What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

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Calavera
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What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by Calavera »

Back in the late 90s I played a ton of Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo 2. I loved GT2 but even back then I though the graphics were pretty pixelated. Then GT2 Bleem!cast came out and fixed that issue! I bought GT3 for the PS2 when it first came out and I played it quite a bit. Probably not as much as I played 2 but it was still an enjoyable game. After that I pretty much quit playing new GT games. I borrowed GT4 on PS2 from a friend back in the day and only played it a little bit.

Recently I started playing Gran Turismo 2 emulated on the PC. The graphics obviously look much better emulated then on the original system. To me it is still basically as enjoyable now as it was back when it first came out. After playing GT2 for a bit I figured why not play GT4 since I have GT3 and GT4 for the PS2 emulator. The first thing I don't like about GT4 is the main menu. In 1,2 and 3 the main menu was one screen with each option easily selectable. In GT4 you can't see all the options at once and have to move around the screen to find them all. It has many options on the main screen that should be a sub menu. It may sound like a minor complaint but I really dislike it. Besides that the actual gameplay is basically the same as GT3.

I'm not sure what it is about GT3 and GT4 but I find GT2 to be a much more enjoyable experience. I've never played 5,6 or Sport. I actually had to look up how many GT games there were before posting this. The last one I heard about was GT5 on PS3. I'd probably give the newer ones a try if they weren't Playstation exclusive. I only game on the PC anymore. The Xbox/GC/DC/PS2 was the last console generation I had before switching to the PC. Well except for the Wii. I imagine the newer ones are more of the same just with better graphics. Looking up the newer games I see that GT5 has 1,088 cars and GT6 has 1,247. That sounds cool but like 90 percent of the cars you will never use. GT2 had 650 cars and that was way too many. So many low powered cars that there is no reason to ever own. All those sub 100hp cars that seem to be there for no reason but to add to the total number of cars. You can complete the game with just a few different cars. What sucks about it is even when there is a car you'd like to use there is no reason to because there is another car that overpowers it and can do the same races.

So what is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series? For me only playing 1-4 I have to go with 2.
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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Probably 3. It looked good and played well.

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melancholy
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by melancholy »

The only one I ever played for more than a couple of hours was 3. I never played 1 or 2, thought 4 sucked, put a lot of time into 5 only because the load times were like 2 minutes per race, and never played anything after that. But 3 was fun enough that I probably put 20 hours into it. Truth be told, I’ve never been a big fan of track racing games.

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ian
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by ian »

I’m tempted to go with 2 as well, but...

Sure it looked worse than GT 1, but my god, the content... GT2 had a car list that puts modern racing games to absolute shame.

GT 3 had the problem of more tracks but then gave you a choice of about 4 cars.
But those 4 cars weren’t a problem because the game lacked ANY sense of speed.
Oh... 350km/h in a TVR! Too bad road lines and scenery is are going past like I’m doing 100.

GT4 was actually decent, as it improved the amount of cars and tracks. And had a sense of speed returned.

Anything after GT4 became hugely irrelevant due to Forza.
The forza series was better in every way than GT5 and GT6, in the 6 years since I last touched a GT game, I’m gonna say I’ll wait another 10 years for the next game.

And now for the but...
I’m tempted to say 2 is the best BUT the PSP GT could almost be better than 2.

More cars and tracks than the first 4 games, custom soundtracks (finally I could have the Daytona USA soundtrack while I raced a sim)
Not to mention it looked and played amazing for a portable game. Only problems were the lack of car upgrades, no traditional career mode, and the load times/noise. my god..

I thought GTA LCS needed to work out the UMD drive.. PSP GT was mental, you had Dreamcast optical drive level noise from the back of the thing constantly..

In the end I put a version on a memory stick, made the game a lot better.

So there we have it, best GRAN TURISMO, is the 2009 PSP entry.
(And since I’m here and typing and brought up forza, the best forza is 3)
Now you all know!
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Calavera
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by Calavera »

I remember the main thing I disliked about 3 and 4. They are fun at first when you do the early races that are 2 or 3 laps and last 3-5 minutes. But pretty soon you get to races that are 10 laps and take 15 minutes or more to finish. That is where I lose interest. I been playing a lot of GT2 since my first post. I've completed almost everything in the Special Events categories and the majority of them are 2 laps. A few towards the end are 3 and then the final championship races are 5 laps. There are endurance races in GT2 but you expect those to be long. I like a standard race to last around 5 minutes tops. I can handle a few longer races but when every race is at least 10 laps that is just boring to me. There is nothing more frustrating then being on lap 9 of a 10 lap race where you were in 1st the entire time and then screw up and spin out on the last corner and come in 6th. Completely wasting the previous 15 minutes you spent racing. That is when I shut off the game and don't come back for a long time.
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ian
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by ian »

So there was this game called Le Mans 24 Hours on Dreamcast... I don’t think you would have been a fan.

I personally hate short races...
1-2 minutes loading for a 3 minute race? GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED!

2 minute loading for half an hour actually makes it worth it.

If I can walk out to a REAL CAR, start it, and be driving by the time a short race loads, it was a complete waste of time.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
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Skynet
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by Skynet »

ian wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:07 pm So there was this game called Le Mans 24 Hours on Dreamcast...
Fucking great game!

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ian
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by ian »

I know right!

One of the best racing games ever.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Calavera
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Re: What is your favorite game in the Gran Turismo series?

Post by Calavera »

ian wrote: Thu Nov 07, 2019 10:07 pm So there was this game called Le Mans 24 Hours on Dreamcast... I don’t think you would have been a fan.

I personally hate short races...
1-2 minutes loading for a 3 minute race? GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED!

2 minute loading for half an hour actually makes it worth it.

If I can walk out to a REAL CAR, start it, and be driving by the time a short race loads, it was a complete waste of time.
GT2 doesn't have a problem with load times though. I'm playing on an emulator though. The load times are only a few seconds, not even noticeable. Was there longer load times on the original console? It has been a long time since I played it on the original PS1 but I don't recall any issues with load times.
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