by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer

The opening is classic: Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini plays in the background as we see a sweeping view of the Ayrton Senna school that segues to the passion of people behind the scenes of making the cars we love. The opening video shows clay models of cars and the people and the brilliance that then becomes the art that rolls down roads and raceways. It all morphs into an exciting montage of in-game race action that pulls the viewer into what is the best racing game on the PlayStation console (and other consoles).

This is Gran Turismo 6.

December 6th saw the release of Gran Turismo 6, and it has been a fortnight of playing the game for me. By playing, I mean really indulging in it — so let’s see if it’s worth running to the local game store and slapping down your hard-earned money for this game from famed game creator and extreme race fan Kazunori Yamauchi and the gang over at Polyphony Digital.

Fast answer (if you are waiting with money in hand): yes.

If you want to know more, read on.

The game is just like the others in the series, and that is a good thing. It is like any other sports-themed game. You hope for more of the same, and this one delivers — but wrapped up in some new graphics and with some new gameplay. Nonetheless, it keeps the good parts of the game basically intact.

This version has the return of the coffee breaks, for those that know the games. These are tasks that are not so tasking of exact racing disciplines, but instead are designed to give the player a little easier task to do while still in a car. They still reward the player with money and in-game trophies, but are not so adherent to the racing dogma.

A coffee break race, more fun than a race. Yay flying cones can be fun!

We get the “Goodwood Festival of Speed”. This classic British racing event is a prestigious one that features historic cars. This is a section that has to be unlocked, but is worth the fun.

We get racing tasks. This is a set of race events that require the driver to perform racing tasks to complete the challenge. It may be to simply pass enough cars to finish first in different conditions other than a full lap at a race track, or a section of a track in bad weather or night.

Licenses are back, and this time, as opposed to Gran Turismo 5, they are again mandatory. This was one that I was not happy about. In GT (Gran Turismo)  1-4, licenses were mandatory. They work as follows: basically you perform a set of tasks that constitute a license. Complete a license and start the next one and its set of tasks, and when you complete the six licenses, you are free to drive all classes of cars and all races. GT5 had the licenses but they were not required to complete the game or to compete in races. There was a leveling system in place. The licenses were optional and I thought this was fair because for the fan that had played the game,  they could run into racing after starting up the PS3 and not have to toil through the sometimes insane tasks of passing the license tests. The opposite is that for newcomers, it is very hard and could be a turnoff to the game, as the tasks are very daunting and force repetition. The idea from the developers is that in the repetition, you learn about proper racing forms. An example would be that you are given a car from the game, and are not able to tune or tweak the cars settings as you can with your own garage’s cars. The task would be that you have to navigate a set of turns in said vehicle in an amount of time. Running off the road or colliding with guard rails or traffic cones is an automatic failure and restart. If you get all the licenses in a set, you are rewarded cars depending on the status of golds and silvers. This is where there is a lot of repetition, and admittedly, cussing. Sorry, fans.

But enough about the licenses; I can go on for days of my dislike of these.

Yes, you get cool cars like this.

There is a good set of cars; many still carry over from the previous games, and I have many favorites in this game, like the Bentley Speed 8, Panoz Esperante, and a whole garage of Dodge Vipers. There is the usual garage of cars that seem to really be infested with too many of a few cars. The developers seem to really like Nissan Skylines and Mitsubishi Lancers, and there are many copies of each — too many, in my opinion. I am not opposed to these cars, but in my mind I think that if you give me many copies of the same cars that have similar power and abilities, give me fewer of one car and a bigger variety of other, different cars. But, to be fair, the garage is full enough to give all drivers a taste of what they want, be it European, Asian or American cars, or even a few cars one wouldn’t expect.

There is a task wherein one drives the lunar lander. It is a fictitious but fun event and has to be played to see the way it is successfully pulled off.

The physics in this game are good and sufficiently forgiving so that as much as this is a great simulator, it also has a great value as a fun game for the new players. It won’t bog someone new to the series down in a forest of automotive lingo and vernacular; it’s present for those that want it and know how to use the extra parts that are very intricate.

The seasonal races are back, which are races provided from Polyphony Digital through the online portion of the game, and there is still the online play section where players can set up races and play others online.

There is still the ability to tune everything in the car even possibly the radio.

There are a lot of changes to the aesthetics of the game. Color differences and backgrounds for the menu screens are changed, and to those to whom such things matter, it is a nice change from the previous setup, though I liked the model used in GT5. This time around, it is at times easy to navigate through, whereas other times a little bit hard and redundant.

One massive failure in GT5 was damage modeling. When two cars collided, it looked like the mushy metal they were made of got warped like a clay model that was melting; here the damage modeling is so much better and really conveys a sense of damage done to a car. Regrettably I found this out on the first turn of the first race, but was happy nonetheless.

“Houston, we have a race.”

NASCAR is back with the new gen-six cars. To NASCAR fans, this is all we need to say. Recently added on were the previous makes of NASCAR cars. The famous C.O.T. and the following generation, for instance. The added value to these cars is that they are in fact licensed by NASCAR; when you see the #14 Chevrolet driven by Tony Stewart, it looks like it does on live television.

One concern in the series has always been the economy. There were previous games that were hard to earn money in. This created a need to grind out races for money. Doing one race over and over to make money wears thin real fast, but this game gives the winner of the races good amounts of money and feels more rewarding than previous games.

We once again get racing suits that are designed after real world racers. Ther are F1 and NASCAR as well as WRC drivers represented. This is fun as it allows the player to dress in the racing suit of their favorite driver available.

Some early talk indicated that the game was coming out in an incomplete form as some elements are set to be added as patches. This is a two fold issue. If this does pan out to be true, then if one play this offline, they will not get some items that the online community does. On the other hand, it allows for a lot of content to be added on.

One last plus. GT5 had a paint booth. As one collected paint chips, they could use them on most other cars. The major problem was that if you had three black paint chips, and painted three cars, you were out of black. Now that has been vastly improved. Once you obtain a color, it’s your to come back to time and again, just pay an in game fee from in game money and you can paint all your cars one distinct color. Great improvement.

I thought to include reviews from famous game site resources, but I thought that it would be better to hear from my real friends on my lists: real players that I know have experience in previous GT games and now own this one.

EL-RIO_: “It’s an amazing game with a wide variety of cars and an amazing range of tracks. It greatly surpasses it’s predecessor with massively revamped physics, streamlined menu paths, updated graphics, as well as returning cars, tracks, and features that were absent in Gran Turismo 5. The many improvements made in this game definitely make it one step closer to being the best in the series since Gran Turismo 4.”

VladtheImpaler: “At first, I was feeling like GT 6 was more of the same with a few new tracks, but the more I play, it is becoming evident how much better the single player game is. Races are more competitive, and there is a lot to do. I wish online wasn’t locked for so long though. Also, I miss the used car dealer and highly dislike the coffee break challenges.”

Jedi-NYC-: “I have 2 (concerns) that I can think of, at minimum they qualify as major annoyances. 1- why am I forced to use hard sports tires in EVERY race? What’s wrong with racing tires? 2- (probably should be number 1), why the menu tunnel vision? In many cases it is necessary to exit layer after layer to get where you can tune, modify performance points, change cars, etc. Why can’t we access the garage and tuning options from the track in multi- player? Why must I exit 2 layers to have the options, and why separate the garage and the tuning?

THE_KART96: “Wow! What a big difference from GT 5. The new physics give the gamer a greater feel of a real car. A 9 out of 10, as I never give out a perfect score.”

The version I was gifted.

This is what the players I know say about the game, and there is praise and some issues, but in my opinion, it is a fun game and worth getting if racing is your type of game. The game can be intricate and very detailed-oriented or pick up and play; it suits both flavors, but in the end, it is still a Gran Turismo game. There will be some hard races, and there are the ones that you will go to over and over. There are some things that are not perfect, and many aspects that one has to get into the game to see for themselves, but in the end the question is simple: is it worth paying the money to get?

Yes it is.

And the fun you can have pulling a high speed turn at the world famous corkscrew at Mazda Speedway Laguna Seca is worth the play time and money when you perfect it. Gran Turismo still suffers from a few things that could be fixed, but still remains the touchstone of racing games on the PlayStation, (or any other console) as it has since Gran Turismo debuted. I am glad I got this as an early Christmas gift; I am having a lot of fun, and for the passionate racer out there, I am sure that you will enjoy it too.

Share

One Response to “Gran Turismo 6 Review”

1. Dr_Do-Little says:

   December 23, 2013 at 1:28 pm

   The Grand Turismo seri is what brang me back to gaming.
   After a long hiatus I played GT3 on a roomate who was dusting off his playstation. It was love at first sight!
   Not long after I bought a PS2 and GT4.
   Again GT5 was the main reason why I purchased my PS3 (and Oblivion, I played the Elder Scrolls way back in my PC years)
   I actually bought the game before the console!

   I must say I like the mandatory licence concept. Even if they ARE a pain.
   So many questions I would like to ask about it… I guess I should keep it a surprise.
   Next chrismas Doc.. next christmas…
   … Not sure I’ll be able to wait a full year this time. The PS4 launch price is reasonalble and so far I didn’t hear of any major issue about it.

   Reply