over GT3.If you could manage a good quality steering wheel to go along with the game,you would be in for the best driving experience inside your living room.GT4 will feature a much larger array of tracks and cars than GT3.Two new tracks which caught my attention while playing the prologue version were New York and Citta di Aria.The New York track is based in the heart of NYC.The buildings are spectacularly modeled with realistic reflections from window panes and glasses.The other track that grabbed my attention was the Citta di Aria,a street circuit in Italy.I could swear it looked photorealistic at times.The cars are better with more shine to them.Now onto the crowds.In GT3 the crowds were nothing more than 2D structures.But now the crowds,at many places,react as your car goes through by waving hands.In the grand canyon track they actually move back to make way for your car to go by.Really nice.Graphically,GT4 would give even the best xbox racing games(like PGR 2} a run for their money.Those guys at Polyphony Digital are masters when it comes to utilising the PS2 hardware.They really know how to push the PS2 to its upmost limits,and it shows.
Polyphony Digital had stated that GT4 would be their last effort on the current generation console(the next gt will be on PS3),so they are taking their time to make their final product as perfect as they can.Hence,the release delays.
But from whatever I have seen in the prologue version,I can stick my neck out and say that GT4 will be the best and most complete racer ever(all systems included).So you pre-order it,buy it when it comes or do whatever but dare not miss out on this gem!

good game but....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this is essentially just gt3 with bettter graphics. overall its a dissapointment. my two main complaints are the very inadequate instruction manual, it doesn't explain the details of the game like driving techniques. one of the hardest things to figure out to a new palyer is the toughness of the automobiles. the instruction manual is really poor. i knocked off one star for that.

my other complaint is that the ai is the same as gt3. nothing has been fixed. what was sony thinking. but i juess for the all teh people who bought this it doesn't matter. if a person is willing to purchase an inadequate product and pay for it then whey should sony care.

i had to go to the internet to learn how to steer these cars. only buy this game if you are desperate.

Not a drivers game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: January 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

About half way thru the game and I must say I will probably stop here. Great game for "Go fast without realism" types who rather just go fast rather than really have to drive. While I must admit all GT games have been geared this way, I am a little disappointed for the following reasons.
1. A 500 horse-power Corvette sounds like a Dodge Neon.
I don't know what is wrong with the sound department but
really missed the mark. Seems only to be bad for
American made automobiles too. Hmmmm. Getting to be
more of a "Promote Japanese Vehicles" game.
2. You race against tanks. Not really. But the other cars
seem to never leave their original race grooves and can
move you like you are driving a paper car. However, the
reverse is not true. Trying to nudge them is like trying
to roll a bowling ball with a toothpick. Not good.
3. No damage effects still. You can still use the guardrail
so you can go 180MPH around a corner. Yuck!
Overall. I am sure the inexperienced driver or one that does not yet have a drivers license will really enjoy that. It has many cars to choose from and build which is very cool. The adjustments you are allowed to make to your vehicle are cool as well. Graphics are decent and the tracks/roads you can drive on are impressive. A really fun game if you are not looking for a real driving experience. Otherwise, I'm sticking with my Nascar driving games.

Best Racing Game in the Universe (maybe even bigger)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is absolutely phenominal. There are so many cars, even trucks (Just got finished crashing the Dodge Hemi Truck into the wall pretty hard, Cool!)

Not only is it a good racing game, but it is also very techinical and has extreme depth in races and customizations.

Buy some TV dinners and boil some coffee, cuz you are not going anywhere after you get this game.

Improvement over GT3, not much New & Interesting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: March 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's just as fun as Gran Turismo 3, with many refinements and more cars. Not as big of a jump in dynamics or playability as from GT2 to GT3, but the B-Spec mode (where you tell the computer how to drive the course from the Pit), and the expanded tracks and car roster makes this more than worthwhile for GT3 owners to purchase.

if you dont like this, you an idiot!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: June 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this is the best racing game veer, 730 cars, 50 tracks and jaw dropping graphics. dont listen to the bad reviews there just 12 year old kids who like riceburners more than real muscle. BUY BUY BUY!

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