Gran Turismo 7: I waited, you shouldn’t
The Gran Turismo series represents some of the most influential game design and graphics technology that the PSone and PS2 had to offer. The depth and complexity of the car customization was unlike anything that had ever been done in video games. The ability to pick out your dream car or your daily driver and see what you could do to it to make it faster, better handling, or turn it into some bonkers machine that shouldn’t be in the hands of any mere mortal.
The first two games on the PSone are widely regarded as some of the most influential games of all-time from a design perspective. But the series shot into the stratosphere with the release of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec for the PS2. Shipping for the system in the Spring of 2001, it was the first major jaw dropping game that really showed how superior the PS2 hardware was to the Dreamcast. Full-stop there was just nothing on the Dreamcast that could hold a candle to the jaw dropping Gran Turismo 3. The series soldiered on with Gran Turismo 4 late in the life of the PS2 offering further graphical improvements, progressive scan support, and a colossal roster of cars that made the already impressive assortment of cars in GT3 look like a primer course.
That is where the series kind of lost its way. The critical reception was still largely positive for GT5, GT6, and GT Sport, but the series really lost something for me. The Forza Motorsport series had come into prominence and had injected more life and personality, while also shipping more regularly and offering a more realistic car driving model. Don’t get me wrong, Gran Turismo drives great and always has. But the realities of driving and collisions have always been something that the game just kind of ignores. Maybe it is for novice drivers and to make the game less punishing? It is hard to say. But, in the Xbox 360/PS3 generation the Gran Turismo games were still high quality but it felt a bit like the series had been left behind, with many cars that weren’t featured cars looking very dated and missing in-car camera views etc. The games still bolstered a huge roster of cars, but it was clear that the same amount of love had not gone into all of the cars. But, hey GT6 did let you drive a NASA rover on the moon. So, maybe I am the jerk here.
Gran Turismo Sport is another diversion that just wasn’t for me. It was the only Gran Turismo game for most of the PS4 generation and had a smaller focus. Less cars, focus on multiplayer, and almost nothing in the way of Single Player mission structure that the series had been known for. I am incredibly torn on GT Sport. On one hand the multiplayer was super fun and the game looked great. On the other hand the game had a very small roster of cars compared to other entries and the lack of single player content pushed me away from the game much faster than any installment in the series.
I am about to say something that will undoubtedly draw the ire of Gran Turismo purists. I had largely written off Gran Turismo 7. The fact that it was still tied to last generation machines, lacked hardware raytracing in on-track action, and my general malaise on the series for the last 15-ish years led me to skip the game at launch. I am here to tell you that I was wrong. Gran Turismo 7 is a fantastic game. Yes, it is still super weird and porn-y about cars. But the developers definitely feel like they are in on the joke. The game starts with an incredibly long un-skippable video about how cars are intrinsically tied to freedom and the general success of humankind. It is definitely a bit of a stretch, but let’s let them have their fun. The general structure of the first several hours is very specifically designed to walk even the most uninformed GT player through the whole experience of buying, improving, and driving cars on all sorts of different tracks and weather conditions.
There is a hobbyist thing in the car community where people get together on Saturday or Sunday mornings to hang out and look at each other’s cars. They call it Cars and Coffee. If you live near a major city in the US, you’ve undoubtedly passed by one of these events or participated in one yourself. Gran Turismo 7 takes that concept incredibly seriously. The Café in the game is the central hub of the mission structure for the entire experience. So, whenever you complete a specific set of races and collect a set of cars that your mission giver at the Café wants you to collect, you return there and the game will show you all kinds of sexy car pics and tell you about the history of the Mustang or whatever. It is a fine enough way to convey this, it is just a little funny that instead of being a race car driver representing major brands and high dollar racing teams, you’re just some dude that has a coffee addiction and loves to hang out with old men.
One of the more complicated things to explain to someone about the difference between Gran Turismo and its major rival Forza Motorsport is in the driving experience itself. Gran Turismo has always been married to their perfect representation of racing as an art. So, as a result they have never seemed to focus on what happens when that art turns to disaster. Crashing has never been something that the GT games have ever addressed very well. Since the first game the reality has always been that if you’re behind on the last lap just drive full steam into the corner and just let your car ricochet off of the leader car and catapult yourself into first place with no regard for anything. This hasn’t really changed here in the stock settings. I set my driving model to expert and the transmission to manual and turned off traction control. I am sure there is some more accelerated simulation stuff in there. But the core of the issue is that they still haven’t really changed that aspect of the action. So, if that is a deal breaker for you, GT7 might not be the game for you. However, if you play the game on their terms and just don’t do that kind of cheap stuff you’ll find that the sublime driving model is very pleasing.
Gran Turismo has always been about the graphics. On every system it has appeared on GT is the standard bearer for the console. Hell, the controllers for the PS2, 3, 4, and 5 have all been worked on by Polyphone Digital’s president Kazunori Yamauchi. Well, I have fantastic news, GT7 is drop dead gorgeous. It is absolutely one of the most impressive looking games on the PS5. The overall material quality of the cars and environments are some of the best in video games. If you’re playing the game on the PS5, you’ll also be greeted by some of the most insanely fast loading times. The hardest part about returning to old installments in the series is that when you’re working on license tests, every time you go to a new mission the loading times can be really long. That is almost entirely erased here with most loading times being reduced to 5 seconds or less. I cannot attest to how the load times are on the PS4, but I can only assume they will be substantially longer which might hurt the experience a bit.
Gran Turismo 7 is a true return to form for the series. It is absolutely fantastic and one of the best simulation racing games in years. 2017’s Forza Motorsport 7 was a major misstep for the series. Their multiplayer lobby system, poor vehicle unlock system, insane microtransactions, and poor single player progression left that series in a bad spot. Since then the more arcade focused Forza Horizon games have stepped in and have served the more casual audiences but left me feeling a little underserved as a hardcore simulation fan. Gran Turismo 7 brings the series back up to the standard of the Forza Motorsport series and overtakes it. The game is a powerful marriage of great multiplayer, amazing graphics, awesome sound, and a fantastic roster of cars. Some legacy driving issues are still there but if you choose to approach the game on its terms you’ll have a great time for dozens of hours.
If I have one single major gripe with the game as a whole it is the soundtrack. It is really terrible. Just go ahead and turn off the radio and listen to the roar of the engine. It is why we are here anyway, right?
