Before this you had basic arcade style racing games that felt fast and jerky and handled nothing like a car really would and then Gran Turismo arrived on PS1. What a game. The slick feel, the creativity, the graphics and gameplay were all amazing and next level. This game paved the way for proper simulation games and at the time blew all competition away. If you were lucky enough to have this delivered by Santa on Christmas morning you were truly happy that day!
6 Reviews
One of the greatest racing games ever
VL_Turbo23 August 2002
Before GT, most racing games were below average. GT set a new benchmark for the rest of the industry to follow, and have followed up really well with GT2 AND 3. If you have a Playstation 1, this is a game you really must own. 10/10
Best simulation game ever
Alêx2 November 1999
When I bought this game I was so interested and fascinated that I played it for 2 weeks continuously. Now, a year later with about 1000 driving hours I´m still playing it. I´ve never before played a game with such motivation in the single and multiplayer mode. It´s simply brilliant and the makers of this masterpiece know how to utilize the PSX and what game design really means.
Recently I saw a demonstration of Gran Turismo for PSX 2 which is able to represent 66 million polygons per second. Although it was calculated in realtime it looked like the intro of the old Gran Turismo, almost real. I hardly wait to play it.
I´ll try to enumerate the positive aspects of Gran Turismo
The realtime graphics and the intrographics are very good, especially the graphics of the cars. You can even see the springs of the cars and rotation of the wheels. I suppose it isn´t possible to create a better graphic representation on this console. The graphics of Ridge Racer 4 is a little bit better but the physical driving capacities are not so accurate and you can see only one car at a time. I personally prefer the game design of Gran Turismo because interesting game capacities are more important than a small improvement in the graphics.
The physical driving conditions are calculated with absolut accuracy. Even if you have a lot of driving experience you have to learn to drive at least 10 hours before you are be able to so well. Perhaps it is a little bit laborious but you´ll have motivation for months and the driving experience is very dynamic and interesting.
The idea of finishing 3 different driving tests is absolutely brilliant. It is very important to pass these tests because you learn step by step to improve your driving competence and you are allowed to play tournaments on a higher level. This is absolutely necessary if you want to have any chance to win.
The idea of buying new cars and improving them is brilliant as well. There´s a lot of motivation because you are only able to win in higher tournaments when you own a fast car and because you have to learn the different driving capacities of cars ranging from a little 100 HP family car to a 600 HP racing machine.
After a race, you can watch it again in different video positions. It´s interesting and important to realize your driving faults or to see unfair driving maneuvers from your opponents (or from you).
Evaluation 10/10
Recently I saw a demonstration of Gran Turismo for PSX 2 which is able to represent 66 million polygons per second. Although it was calculated in realtime it looked like the intro of the old Gran Turismo, almost real. I hardly wait to play it.
I´ll try to enumerate the positive aspects of Gran Turismo
The realtime graphics and the intrographics are very good, especially the graphics of the cars. You can even see the springs of the cars and rotation of the wheels. I suppose it isn´t possible to create a better graphic representation on this console. The graphics of Ridge Racer 4 is a little bit better but the physical driving capacities are not so accurate and you can see only one car at a time. I personally prefer the game design of Gran Turismo because interesting game capacities are more important than a small improvement in the graphics.
The physical driving conditions are calculated with absolut accuracy. Even if you have a lot of driving experience you have to learn to drive at least 10 hours before you are be able to so well. Perhaps it is a little bit laborious but you´ll have motivation for months and the driving experience is very dynamic and interesting.
The idea of finishing 3 different driving tests is absolutely brilliant. It is very important to pass these tests because you learn step by step to improve your driving competence and you are allowed to play tournaments on a higher level. This is absolutely necessary if you want to have any chance to win.
The idea of buying new cars and improving them is brilliant as well. There´s a lot of motivation because you are only able to win in higher tournaments when you own a fast car and because you have to learn the different driving capacities of cars ranging from a little 100 HP family car to a 600 HP racing machine.
After a race, you can watch it again in different video positions. It´s interesting and important to realize your driving faults or to see unfair driving maneuvers from your opponents (or from you).
Evaluation 10/10
Started looking in 1982 found Gran Turismo in 97
sheepnumber3424 December 2019
Zx Spectrum, Sega Master System, PS1,2,3,4... that's my history.. Car games - always my favourite.
I love cars, couldn't drive til 93 - so I'd play car games!
Why is GT so good? Simulator The choice of bloomin cars!!! The noise The graphics The Replays - what?! Replays?!?! The tracks.......
Hands down - the best ever roadcar video game (series) bar none...oh the hours spent enjoying this game...love it!
I love cars, couldn't drive til 93 - so I'd play car games!
Why is GT so good? Simulator The choice of bloomin cars!!! The noise The graphics The Replays - what?! Replays?!?! The tracks.......
Hands down - the best ever roadcar video game (series) bar none...oh the hours spent enjoying this game...love it!
The real "fake" driving simulator
sebastianali12323 April 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Gran Turismo is one of that series that i can never get myself get into it and never understanded the love. At least it has what i wanted for years in a racing game, a lot of cars...
And thats it honestly, i think is half overrated. Everyone calls it the most realistic driving sim, but that's just not true, even in 1998. No realistic driving sim would let you ram a concrete barrier at 200 M. P. H. And simply bounce off like it never happened. No realistic driving sim makes it impossible to flip your car over. No realistic driving sim allows you to keep maximum revs for a half an hour in first gear without damaging your engine in the least. They were way more realistic driving games on PC in the early 90s, that while obviously not looking as good or having the same amount of cars, its something and doesnt proportionate a fake slogan that is like the developers were very proud of themselves... Seriously... why is called "the real driving simulator"? Apart that is far from real the context itself is just plain wrong with the slogan. It wouldnt be better just to be called "the real racing simulator"? Need For Speed 3 is a driving simulator, Stunts is a driving simulator, Test Drive is a driving simulator. You are exploring a city or natural areas, and you can do that even without racing with opponents at all, but no matter what or where i see GT, i could never say is a driving simulator. Is just a racing simulator. To be honest, the racing part with the credits and the career stuff and so on was just put at force because the developers though it would be boring to just explore and racing but anyway, lets talk about the positives and negatives on this game itself.
Gran Turismo excels at two things. Looking extremely good, even better than some PS2 racing games and the great variety of cars than even today racing games dream of it. Everything other than that is anywhere from average to terrible. The races itself repeats too much, you have to do a lot of licenses that some are almost impossible with so many difficult spikes, some upgrades actually makes your vehicle race worse or doesnt make much difference, and the steering of the car is terrible. While this is supposedly to be realistic, the AI doesnt have this realistic behavior (for example they can turn without oversteer or brake), and sometimes to minimize lap times you have to crash into the wall with the right angle instead of braking.
Personally, the licenses would be much better if they give you much more time so they give you more time to brake and if you touch a wall or something they give you time penalty. The bronze trophies are so hard in the last license that they could easily be the gold ones.
The races itself were decent, but they have a lot of problems, apart of what i said before: AI rubberbanding, grass makes your car hope, excessive oversteering and if you arent a car expert, you will never know what car is supposedly to be better than another since stats doesnt exist, but a bunch of random realistic specs that for the average player doesnt mean nothing.
And for last, the tracks itself were very few and in the tournaments were very repetitive, this is even worse in the "Gran Valley" mode, where you have to do a 60 lap race, so annoying and just padding for the sake of being padding.
Gran Turismo is like a technical demo. I admit im impressed for what the developers had made in 1998, but is just more like a novelty, and not a game for play to the end, because finishing all the races with gold, is just one of the most tedious, boring and unfair experiences i have ever played. And if that wasn't enough (and I discover this recently, that's why I'm editing my review), the North American and European versions of the game don't even try to be a simulator. That's right, gentlemen, the Japanese version (the original) has better handling than the other editions, who knows what reason Poliphony Digital would have had to do something like that. The handling of the Japanese version is much more similar to that of Gran Turismo 2, handling that is much more comfortable. In Gran Turismo 1 NTSC/PAL all the cars seem to be rear-wheel drive, skidding constantly even at very low speed, but worst of all is the cars that were already rear-wheel drive, like the Nissan Skyline, these are literally UNPLAYABLE, without manually modifying the parts , due to the extremely exaggerated tendency to oversteer. Even an upgraded Subaru Wagon can outrun a Skyline, what a shame. So the North American and European versions are still less than a simulator?! Nothing?! What a misleading slogan.
Despite all of this i think i can consider Gran Turismo 1 to be the second most polished game in the series after the PSP title, due to having a nice and balanced progression system and the events and basically the entire game not feeling like a chore at times.
Gran Turismo excels at two things. Looking extremely good, even better than some PS2 racing games and the great variety of cars than even today racing games dream of it. Everything other than that is anywhere from average to terrible. The races itself repeats too much, you have to do a lot of licenses that some are almost impossible with so many difficult spikes, some upgrades actually makes your vehicle race worse or doesnt make much difference, and the steering of the car is terrible. While this is supposedly to be realistic, the AI doesnt have this realistic behavior (for example they can turn without oversteer or brake), and sometimes to minimize lap times you have to crash into the wall with the right angle instead of braking.
Personally, the licenses would be much better if they give you much more time so they give you more time to brake and if you touch a wall or something they give you time penalty. The bronze trophies are so hard in the last license that they could easily be the gold ones.
The races itself were decent, but they have a lot of problems, apart of what i said before: AI rubberbanding, grass makes your car hope, excessive oversteering and if you arent a car expert, you will never know what car is supposedly to be better than another since stats doesnt exist, but a bunch of random realistic specs that for the average player doesnt mean nothing.
And for last, the tracks itself were very few and in the tournaments were very repetitive, this is even worse in the "Gran Valley" mode, where you have to do a 60 lap race, so annoying and just padding for the sake of being padding.
Gran Turismo is like a technical demo. I admit im impressed for what the developers had made in 1998, but is just more like a novelty, and not a game for play to the end, because finishing all the races with gold, is just one of the most tedious, boring and unfair experiences i have ever played. And if that wasn't enough (and I discover this recently, that's why I'm editing my review), the North American and European versions of the game don't even try to be a simulator. That's right, gentlemen, the Japanese version (the original) has better handling than the other editions, who knows what reason Poliphony Digital would have had to do something like that. The handling of the Japanese version is much more similar to that of Gran Turismo 2, handling that is much more comfortable. In Gran Turismo 1 NTSC/PAL all the cars seem to be rear-wheel drive, skidding constantly even at very low speed, but worst of all is the cars that were already rear-wheel drive, like the Nissan Skyline, these are literally UNPLAYABLE, without manually modifying the parts , due to the extremely exaggerated tendency to oversteer. Even an upgraded Subaru Wagon can outrun a Skyline, what a shame. So the North American and European versions are still less than a simulator?! Nothing?! What a misleading slogan.
Despite all of this i think i can consider Gran Turismo 1 to be the second most polished game in the series after the PSP title, due to having a nice and balanced progression system and the events and basically the entire game not feeling like a chore at times.
One of the best driving-games ever made
action-68 July 2000
Gran Turismo is, and will always stand as a classic. The game has better graphics than most other driving games, it has tons of cars and excellent gameplay. The game itself will take you months to complete, earning money by winning races to buy new and more powerful cars to race against the big boys. It is all very addictive and will keep you glued to your playstation for months. If you haven`t got this classic game you should pick it up right away. There really isn`a single excuse not to buy this since it is really cheap now. 10/10
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