Measly Game Review Archive

8.8/10 – approx 38 hours

Review as written on 8/19/2023

A beloved, nostalgic racing game icon that I finally got to experience. Thorough, fun, and impressive for the time. I wouldn’t call it peak racing, but it is indeed solid and enjoyable. Good ass moosic too.

As mentioned previously in my (salty) Gran Turismo 7 review, the Gran Turismo games are some of the nearest and dearest titles to my heart. GT3 was the first game I ever played, and is hugely responsible for my current adoration of cars and motorsport. I have played all numbered GT games post GT3, except 4 somehow. I missed the boat on it as the game came out when I was extremely young, and when my only source of new games, my parents, had decreasing time and reason to buy new games. GT4 ended up being quite elusive for me, and I never got to take part in what many consider to be the peak of the GT franchise. Until now; and man is it fun.

Much of the praise GT4 earns stems from nostalgic remembrance, but many of these strengths are indeed true. Compared to the on rails experience found in GT7, 4 has a much more open and meaningful progression. There are numerous races and events, from manufacturer specific races, to short driving missions, to the game’s main series of races. All these events harbor prize cars to be earned upon winning them, and can be used in their appropriate themed races. This gives incentive to complete more races and drive + tune new cars you otherwise would not have driven. This gameplay loop is quite engaging, and you find yourself falling into a rhythm: doing more races to see what cars you earn, then trying your best to use them to progress in the game. When compared to GT7’s prize cars from the campaign, where the cars you are given only fill the role of completing a specific race, and simply buying the necessary cars can bypass the need to even do races at all, GT4 is a much preferred alternative. The cars you buy and earn feel like they’re really yours, and you grow attached to them. The sheer plethora of options to buy as your first is proof enough.

The sheer number of cars to work with is impressive as well. With over 700 cars, all modeled quite well, you get quite the comprehensive tour on automotive history (without it being shoved down your throat, right GT7 lectures???). Many cars have their different variations and trims present, allowing you to choose your favorite while learning of the model’s history. Though these are nearly identical mechanically and do pad the car roster, it’s an old school aspect of GT that is very nostalgic to revisit. The roster holds many models of cars that are absent from modern games that I miss driving, such as the E60 BMW M5, the first gen Lexus IS Sportcross, Audi RS4, and ‘04 Mercedes SL 65 to name a few. It’s a nostalgic era of the automobile for me, and I really enjoyed seeing these cars.

The driving experience itself is very enjoyable for the time, with first addition of many iconic real world tracks (and Infineon 🙄), as well as new additions spanning different city streets and terrains. Pairing this with a handling model that holds up well, the game is immensely fun to dig into, especially with the fastest race cars. Slower cars were a bit of a drag due to the physics allowing the loss of an absurd amount of speed in corners, but this can be ironed out with practice (and no traction control). It still makes some events stressful though.

SAY THE LINE BART!

Though I do enjoy this game quite a bit, it is not without some rough patches, which are small so I’ll bullet them.

• I know I just said my complaints are small, but I have a giant bone to pick with the brake indicator (the flashing red number suggesting a gear to be in). It should be obvious that the player has no intuitive sense of how fast they are going since they are simply playing a game and not actually driving, so It’s extremely important that the game aids the player in gaining this sense. The brake indicator is instead sluggish and unreliable, particularly on sharp corners after long straights. This makes city tracks like Opera Paris, New York, and Hong Kong a DRAG to drive through in any car faster than a shopping cart. This especially made the GT World Championship a drag for a bit, as you’re driving an ultra fast 800+ hp race car through nonsensical 90 degree turns, barely knowing where to brake without crashing first. It doesn’t help that even with the game’s support for 1080i on the PS2, the environment’s graphical fidelity is still old and rough, making a barrier’s distance unclear.
• It would also be nice to know how fast your opponents are without re-entering races over and over again to gauge how competitive your tune is. The variance in opponents per event adds replay value, but a stack of insane opponents randomly happening upon you can be unfair.
• I find it bizarre how you can only look at the specs of cars you buy right before you click purchase, and oftentimes said specs are flat out wrong.
• As per Gran Turismo tradition, the AI are stupid and complete assclowns. They struggle with high speed turns, and follow predetermined lines that often shove you out of the way. God only knows how many times I’ve been run off the road.