Being a racing fan has been pretty depressing the past decade. You know how long these games have come along, from fun arcades to simulations. In fact, while the playerbase is smaller, most of these games have tried to capture that essence of the older player base.
Gran Turismo isn't all about that. It always knew what kind of players would spend their time, getting turns right, figuring out why their car wouldn't steer the way they want, why their brake timing sucks, it's actually a punishing game until you have it figured out. A respectful series that brought both casuals and enthusiasts together. Then Gran Turismo 7 happened.
Bringing a free demo version where people can still spend hours for pushing leaderboards and getting free access to a game had an appalling launch is the one thing Sony should have done. Great, now I want a physical copy of the game so badly.
Right, so fresh into the menu, you're told to finish getting your license. You have to complete specific practice runs. Like braking a car down one in one zone, corner on half radius, full radius till the finish line, double apex corner trials, and so on. All of them are timed and has leaderboards.
For National B, I've gotten gold in about all of them, they're easy compared to what was coming next. But aside my auspiciousness, the whole point is learning how to drive corners. This is my first time playing Gran Turismo title on my own. For someone like me, it was a lot of new things to learn, for experienced players, it was to see how improved the 7th iteration is.
There's always the unlocked cars, trophies, and new modes. After finishing the first group, the second group is where the actual challenges come around. And where I also found out my greatest weaknesses, hairpin turns. Every 10 seconds, I was doubting myself.
As I got closer and closer, each retries, even a 0.1-second difference was all it took. Break too hard, I drove the car slow, not early enough, it skids off and goes offtrack. Most games would be forgiving by allowing both steering and braking to happen. Not this game, especially when it breaks at high velocity. Not, especially if you drive a custom 911 Turbo braking from 138MPH.
Damn leaderboards are also cramping up on my joint. Some of these tracks have the worst choice of cars, until I see people who owns G29s pulling even 0.6 seconds earlier records of these test runs. If you knew, just how hard it was to pull a solid hairpin turn for a 911 Turbo that understeers, you'd understand my frustration. But I did learn just exactly why that is the case. Every track's hairpin is different, based on the angle it's warped towards, which shifts the car's physics.
Seriously, I've spent hours trying to get a freaking Alphard to go around the tightest hairpin, and finish it in less than 14 seconds. Over dozens of tries till I finally did. It was super rewarding. I eventually did become the better driver in the better racing sim.
In fact, Gran Turismo 7 is a modest improvement from the last GT title. The physics are better, tuning, and handling improved. You feel the difference, especially playing it with a Dualsense controller, thanks to the haptic feedback. While I'm not exactly a fan of the visual textures, and less detailed viewing distance, the car models certainly look super dope.
Now, for content, it is kind of jam packed. Like, still almost a dozen hours worth of stuff to do. Got to unlock 18 of those cars somehow. But something interesting started to happen when I did the races. All the A.I. cars, despite the difficulty being highest, easily falls behind.
I did a little digging, and turns out this is sort of the issue with every iteration, Polyphony Digital is trying something new called Sophy, though I don't believe it's here. Highest settings mean things like TC, ABS, and steering assist is weak to off. Like, I am easily flip my car if I'm not careful. But through these guys I'm just breezing through. Forza Motorsport was tougher.
There's also the music time runs, but those are pretty lackluster. They're good fun, but the real stuff was the license test drives. Now I'm at international, and driving an LC500 to beat a half minute lap record. Suffice it to say, unlike some of the others, I did get a gold trophy for this one. All I've learned is finally put into good use, and I've wanted to drive faster cars.
Who knows, I'll probably even purchase Gran Turismo 7 at some point in time. I wasn't a fan of the monetization and DLC plannings, it really ruined the good earned reputation it built over the years. If you're a racing fan, and owns a PS4/PS5, I'd suggest trying it out for yourself.
