Ok, so maybe “casual” isn’t the right word either. It’s Gran Turismo on PS4, with an emphasis on community, multiplayer, and not scaring off new players to the series. There will also be an official tie-in with FIA.
Perhaps the greatest attraction of Gran Turismo SPORT is that it will bring racing experience to everyone, offering players of all ages the motorsports racing experience.
Gran Turismo SPORT will still offer plenty of enjoyment to those who have never experienced a driving game before—introducing them to how fun driving can be—while at the same time satisfy the demanding standards of the seasoned Gran Turismo player.
I’m on-board if it offers similar enjoyment as GT5. GT6 caught me in that transition to the PS4 and I wasn’t able to keep at it as long (nor was it that much of an enhancement over GT5). Considering GT5 was my first foray into racing games, I’d say that the GT series didn’t seem at all difficult to get into for a new player. But, as someone who’s played the last two, I’m not all that interested in the community/multiplayer aspect. For me, it was all about collecting cars, tuning them, and getting better at the races. I’d love it if the collision system was a little more realistic, though.
You can currently get this for $48 from Amazon if you have Prime. (Even the low version legacy version of Prime, like me).
Apparently the release date is set for end of December. Ha! I’ll believe that when I see it. I haven’t seen any previews for this anywhere. I seriously doubt they’d stealth release one of their major franchises.
EDIT: Maybe not, I found this trailer:
It makes it looks more like a car Photoshop tool rather than a racing game, in which case, maybe it will come out this year.
Beta signs up. I signed up. I hope they pick me! I hope the beta has driver license tests. That’s the one thing I really miss about the GT series that Forza never gives me.
Good luck Rock8! I signed up as well and I hope I get in, GT is one of my favorites. I probably ought to start shopping for a wheel soon, I might just pony up for a G29 if they don’t release a Driving Force GT equivalent.
There’s a limited time full game trial that started this morning for PS+ members. Non-PS+ plebes like me can start downloading late tonight. I think it goes for two days, so don’t wait until the weekend or something like I probably will.
Predicting the future:
Me (this weekend): So I finally installed that GT Sport demo. But it’s already expired. Whose lousy idea was this?
I’m not bothering with the demo as I already have the pre-order coming from Amazon, it won’t tell me anything that’ll change my mind (aside from it not running at all, but that’d just be silly!). I’m eager to get back into GT next week. Do most people use a wheel or controllers for GT these days? I can’t be convinced to spend the money on a wheel even though the controller sucks for racing.
Driving license tests are back! Yay! I did the first 9, which are open in the demo. The rest are locked.
Then I did a bunch of missions. Basically these are like driving tests. I did 9 or 10 of them so far, I think the demo has either 18 or 20.
So this is quite the generous demo. Tomorrow night I’ll dig in again to see what else is there.
The music is so bad you guys. It’s like your typical Japanese racing game music. It makes me so nostalgic for the early 2000s. I missed you bad racing game menu and racing music! It reminds me of the horrible music in the Sega GT games.
Is anyone else going to try the demo? It’s only up today and tomorrow I believe.
DiRT 4 being a miss for me has made me really nervous all of a sudden about driving games. What if I don’t get into it? It’s funny that Forza 5 brought my love of driving games back with a vengeance and then DiRT Rally really ignited it, but Forza Horizon 3 was just a slow burn and then DiRT 4 was a hard crash.
I like what I’ve played of GT Sport so far. I love the idea of all these driving license tests and all the missions, as long as they don’t get ridiculous like the last mission in GT4 where you had to drive an AMG Mercedes around the Nurburgring. I got so obsessed with that one for a month, it was the last thing I needed to finish in the whole game. I did finally get it, but only by completely exploiting the poor physics in the game where crashes don’t slow you down much, you take no damage from them, and certain areas on the Nurburgring you can cut corners and drive across the grass, which is faster than staying on the track in GT4. I finished it, but it felt like it sullied the whole GT4 experience.
I’ll probably get GT Sport once it hits the bargain bin, just to be safe. Just in case it’s another DriveClub. I felt no desire to play that after I bought it in the bargain bin. But at least I wasn’t out a lot of money as a result.
I’ve been playing the GT Sport demo and I really like. It’s definitely more GT for good or ill. Personally I like that, but I’m a bit on the fence since I would need a new wheel as my old one isn’t compatible with PS4.
For me driving games just aren’t the same without a wheel, at least sim games. There are some nice options, but I’m on the fence as to now being the time to buy.
The one weird thing about the controls on the Dualshock 4 is that triggers are only half used. So let’s say the triggers go from 0 to 255, with 0 being not pressing the accelerator or brake at all, and 255 being fully holding them down. Well, it feels like acceleration on the gas button goes from about 0 to 128, and from 128 to 255, it’s full throttle.
For the brakes, I’ve got anti-lock brakes, so I can just slam on the brakes and just treat it like a button, on or off. But man, I wish I had more room to play around on the accelerator. Especially because the DS4 actually has decent triggers for once. It’s not like the PS2’s controller where I played GT3 and GT4, where R2 was just a squishy analog button.
It’s completely unfair to do this, but I did a race in Driveclub in a BMW M4 and then did a race in GT Sport in the same car - all assists off. Totally unfair, but whoof, the GT version felt a million times better - the engine noise, the weight of the car’s handling, the grip on the road - if some reviews are halfway good for GT I’m all over it.
I use the right stick for Accelerate/brake when I play on a pad. It allows for much more control than the triggers do. Maybe give that a go if you want smoother/more precise inputs on pad.
I can’t. I tried that control scheme back in the PS2 days, and I just couldn’t make it work. The Triggers are just more intuitive analog to accelerator/brake than the right stick for me. Even when the “triggers” are just squishy buttons like they were on the DS2.
The car list is a bit… simplified. Every car seems to be in one of 4 categories or so, and each categories’ cars seem to be the same price. So for example, a car is either N300 or Gr4 or Gr3, or GrB or Gr1. Gr1 cars all seem to be one million credits or more. Gr4 and Gr3 cars are all 450,000 credits each, etc. I might have the numbers wrong, but you get the idea. It makes the whole thing feel more orderly, I guess, but makes the car variety that they DO have feel even less important. Maybe all that matters is the car category? After all, each car in a category is the same price, maybe it’s also virtually the same performance? I don’t know, because the demo doesn’t let you buy cars.
One thing I definitely feel is lacking is their cockpit views. There’s something lacking. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it doesn’t feel like I’m in a cockpit, it feels more flat, like it’s an overlay on top of the road. I don’t know if that’s because of the lighting or what. There have definitely been better cockpits done in other games.
I played the Forza 7 demo again last night after playing the GT Sport demo. The cockpit view is so much better, especially the new cockpit view that puts the camera in front of the steering wheel. The sounds are also much more ‘alive’. And the graphics do look a lot better to me, both on the Dubai track and the wet track in the Forza 7 demo. And the feel in the controllers is night and day. The Forza 7 demo really uses those extra vibrations in the triggers that’s separate from the vibration in the controllers to make the feel of the track come alive. You feel it much more precisely when you’re skidding, for example. BUT the Forza 7 demo doesn’t have driving license tests and missions and track thingies.
