Gaming - Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo by Polyphony Digital

Gran Turismo is a driving simulator and racing game for the Sony Playstation. The series began in 1997, and the fifth full iteration of the game (GT5) is due for release later in 2010. Here's a little bit about my experience with the game over the last 13 years!

Gran Turismo for the Sony Playstation

I bought both GT and GT2 for the Playstation, and while I considered them better than the competition, I didn't play them much. It was only with the release of GT3 that I became a true fan of the game. After I had completed my studies in 2002, I bought a Playstation 2 and Gran Turismo 3. I completed the game, and then the long wait for GT4 started! That game wouldn't arrive until 2005. GT4 changed the way I played the game, since although the PS2 could not be played over the internet, it was possible to connect PS2's together in a network (a LAN) and race with other people, rather than having to race against the computer all the time. 

A GT4 LAN (I'm at the end here!)

In 2006, I attended my first GT4 LAN party, organised by members of the Gran Turismo forum, GTPlanet, where I was a regular member. LANs normally involved either one or two banks of 6 Playstation 2s being manually connected together, each one with a steering wheel and occasionally complete with a full driving rig. Racing against real people instead of artificial intelligence requires considerably more discipline and respect for the opposition... take a computer opponent out and nothing happens. Wreck the race of the guy sitting next to you at a LAN, and you might find yourself in trouble!

Photorealistic graphics in Gran Turismo 5

In 2008, the first taste of GT5 became available in the form of GT5: Prologue, which was the first Gran Turismo title for the Playstation 3. GT5: Prologue was also the first GT title to be playable online, and the first title to feature more than 6 cars on the track in any single race. GT5 is due for release in November 2010, and promises to be the most comprehensive and detailed driving simulator made to date. As well as all the features of previous GT games, such as an extensive collection of cars, tuning, and photomode, GT5 promises to feature many new aspects such as the ability to share video footage of races via YouTube, a full online mode, day/night transitions, damage modelling (a famous omission of the series so far!) and possibly also the ability to either create or modify tracks. Stay tuned for plenty of updates regarding my progress in GT5 in later posts!