It has taken the team at Polyphony Digital nearly 20 years, but I am finally excited about a Gran Turismo game. Despite being a huge car and racing fan, IU never found myself enamored with the Gran Turismo racing games. They always felt too stiff and too boring. Like they were taking themselves too seriously. In their drive to make their game feel as real as possible, they stripped out the fun. Because of that, I found myself deep into the clutches of the Xbox competitor, Forza Motorsports.
Aside from the fun factor, Forza just always seemed to be one step ahead in terms of physics, online experiences, and visual fidelity. Gran Turimso Sport finally looks to have taken the crown for visuals in this latest iteration, and with its focus on esports-style racing events, it needs to have world-leading online functionality. So that is two of the big boxes ticked. All that is left is fun.
While I can’t decide if the new game is fun until I play it, it is nice to see the team at Polyphony focusing on features that are outside the hardcore physics racing. A new Scapes feature is a hugely impressive dynamic photo mode that lets players place cars in any one of a huge number of backgrounds to take in-game screenshots that look true to life, a feature that expands on Forza’s photo mode. Gran Turismo Sport is also adding in a huge visual customization and livery piece to the game, again matching what has been available on Forza for years.
The new game launches for Playstation 4 on November 16th, and for the first time in my life, I can tell people that I am excited about a Gran Turismo title.
