Polyphony’s landmark racing series gets its first PS4 outing with the release of Gran Turismo Sport. Back in the day Gran Turismo broke new ground. The racing game landscape is rather different, today.

To say the game is entering a rather crowded genre would be an understatement. Racing game fans have been inundated with new titles recently, most notably Project CARS 2 and Forza Motorsport 7 – both of which are catering for the more serious multi-disciplined racer. We’ve also had the likes of Formula One 2017 and, more recently, WRC 7 – dedicated to open-wheelers and rallying, respectively.

It’s worth noting that this is not Gran Turismo 7. The Sport suffix refers to the game’s close affiliation to the world of bona fide motorsport and it’s esports aspirations. Anyone expecting a rich and deep single-player racing experience is going to be sorely disappointed. Gran Turismo Sport is aimed squarely at delivering a multiplayer experience.

The game’s tight online integration means that you really need an internet connection to get the most out of the game. And I’m not just talking about the racing. GT Sport is packed with extras. I’d say that the developers have spent more time on the extras than the single-player element. First off, you’ve got the Brand Central, which is a lot more than just a place to buy cars. Each marque has a visual museum showing the history of their cars, promotional YouTube videos, a photoreal animated model showcase, details of concept cars and other info. It’s a car enthusiasts dream.

Hats off to the developers from providing such a polished product. The visuals are breathtaking, especially if you are playing on a 4K HDR TV. The cars look fantastic, as do the circuits. I’d argue that they do look a little too clean, but the backgrounds are practically photo-real. Disappointingly, though, but apart from some baked in time-of-day variations, there’s no choice of weather conditions, dynamic or otherwise. This really puts the game to shame compared to some of its peers.

The game is broken down into three modes: Arcade, Campaign and Sport.

Arcade is where you will find the game’s competitive single-player and split-screen content. Here you can race against AI opponents around the available unlocked tracks, partake in a time trial event, try you had at drifting and race locally against a friend in two-player split-screen. PSVR owners can sample the tracks, racing against A1 opponents in the VR Tour (more on that later).

The Campaign isn’t the career mode that you may have thought it was. It’s more like a training course. It features the driving school of previous GT games, a series of mission challenges and circuit experience – which teaches you about the intricacies of each circuit. I didn’t find there to be a lot of fun in Campaign as it’s just getting you ready for the online component.

Before you can compete online in Sport, you need to earn your qualifications in racing etiquette. This involves watching two videos regarding sportsmanship. Polyphony’s definition of good sportsmanship is “not doing things that make you look bad”, which is not exactly right in my book. It’s not about how others perceive you, it’s more about doing what’s right and behaving in a respectful manner. I assume that this was lost in translation, somewhere.

The online multiplayer is what GT Sport is all about. Sport mode boasts “proper” FIA race tournaments against other players entering you into a global Gran Turismo Sport contest. It’s here that you will find all the races and tournaments that were once solo affairs. There are daily races for you to enter, the FIA GT Nations Cup tournament and FIA GT Manufacturers Series. There’s even a race calendar to keep track of the races.

Gran Turismo Sport takes the competitive game very serious. Each lap generates a mountain of data that, if you are so inclined, you can scour through to tweak your car setup accordingly. A lot of effort has clearing been spend trying to make GT Sport the pinnacle of online racing games.

For a more casual online experience Lobby allows you to create your own races or join others via a simple browser interface. You can filter the races to find exactly what you are looking for, or create your own room and wait for others to join you and race.

I found the car handling a bit interesting, especially for a game that touts itself as being a real racing simulator. The cars are quite forgiving, especially when compared to the likes of Project CARS 2. I was easily able to drift around bends on the gravel circuits, and perform some pretty amazing cornering on tarmac. Very enjoyable, but unless I’ve suddenly got the ability to channel Lewis Hamilton, not that realistic.

The package provides plenty for the more create player to get their teeth into. Joining the livery editor, which is not an uncommon feature in today’s racing games, is the Scenes mode. If ever there was a non-gameplay time sponge in a game, Gran Turismo Sport’s Scenes mode is right up there with the best. Scenes allows you to take your car and place it in a specially prepared 2.5D photo backdrop. GT Sport then manages to accurately match your car with the lighting of the background image, blending them both together seamlessly. There are lots of backgrounds to choose from including architecture and even some beautiful landscapes from New Zealand.

As I mentioned, the game looks amazing on a 4K monitor. But if you want true immersion, the VR Tour will blow you away. Without a doubt the best virtual reality racing experience I’ve had on a console and second only to Project CARS 2 running in VR on a $4000 PC and a $1800 HTC Vive VR kit. With a Thrustmaster T300 racing wheel and a PSVR you ARE on the track and within one of the crispest VR environments I’ve experienced. There are some unfortunate compromises that relegate this to more of a novelty VR showcase that a proper part of the game. For starters, you can only race against one opponent. Secondly, unlike in other modes, none of your wins count towards your career progress.

Despite being so feature-packed, Gran Turismo Sport is really more of a follow up to the PS3’s Gran Turismo Prologue than a true Gran Turismo sequel. To compare it to Forza Motorsport 7 or Project CARS 2, both with robust single-player career modes, really doesn’t do GT Sport any favours.

Saying that, what it does well, it does very well, it’s just that there’s not enough of it. At its best Gran Turismo Sport is a beautiful-looking online racer, but at its worst it’s a very lean game release, full of folly and unnecessary padding.

The post Gran Turismo Sport (PS4 Pro) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo is the grand-daddy of racing sims. For us old timers, the jaw-dropping visuals of the first iteration back in 1997 heralded a completely new type of racing game with real-world physics and photo-real cars.

Twenty years later, the newest incarnation, Gran Turismo Sport, enters a very different market, a racing genre dominated by some serious heavy hitters. Over the last few months we’ve seen the likes of Codemasters’ superb Dirt 4 and Formula One 2018 games, as well as Slightly Mad’s fantastic Project CARS 2. In just under a week Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport 7 also hits the shelves.

The big question for me is what extra, when it releases on the 18th of October 2017, can Gran Turismo Sport bring to the table.

STG was invited to PlayStation AU’s exclusive Gran Turismo Sport preview event on Sydney’s North Shore. Sony had chosen an impressive backdrop in which to showcase their oncoming racing game, setting up demo pods amongst the prestigious cars of The Classic Throttle Shop showroom.

The session started with a brief introduction, where the collection of journos where reminded of the incredible twenty-year legacy of the Gran Turismo series across each of the generations of the PlayStation console. Of particular note was that Gran Turismo Sport is accredited by the FIA so proficient players could find themselves gaining a proper racing accolade the same way Formula One champions do.

The demo pods, complete with racing chairs and steering wheels, were each attached to a 4K TVs (Sony of course), with two pods wired up to PlayStation VR headsets.

I’d been playing the nuts out of Project CARS 2 on PC, and just started with Forza Motorsport 7 on Xbox One. To say my expectations were high would have be an understatement. Of course, Gran Turismo Sport running on a PS4 Pro is an unfair comparison against a high-end PC with two GTX 1080ti running Project CARS 2. But this is Polyphony, the guys that always seem to manage to get that little bit more out of the PlayStation hardware than anyone else.

A few races in and I found myself impressed with the cars, both the quality of the models and the handling. Trying out the dirt circuits proved to be a bit too much for my driving skills. But it all felt good, at least as good as Project CARS 2.

As I flicked through the race setting, I couldn’t find the environmental settings. No weather, it seems that Gran Turismo is a fair-weather racer only. The lack of weather features made me a bit nervous. Whilst I was assured that rain would be in the final build, dynamic weather, a la Project CARS was not going to be implemented. Similarly, there was no way to set the exact race time, just a choice of six or so option like dawn, morning noon, etc.

This is the problem with Polyphony, they take so long to produce their games, technology and gamer expectations overtake them. If I’d seen Gran Turismo Sport a year or so ago, I’d have been incredibly impressed. But when I’ve just come off a race around a Silverstone in Project CARS 2, complete with volumetric mist blowing across the circuit, it’s difficult to get overly enthused with Gran Turismo Sport and it’s competent but, by comparison, 2015 visuals.

All was not lost, though, as I was yet to try the game’s PSVR mode. Interestingly, it does seem that even the much-lauded PlayStation 4 Pro can only handle two cars on the circuits in VR, making this more of a showcase than a full-on VR game. But, even in this cut-down form, Gran Turismo Sport’s VR mode is very impressive.

I regularly use an HTC Vive attached to a monster of a PC to play VR racing games, the results and sublime. But that’s a lot of expensive hardware. What PlayStation and Polyphony have done is create a comparatively cheap VR racing system. Gran Turismo Sport provides such an authentic racing experience, you’ll find it hard to go back to a 2D TV.

It’s like you are actually sitting there in the car, sitting on the track. Not just that, but the VR perfectly complements and shows off the work that’s gone into the creating authentic car handling. You can feel the car as you negotiate the bends, it reacting exactly as I expected it to, based on my real-world driving experience. Losing the car at a corner gave me a moment of genuine fear, as I forgot where I was- it felt so real. I’m certainly looking forward to playing a bit more Gran Turismo Sport in VR when the game is released later this month.

Gran Turismo has never been just about the racing. The game really caters for the car enthusiast. There are detailed histories for the car marks, including videos from the manufacturers.

The Scapes mode allows you to take your favourite cars and place them in specially shot 3D photographs of real-world locations from around the globe. The game then perfectly blends your car into the scene. This allows you to create a believable photo mash-up of real-world background and game engine car. Fans that enjoy creating their own liveries are going to have an absolute field day showing off their creations in Scapes mode.

Even though the lack of weather effect was a disappointment, the cars, the handling and the circuits themselves are all very impressive. I loved the car videos, historic facts and photo mode, but it was the VR showcase blew me away. One of the best PSVR experiences I’ve had to date.

I, for one, am really looking forward to getting my mitts on the finished game.

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