It’s the true story of a Gran Turismo player who was really good at the game and went on to become a professional race car driver. Script by Jason Hall, and was originally supposed to become a movie back in 2013, but nothing became of it. Apparently it’s going to become a movie for real this time? I don’t know, @tomchick is much better at telling us what stage a movie project is and whether it’s just generating headlines or something that might actually become a movie.
Hmm. Interesting. Well, interesting in that it’s not total fiction, which is what I thought it was going to be. That person must have a decent off-track story to make them think it’ll have a viewership worth the money making it.
I’d say the chances of a Gran Turismo movie are still slim. Normally, you’d think getting Blomkamp on board would be a sure sign they’re going to see this through to production. But Blomkamp has fallen out of the studio system in favor of doing…I dunno how to describe his shorts…demo reels? After Chappie, he retreated into setting up his own studio and releasing CG intensive shorts. He hasn’t been making features for a while. I can’t imagine he’s going to be very effective schlepping around a script for a relatively niche franchise, so if this gets made – if! – it will be cheaply done and then marketed to high heaven by Sony.
Anyway, the real news will be if they snag a famous actor. But right now, it’s just a non-working director with a script and a videogame studio cheering him on.
-Tom
A new track! As seen in several Nascar games (that I’m not familiar with), Project Cars 3, and Forza Motorsport 7, it’s the Watkins Glen International.
Oh cool! I like Watkins Glen! Finally something I care about instead of another dumb supercar.
-Tom
I wonder if it will be integrated into “the campaign”, like the story mode or whatever that this game has. Or will you just race the new track only in other game modes like time trial and multiplayer and such.
Oh nice! A new track and new cafe menus definitely help with the longevity for me. I’ve completed all of the circuit experiences available (at least Bronze) so it’s getting a bit repetitive until I can manage driving the ultra-fast cars well or want to do hour-long missions.
So happy about the Watkins Glen track, easily my favourite of the tracks so far. Just something about it.
And I’m getting the hang of driving these supercars, even if I’m not winning the races yet. At least I feel a bit more in control.
What I’m not getting is why I’m receiving pit penalties so often. There’s one track where I get 3-second penalties every single time I pit and I can’t figure out what lines I’m crossing that are causing it. It’s so bizarre. One failure in GT7 is the lack of pit training, for sure.
Disappointed in the three new cafe menus. I was only missing one car and that was just an easy purchase of a used car, then done. I thought they’d have a race requirement, at least. Even sadder about the let down that was the 6-star reward for one of the menus only to see it be all engines of which I’ll probably never need/use.
Now on collector level 43, though. Still think they really should have had some colours or wheels or something minor, at least, for every single level. What is a collector level advancement without meaning? Gah.
I don’t know how big of a deal this actually is, but it was a big enough deal for the publisher to crow about it in a press release:
I have no idea how significant this is to esports. Also, Assetto Corsa also just got Watkins Glen in their latest DLC. Take that, GT7!
-Tom
That does kind-of seem like a big deal. Didn’t the series go on-line only specifically to cater to this market from the release of GT Sport (2017) forwards? Makes it sound like they’re starting to get the worst of both worlds - missing the mark as the benchmark online racing simulator AND getting all the annoyances of the on-line only releases that we’ve been grudgingly dealing with ever since.
I’m not sure how big of a deal it is. Based on what I can tell this is only the second time this event is even being held. And GT7 was never announced for use in 2022, so saying it was replaced by Assetto Corsa is an overstatement, to say the least.
I have to say my least favourite course is the Daytona Road Course - especially in the Pro American cup where you are doing it in the evening and it is very hard to see where the track markers are. Plus you have to do 5 laps.
So, recently I hit Collector Level 50. Nice little milestone, right? Well, it gives you nothing, no reward and no trophy, and there are no levels beyond it. Not only that, it came when I still have some 200 cars still to get. That car collection level thingy is the worst.
I have discovered that my favourite course to race is the Le Mans 24 Hour one with 700 pp or less cars. Gives a huge payout, especially since I nearly always run it clean, well worth the 30 minutes/7 laps that you put into it. I’ve three cars that I enter, now. It has a neat little rainstorm built in that makes things messy, so you need some tire options, and timing pits and using the fuel meter to adjust consumption is necessary with the cars I race. My goal is to find a car that has better fuel economy as that’ll make it a lot easier, but I’m not sure how to measure that looking at the car options. Even times when I mess up and don’t place I get a pretty decent payout that is still more than most of the races available in the game.
Hope they don’t nerf it; it helps in my car purchasing.
Regarding the movie, assuming they will base on the real world if they can hook in Nissan then they might have a chance. Nissan was the real driver for the GT Academy in that they took the winners of the competition and gave them seats in Nissan race cars globally. I’m most familiar with the story of Bryan Heitkotter, who would make a pretty cool movie. Here is snip from his profile:
"Then, during the Great Recession, he was laid off from his job, and nearing 30 years of age, he saw the GT Academy as his last hope for a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a professional racecar driver.
After beating out over 53,000 online competitors and finishing among the top 16 in the 2011 U.S. Finals, Heitkotter made the long journey to England’s hallowed Silverstone Circuit and became the first to win the coveted Red Helmet as the U.S. GT Academy Champion in 2011."
Bryan went on from there to race all over the world for a few years. Recently Bryan has been racing more SCCA level to my knowledge. He is still fast, both in RL and in esports. But in racing, you gotta bring bags of money or big sponsors.
In PC games (iracing, ACC, etc) , you can turn down HDR and make other graphic tweaks to make it a bit easier to see your markers. That may help. But in my experience you often need to find alternative markers, ie in the day you brake at this marker but in the evening/nights you use a different visual marker to hit the same spot.
Apparently the Gran Turismo strategy of using outer walls works in real life too?
That reminds me of when Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. won a race back in 2004 at Talladega using a strategy they discovered playing Nascar Racing 2003 Season together.
Well, except more psychotic.
I’m kind of excited to hear Polyphony is considering porting this to PC. I used to exclusively play racing games on the consoles, until the DiRT games got me to realize: oh yeah, there’s no difference as long as you’re playing on a controller, except what seat you’re sitting on. Sure, a couch is more comfortable, but being uncomfortable while playing games isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The pleasure of play overrides the pain of your body’s complaints. That should be the motto of PC gaming.
I’m kind of the other way round. I prefer most games on PC, given the choice and same day releases, but I almost exclusively play driving games (other than ETS/ATS) on console.
This got announced as a launch title for PSVR2. That could be cool.
February 22nd launch for the device. The VR upgrade is free for owners of GT7.