Britishbeef84

I am a Gran Turismo fan. On May 9th (the day after it launched) I took my saved up money and a few quid my Dad gave me extra to go out and buy my original copy of Gran Turismo for the Playstation. That game started me on my racing and sim racing journey. Returning for the 7th edition then, I was only too eager to see what the next generation of the title had to offer. Sadly, I was disappointed immediately. The game lacked features. It lacked modern cars and it lacked a proper racing experience. Jaded and confused as to how they could get things so wrong, I put GT7 down for a year or two, returning in time for the Spec 3 update and the Power Pack. Has my mind changed? No. Is the short answer. The problems are everywhere with GT7. Vehicle choice is still rather limited despite there being free updates most months and there being a good number of cars in the game. The problem is, many of them are over 10 years old and so many are the same old models we've seen from the earliest games. Do we really need so many GT-R models? So many Mitsubishi Lancers? Are we going to care about the subtle, almost imperceptible differences? Some may. I do not. Second, the track choices are interesting here. So many circuits from the original games have returned but have been sanitised beyond belief. Old favourites like Trial Mountain, once a thrilling dash through sweeping turns and through tree-lined forested straights now have been changed into a technical nightmare of tight mickey mouse chicanes and concrete tunnels. They're still beautiful of course, that is one of the pillars of Gran Turismo. But the racing and driving experience has been blunted by the bland redesigns. With such a rich catalogue of circuits to pick from, so many have been left on the cutting room too which is disappointing. The gameplay loop in single player is also unsatisfying. I actually don't know who this game was made for. One the one hand, you will have petrolheads who want to tune their cars and paint them up. These people are well catered for since the tuning options have stayed largely the same across the 7 mainline games and the customisation options are an area of immense strength here. If you can dream up a livery, you can make it for your car and they look stunning, especially on PS5. But the actual driving is where the issues begin for me. First of all there are two types of AI. The original block head AI is as stupid as it has always been with cars driving into one another and generally not being very intelligent. The GT Sophy AI which is supposed to mimic a real human opponent is irritating and cheats clearly. Every opening lap I've ever raced against them has seen them speed boost like they've picked up a Mario Kart mushroom past me only to slow down and come back to me a short while later. So failure there too. If you're coming to this game to actually do some racing, well, in single player, prepare for some major frustrations and disappointment. The racing is poor. It's all down to the premise Polyphony have posed which, to me, a racing fan, is bizarre. Very few if any races are standing grid-based starts where a good one can make you up a few positions before turn one. Usually, the player is starting every race from 20th position, in a single file rolling start, which means by the time you get the iconic GT countdown tone to begin, the leader is half way around the lap. You frequently have to be making up more than 5 seconds per lap to just catch sight of the leader, never mind pass him. Performance from the AI varies too. Some of the competitions they have put together for you are simple affairs. Others, such as the Gr1 prototype challenge involve a ham-fisted attempt to recreate endurance racing but over 10 laps and just with ridiculously wild car choices and overpowered AI. They also make an attempt to throw the dynamic weather and time in here. Also, a mixed bag. We might as well address variable weather here. AI is affected by this, sometimes. They make an attempt to show them slowing down to match conditions but, and this is true of most games to be fair, here they simply aren't affected enough. If you manage to catch yourself on the wrong tyre in a monsoon, you will not be able to move, spinning wildly at very low speed. The AI though, they will function fine. Gran Turismo 7 is still beautiful and still offers that same blend of realism and arcade immediacy with it's handling but it's overreliance on bizarre menu-based driving challenges and its generally poor single player experience go hand in hand with its blatant shift to credits grinding (they want you to buy their in-game currency) to create a very empty feeling mess. It isn't much of a racing game if you want to race, and there isn't much else on offer either. If you will mostly race online with people you know, then there is fun to be had, otherwise this was a massively, immensely, disappointing game and I will not be looking forward to GT8.