Game Review: Gran Turismo Sport

I honestly doubted it would come to this but I actually need to find a hat - or perhaps more aptly a racing helmet - to eat. Because, with release of Gran Turismo Sport I must admit this is a good game.

Suspicions were plentiful after my colleague Feann Torr went to Japan for a preview of the game at developer Polyphony Digital. He returned gushing its realism and accessibility…and he was, I conceded, correct.

Fact is, now we have a game wearing the Gran Turismo moniker which is less bogged down by its heritage and less cluttered by messy interfaces and convoluted, unnecessary diversions.

Instead, launching a game of Gran Turismo Sport presents the player with only a couple of initial choices, including an instant ‘arcade’ race, an extensive livery design studio and an astonishing full-function camera mode where cars you have unlocked, and to which you’ve added your own graphic touches, can be posed in exotic locations and photographed.

This is about as car-loving as you can get from a visual aspect, adding filters and a huge variety of stunning locations where light will reflect realistically off the placed cars and many visual touches which can be tweaked to get just the right angle and perfect shot. You can even turn on the headlights or select the angle of front wheels to best capture the car in question.

Whilst you are off the race track, your driver avatar can also be tricked out with earned racing gear for those all-important podium celebrations.

But of course, there cannot be any podium celebrations without actually racing. And here again Gran Turismo Sport strains against its legacy.

If you want to simply race against the CPU drivers, you will find some excellent changes which have removed the formally robotic nature of GT AI driven cars of the past. Instead the PS4 will produce some energetic opponents who only get a little confused during complex situations, and generally provide a nice grounding of competition as you move through the game.

The weirdly named ‘Campaign’ is the area responsible for the most controversy. Its asks players to earn their credentials via a series of driving school tests - from the mundane to the more challenging - in order to earn money, unlock cars and tracks as well as other in-game awards.

But, for example, it seems daft to ask a player, even of beginner status, to sit and wait for a track and car to load up, and then be asked to drive in a straight line for 100 meters. That said, there are (over the course of many lessons) some tips for video-game simulation racing where you do learn via working through ‘Campaign’. Furthermore, it is a way for the game to reward the player with unlocked cars and tracks, as well as enabling cash to be ground out to use for more vehicle purchases.

However, as Feann noted, multiplayer is where this game is at and there are many options to get online and racing. For the creative, you can select one of the 40 courses in seventeen locations, pick a time of day, set the restrictions of cars, laps and so on, and then immediately race with friends or strangers.

While lacking night racing or weather options, the variety of daylight settings, with the way the game incorporates the 4K and HDR lighting effects on modern TV’s, is tremendous to observe.

There is split-screen couch racing and then there is the actual ‘GT Sport’ events. Race events happen continuously during the day, and allow for a warmup period, qualifying and then the actual race starts and have no doubt, the action will whiten the knuckles as you take your well-earned racer into the fray. You can also apply to sign up with manufacturers, to represent their marques on the race circuit.

‘GT Sport’ surrounds the race with a mild amount of ceremony. The build-up is staid compared with say Forza Motorsport, however there is more pizzazz in this game than any previous GT title.

Which is not saying too much. Disappointingly, Bathurst’s Mt Panorama seems lifeless and bland as you race around - the track feels proportioned differently and anaemic. In fact the biggest thrill is the pre-race flyby of jetfighters over the start line. It is a strange thing to convey, but in rival racing simulators, there is a more authentic, atmospheric presence to The Mountain which is lacking in this game.

So, while Mt Panorama is not the choice location of GT Sport, there are plenty of other locations which are enjoyable and exciting to tussle over, whether it is kart racing close to the tarmac, or rocketing along in a Gran Turismo Vision designed supercar. Our favourite is the Dragontail Seaside with its mix of broad turns, chicanes and vistas. For a more gruelling test, it is hard to pass up a lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

And there are still some GT historic millstones needing to be shook free from this franchise. On one hand, when racing, the game is very generous in the way it will ghost a car which has either crashed or is even about to crash. This means there are less pile-ups as following cars will not collide, keeping the racing bunch close. But for a simulation racer, its attention to the minutiae of details elsewhere in the game does tend to drop the player out of the immersion the developers seek.

On that note, still no damage modelling in this game is a real frustration. Again, the makers of GT put so much emphasis on the realism angle, and yet - at the expense of game play - continue the philosophy of: “we must keep our cars looking sparklingly and intact”.

Make no mistake, we understand the work which has gone into the presentation of the hundreds of cars in this game. The exterior and interior attention to detail, the sound and handling modelling is impeccable. But, when I am in a dice with a competitor driver out on the track, and he or she clips a wall as a result of the pressure I put on them, their mistake should have consequences - at least a visual one more substantial than a few scrapes. But further - like so many other modern racing sims do – some performance drop off. It is an element annoyingly lacking in Gran Turismo Sport.

That being said, this is the most accessible and enjoyable Gran Turismo title to date. It retains the hallmark love of cars, with a mountain of information to be explored on the history of various marques and the obvious devotion to the cars themselves is infectious.

Without doubt Gran Turismo Sport is not only a digital monument to the automobile, but also a hell of a lot of fun.