In 2004, the Gran Turismo series-only 7 years past its debut-was already one of the biggest franchises in gaming history. Its first two titles pushed the limits of what was possible on the PS1, and were two of the system's three highest selling games of all time. And while the series debut had slightly higher sales, the second in the series was a distinctly better package, offering more tracks, more cars, and more racing modes. As it turns out, that trend would very much continue for Sony's second system, too. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec was a graphical revolution for its time, and once again, was a top 3 seller for the PS2. And once again, Gran Turismo 4 offered everything in GT3, with the content dial turned up to 11-earning itself a spot right below its predecessor on the PS2 all time sales list. But for many, GT4 offers more than just an enhanced version of its prequel, and to many, it represents the peak of the Gran Turismo series.

For all the benefits the jump to the 6th generation gave, the biggest flaw in GT3's design was clear. There was simply not enough variety in the gameplay, the cars, or the tracks to make it justify its length. All of which, luckily, will likely never be said about Gran Turismo 4. The numbers speak for themselves in this regard; almost four times as many cars, almost two times as many tracks, and over twice as many events. So brimming with content is GT4 that it sometimes makes its predecessor feel like a demo. And even with the extra content, the game doesn't feel lacking in polish or passion. And through that passion, a game that might otherwise have held a players interest for a few hours can now keep them attached for dozens. There's still way too much content in this game for any reasonable person to be expected to complete, and of course, only diehard simulation racing fans will be able to stave off the repetitive feeling from the later parts of the game, but its impressive that GT4 works for as long as it does.

Ironically, perhaps the most fun parts of the game come from the License Tests, which offers a definitive marker to test your skills against. There's more tests than in previous events, and while the 1 lap challenges can be a bit frustrating, it serves as a good benchmark for your driving skills and mechanical understanding. The Driving Missions as well are a nice addition, even if some of them-such as the infamous Nürburgring Challenge #34-take way too much time to even prepare to attempt, let alone actually attempt. (In the previously mentioned example, each attempt demands your car sit idle for 123 seconds, and you have to wait in real time.) But a good challenge is, regrettably, something you don't get much of in the core racing mode. The computer AI is not particularly impressive, especially for a realistic racing sim. As a result, it's often difficult to make a clean overtake without competitors making some kind of contact, and not super difficult to do much of anything else, even with similar or slightly underpowered machinery. And in the game's new B-Spec mode, where you take on the role of strategist while AI controls your car, doesn't fare much better. It's a nice addition in theory, especially for the extremely long endurance races, but it's not something you can really rely on unless using a far superior car.

Of course, to a simulation racing aficionado, Gran Turismo 4 is an absolute blessing. It takes the great framework from GT3 and expands upon it without sacrificing quality. Even though its been far surpassed technically since its release, many fans of the series still view it as one of the best GT has to offer, and it's not hard to see why, even from the perspective of a racing novice. It's an extremely polished title that will no doubt deliver a lot of excitement and fun before it wears out its welcome on you, which could be anywhere from 20 hours to 200. Full of tools to push drivers to their absolute limit, it's no surprise Gran Turismo 4 is still fondly remembered as a great title, and one of the best in the business of simulation racing.

gt4 is still an insane game to me. to sit and think about how much you get on one disc for the price is a fools errand. the amount of hours needed to 100% this game must be in the thousands, there is so much content that it puts modern games to shame. plus, its not all just content for the sake of it, every race provides you with something different or wants to push you to do better. the career mode is probably the best in racing game history, because of the variety of races you get to do and how you genuinely need to be careful with your budgeting. it plays like a wet dream, too. every car feels extremely accurate and no two feel the same. nike 2022 come on nike where is it

Never have I had my patience tested more than I did playing Gran Turismo for the first time.

For some context, I've never been a racing game kind of guy (outside of stuff like Mario Kart, Sonic All-Stars, etc), especially racing SIMULATORS. I've also never had an interest in cars at all. All they illicit in me is a deep apathy.

So you can probably imagine how fucking overwhelmed I was when I opened GT4 and immediately had to grapple with the challenging, hard to master controls and technical car tuning details and jargon. I pretty much had to have my friend on standby just to walk me through what I actually should be doing to win races. I had to learn the fundamentals of how to properly take corners, when to stop, when to break, when to measure to slow down. It was so much stuff that I really struggled at first.

Fortunately, you can cheese this game. It takes a lot of grinding, but you can easily buy OP cars that completely blitz the competition in whatever cup you're doing. In retrospect, however, I think this signaled the first issue with how I was engaging with this game.

Sometimes, something just isn't for you. I would find it quite implausible for someone to enjoy everything that world has to offer, and that's how I felt throughout the majority of this game. I was stuck in the same grind of doing the same race over and over again to get a car I could sell for a lot of cash. It was cheap, much like the victories I achieved because of that.

There were things I enjoyed and appreciated about this game. The soundtrack is full of fantastic and memorable licensed and original music that really gets you in the mood to RACE. I found quite a few of them getting stuck in my head even after I shut down the game. The overall UI and aesthetic is also fantastic. This game and GT3 epitomise the quasi-futuristic vibe of the PS2 era so well. All the menus are so slick and stylish. It's great. The game looks great too. I could appreciate the visual and auditory aspects perfectly well, it was just the gameplay itself that wasn't jiving with me.

My approach to the game was repetitive and narrowly focused. All I cared about was winning as fast as possible so I could move onto the next race. I was focused on beating the game. I looked at this game like an experience I could quickly brush aside and move on.

But the GT series isn't like that. If you want to beat these games, you actually need some modicum of skill and understanding of the game's mechanics. Take the license tests, for example. I spent many hours grinding away at them as I progressed through the game. I couldn't cheese these, and this is where I found some of the most frustration. Obviously, the game actually needs me to apply a fundamental understanding of the game, but I didn't have that. Still, through persistence, I eventually persevered.

There are multiple issues with the way I engaged with this game:

Firstly, I didn't have an enjoyment of cars or racing. I think a big part of why these games are so beloved is because they're so in-depth and so filled to the brim with content all about cars. If you love cars, you're going to love this game. There are so many cars, all highly detailed. If you loving racing simulators, you're going to love this game even more. So much attention and effort is placed on the individual tuning of EVERY car, not even accounting for how these aspects change as you modify them. All of the cars make the sounds they'd make in real life. All of the tiny details are accounted for. It's insane, and this is only a PS2 game. Can you imagine how mind-blowing this would've been to someone opening this game for the first time back in the day (and if saying "back in the day" for a game from 2004 makes you feel old, well, then, yeah. This game is 19 years old)? All I feel about cars is apathy. I've never been into cars. I tried to appreciate this aspect of the game, but I just couldn't feel anything. I made some funny jokes for sure, but that was it. The complex, in-depth mechanics surrounding the cars only felt suffocating for me.

The other, bigger issue was my engagement with the game. In my opinion, GT isn't a series you approach just to beat. Gran Turismo is an experience. These games have hundreds of hours of content that you can casually take in at your own pace, and herein I believe lies the issue. I think the way to getting better at this game is taking it at your own pace, slowly gaining skill over time. You may spend hundreds of hours just doing all the side content. To be honest, I can believe there's many people who play these games just to have that experience of racing cars. There's no concern about beating every race because that isn't what's in it for them. They just love cars. They like GT. The vibe, the aesthetic, the cars, the depth—all of it.

I looked at this game like a challenge I needed to overcome as quickly as possible, and as a result, I couldn't learn to experience Gran Turismo the way I feel a true fan would. I couldn't look at it with such love and appreciation. When I finally got to the GT World Championship, I had never felt such whiplash. Suddenly, I actually need to have some skill to win. I will never forget that fucking blue Minolta that I could just BARELY beat in each marathon of a race. Now I had to worry about my tires wearing down, and the skill of my actual driving because every corner counted. If I wasn't doing my best, I was fucked. And that broke me. I had to step away from this game for months just to get a clear head and be ready to try again. I've never had a game bring out such powerful, negative emotions from within me. All I was feeling was stress and frustration, zero enjoyment to be had. Now I can see I was being over-dramatic, but at the time, it brought out the worst in me. I snapped at the friend who got me to play this game, who loves this series. I yelled in frustration at every mistake. I didn't find it fun. It was terrible.

This was the game that made me fully understand something: is it right to critique a game; is it okay to make a comment about something if you aren't fully understanding or appreciating it for everything it has in the way a fan would? It's like if you asked a fan of platformers, who has no experience with first-person shooters, what he thinks about Call of Duty. Is it fair for someone so lacking in knowledge and appreciation to critique a genre he has no experience in? Of course he'll find it hard and foreign. He'll probably think the game is bad because he's never played a game like that before. That's what I think epitomises my experience with this game.

I finally beat the GTWC. I B-speced a race or two, but for the most part, my victory was still hard-earned. At the end, though, I still couldn't find myself able to love and appreciate this game. I respect it for sure, but I don't know if I could ever like it for the reasons a proper racing game fan would.

Because of all the above, I don't think it's fair to give this game a rating. I rushed through it and didn't take the time to enjoy it for all it was worth. I value the experience, but I think I can legitimately say racing sims just aren't for me, and unless I spent hundreds of hours playing them, I don't think they ever will be.

True rating:
Gameplay & Mechanics: 10/10= ⭐️1
Graphics & Visuals: 10/10= ⭐️1
Sound & Music: 9/10= ⭐️0.9
Quality & Polishing: 9/10= ⭐️0.9
Setting & Campaign: 10/10= ⭐️1

1 + 1 + 0.9 + 0.9 + 1 = ⭐️4.8

The best singleplayer experience in the series and maybe the best singleplayer car game of all time, no even mentioning is one of the best games period. My absolute top favorite game has enless content, an amazing soundtrack, incredible handling and a utterly inmaculate presentation. If you like cars this will be like heaven, this is the best entry point of the series if you are searching for a singleplayer only experience.

This game can be overwhelming for those who don't know much about cars but the difficulty is kinda easy for a good portion of the campaign and you can complete the main game without getting into the technical stuff (A guide can be useful as well, avoid excessive amounts of grinding searching what are the best events for the time and money expended accesible with your licence level), just focus on the experience of driving the cars, how they react to your imputs, learning how you can squeeze their performance in the track, that is the real challenge that will keep you invested, this game is not all about completing tasks because there is too much content, in fact, I frequently procastinate the campaign just to test the cars that I had unlocked in Arcade Mode, just me, the cars, the road and the timer, of course this doesn't mean that thats the only thing you have to do, enjoy every part of the game as something more casual if you want, but enjoy the drive as much as you can.

By the way, surely you'll want to upgrade your cars sooner or later, you can make this simple by just buying the upgrades and nothing else, adjusting or tuning anything digit by digit is never necessary, just make sure you choose a good car that meets the requirements for the event, this requirements will never be something too complicated. Be advised that you can't drive like in a Need for speed, but it's not "The Real Driving Simulator" either, that's just marketing, it's not that realistic even comparing it with others driving sims of the time, drive with your brain but don't be scared of finding out your limits, rest assure that your rivals will be easy to beat if you follow these tips, if you approach this game in a slow but consistent manner, by the time you get to the hard events you will probably be used to the game, because the game is too damn long, just like this review LMAO

Gran Turismo 4. This is it. I don't think I can overstate how big this game is, both in terms of its content and its legacy within the racing game genre. This game basically takes everything from the previous GT games and cranks it up to inhuman levels. The GT series to this point has always been in the upper echelon of console racing games, but with this game, they basically created a golden standard for the genre. Like, when the developers for the first Forza game were talking about competing with the PS2, they weren't talking about the GT series as a whole. They, like many others, were trying to dethrone this game specifically. That's how big this game is. It's an absolutely monumental racing game that can absolutely last you a lifetime with how much content it has. With all that being said though, it still ain't my favorite racing game, or hell, even GT game.

Firstly, the good. They basically took GT3 and gave it a simulation mode that puts it more in-line with the insane sim mode in GT2. There's the same "do events, earn new cars that give you access to new events" loop that made GT2 so engaging, and there's things like used car dealerships to get rid of the credit-grind slog that was GT3's campaign. There are over 700 cars to collect across all sorts of events. Circuit tracks, city tracks, one-make manufacturer events, specific car type events, rally events, endurance events, you name it and it's here with an insane amount of polish. The driving in this game is the best that the series has been up to this point, with it having that nice realistic feel to it. I am no real life race car driver so I can't actually comment on how ACTUALLY real it is, but it certainly has a good feel to it. The UI and soundtrack are as fantastic as always (though I still found the licensed race music kinda eh but I think that's just how things are gonna be), and visually this is one of the best looking games on the PS2 with an insane amount of visual polish, and even support for progressive scan and a mode that uses some interlaced shenanigans to get a high-res mode of 576x960!!! Considering the power of the PS2 the fact that they can get something like that working at all is incredible, much less running as good as it does with the visuals that it has. In terms of technical mastery, gameplay polish, and stylish UI, this is the GT PS2 magnum opus.

But unfortunately, there are still quite a bit of qualms that I have had with this game in my entire playthrough. While I do have a decent enough PS2 wheel that I can use with this game, I really don't prefer to play with a racing wheel over a pad and I don't have a good place to even set up the wheel anyways so I was kinda screwed on the control front. The game uses the pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2 controller and it's not able to ever be turned off, and I find the dualshock 2's pressure sensitivity to be a bit too mushy to be used as precisely as needed for a type of racing game like this. I played the first half of the game using a very cobbled-together wheel setup that shook when literally any FFB happened, before eventually giving up to use a controller with the steering bound to the left stick and accelerator bound to the right. Neither control scheme was really elegant for me. If this game supported the neGcon (which it very well could have), then this would all be a non-issue and it would absolutely elevate this game to an 11/10 status, but some things are just not meant to be. The high-resolution mode is also more of a gimmick than anything, as my upscaler didn't really like how it tried to display the image, my cables are too crummy to get the best out of it, and the menus and UI all run at 480i anyways so I honestly stuck to the default resolution the whole game as well. Lastly, my final issue with the game comes from its pacing. While the core racing structure of GT2 is back in this game, it doesn't feel nearly as well-paced when it comes to what agency the game gives through prize cars. A lot of events end up giving you a prize car that can't really be used anywhere else, leading to a lot of "dead end" moments, where I just kinda had to sell the car for credits to get the cars that I did need, or just ignored them altogether. Since earning certain things is locked to overall completion percentage, I found the best thing to do was just to do the rally events as they offered the highest payouts alongside cars that I could actually use in a multitude of events. Playing that way just meant I spent most of my time doing a bunch of really slippery rally events, when I'm honestly more of a fan of the street/circuit racing... And then the GT world championship at the very end is both such a huge difficulty spike and time sink, being 3-4 hours long for a single attempt with insane competition that I really got kinda sour by the end of the playthrough. Getting the REALLY good cars to breeze through the GT world championships involves winning the endurance races, and those can take up to 24 hours of real time to complete, and considering the fact I barely had time to attempt the 3-4 hour GT world championship, I REALLY didn't have time to get the best cars to smoke the competition. You could say that problem is def a skill issue from relying too much on better cars and parts over driver skill to win (and it certainly is, I suck at GT), but I think it's lame that the game lets you get away with that strat for everything BUT the one event I really didn't wanna get stuck in.

So yea. sorry for the long review, this is a game with a lot of things in it and as such I had a lot to say. It's honestly a masterpiece of the racing genre with so much care, attention to detail, and CONTENT put into it. I didn't even mention things like the B-spec mode where you can train an AI to race events for you, or the photo mode that allows you to render extremely high res (for the time) photos of your cars to a USB drive. It's one of those games that I'd absolutely consider for a "desert island" pick, for sure. But I still think that GT2s campaign pacing and flow was more engaging than this. Regardless, if you are even SLIGHTLY a fan of cars, racing games, the PS2, or just driving in general, you HAVE to give this game a go.