RE: The Gran Turismo appreciation society: PH Blog

[ACB85]

Lol, definitely the late 80s Supra for a first buy. I did handling first then whats left of $$$ went on a light tune. Toyota Soarer also thanks to the equally tune-able 2JZ.

Those early races, very repetitive. The irony is my current car is a Gen 2 Yaris. The shame!

Weapon of choice Mitsubishi GTO Race prep'd. Split screen battles between my dad and I with those was a great laugh. Don't forget the Castrol Supra GT!

[dannyDC2]

Gran Turismo was life as a child. It's certainly shaped my life.

The Integra Type R comment in the article made me smile. It's the exact reason I bought mine.

[j_s14a]

For the faithful GT opening sequences

GT1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9n9iDEeJyk

GT2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92H3ETKIe6g

GT3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSyDa1xD24

GT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVY0O6nrK40

GT5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNAOQ7arCK4

GT6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHM1Jl68zkY


To this day, GT1 still has one of the best game opening sequences of all time.

[Dubmaster77]

PoopahScoopah said:

I was already a total petrol head teenager by the time GT came out. I think what sticks with me the most, and what impressed me the most was the education value of it. I'd spend hours just flicking through the (seemingly endless) lists of cars, memorising stats and fascinated by some of the history. It was a total geek fest! It also introduced some really rare stuff to me.

Apart from that, my main enduring memory would be always working up to a R32 GTR with all mods. I sadly forget the exact BHP figure but it was something like 1004bhp at full tune. Even with the stickiest tyres it would be an animal - bog, bog, boooooost, oh fk there's another tyre wall! Races could be easily won by just barging other cars out of the way and then bouncing it off the walls around corners, with actual 'proper' driving far less satisfying as it always felt like you had to nanny the car on part throttle the whole time. Then you'd end up in the gravel and there was so much turbo lag it would take 5 mins to crawl back out with the engine struggling to make any power.

While GT was the original and I can remember whole evenings turning into whole nights plaing head to heads with my best mate, The fact you could bounce of walls with little impact on speed or position is something I find quite frustrating about GT.

Then I bought an X box and played Forza 2!! Wow it felt like the most realistic simulator ever, Hit the wall an you got a race on your hands to get your positions back! Loved it! Then 3 Came out even better and the Nurburgring as well!!! amazing!!!!!
I don't think Forza 3 has been better'd yet, I have 5 on my X box One but am reluctant to buy 6 incase its even more disappointing than 5. It helps I like old cars so most of the stuff I lust after is already available.

Any comment on 6?? Worth spending £25 at cex on??

[AndrewEH1]

Dubmaster77 said:

Any comment on 6?? Worth spending £25 at cex on??

GT5 frustrated me, never played GT6 either! Although the fear of booting up a PS3 after about two year is filling me with dread!

Edited by AndrewEH1 on Thursday 3rd November 15:03

[Matt Bird]

PoopahScoopah said:

Oh, and being a poor loser when a race went wrong. So I'd handbrake it around then gun it the wrong way up to full speed and see how impressive a head on collision I could get with the lead car. Yeah, ruining a computer generated opponent's race meant a lot as a teenager!

Definitely did that as well!

[NJ72]

Not gonna lie, one of my moments of pride was driving an insanely tuned Yaris against an Evo rally car and winning...

[Fraz88]

Yeah totally agree! I was obsessed with Gran Turismo 2 back in the day. That and Colin McRae Rally.

[MissChief]

j_s14a said:

For the faithful GT opening sequences

GT1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9n9iDEeJyk

GT2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92H3ETKIe6g

GT3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSyDa1xD24

GT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVY0O6nrK40

GT5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNAOQ7arCK4

GT6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHM1Jl68zkY


To this day, GT1 still has one of the best game opening sequences of all time.

GT2 for me. The way the song starts off very haunting and slow and builds up really gripped me. It's still one of my favourite songs.

[hondansx]

The series definetly did turn me into a fully fledged petrol head.

As others have said, i used to pore over the details. My best mate and i bunked off school when we first bought the game, and i remember planning weekends so we could do stints for the long 24 hour races.

I was totally immersed in the game, and was really proud of my 'garage'. For me, the NSX was the best car to drive in the game so i loved buying ones in rare colours in Type S, S Zero and Type R forms.

GT5 was a disappointment. I barely played it as a result and haven't used a console each. I went from playing it whenever i could - a proper addiction - to not playing it at all.

I tried Forza a little while back and found it to be like an arcade game. I soon after had a go on Gran Turismo and laughed... i remember it being photo-realistic and just like driving in real life (despite being a teenager without a license!) but it was a case of never go back. Nevertheless, great memories and it has made me a lifelong JDM fan!

[jtopps]

siovey said:

I also loved that Italian track where you raced through the narrow streets, cant remember its name now though...

That was Amalfi Coast, I remember it because if you had a car fast enough you'd hit a bump and get seriously airborne!

[twoblacklines]

I stopped playing after GT2, which was excellent, due to the sequel not having as many cars as well as the sound of them not being accurate.

Then I switched to Forza, and stopped playing after the Xbox One came out because it was just full of in game purchases. I like to buy a game and enjoy it, not buy a game for £40 then have to buy in game purchases to progress properly.

[Tuvra]

I agree too, especially when it comes to tuning cars and the effects they have.

As tragic as it sounds, I used to have a batch of cars that I loved and then finely tuned them to suit my needs. By finely tune I'm talking tens of laps testing gear ratio's, tens of laps testing weight/brake distribution, tens of laps for the aero etc, I remember putting in around 150 laps in a McLaren F1 racing nobody but myself

A funny story of when I was 11, me and my mate used to buy the Turbo cars and max them, we then realised something we were doing was slowing our cars down. One by one we stopped adding parts on, we strongly suspected the port polishing was too blame until we slowly discovered the racing gearbox was slowing our top end down, so we never put the racing gearbox in because we didn't know about gear ratio's

I am one of many who got bored of the 47 MX5's, 65 Skyline's and all the other dross that GT were producing, I went to Forza and have never looked back, who can blame me when they make their games look as pretty as this :-

[ecsrobin]

When in the military we had a big TV and a PS3 with GT4 in our common room, we then created a hot lap board on a wall with moveable name slips the challenge was to use the merc 190 evoII round the Nurburgring, if you beat anyone's time you had to save the replay. Hours were wasted lapping that track!

[cib24]

Yup, I agree. Although I started getting into cars thanks to Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit on PS1, it was Gran Turismo III on PS2 that captured my imagination and turned me into a petrolhead, and it was good timing as well since it was around the age that I could get my driving permit. I must have played over 500 hours in GT3 as I loved the license challenges, the one make series races and the endurance races. I also enjoyed modifying the cars and m favourites were the Mazda RX-7, the 787B, the Mine's R34 Skyline GT-R, the Toyota Supra GT500 race car, the Toyota GT-1 and the TVR Cerbera Speed 12. I would play and tweak the cars in my garage for the littlest things in order to win a race.

I skipped GT4 and GT5 and my next favourite racing game was Forza 2 which was also amazing.

However, GT3 was the start and it is the reason I own a '99 spec Mazda RX-7 FD today.

[J4CKO]

I gave me an appreciation of Cheesy Japanese lounge muzak

I remember playing GT and thinking "Finally", it was the game that all petrolheads had been waiting for, remember rushing out of work to get GT2 on launch day, got a free T shirt, remember being surprised with GT3 and a PS3 to play it on.

Many a happy hour spent on it, all went a bit wring later on and Forza took its thing and just did it better, GT5 looked and felt a bit lame in comparison.

Forza Horizon I love, the free roaming aspect, but oh my god the annoying woman who keeps asking where you have been and will you join her showcase, all the characters look like they work in a Genius bar in an Apple store and go travelling.

Nearly as annoying as the tetchy yet Avuncular scottish bloke in the Toca games, please dont call me "kid", I am 46 tomorrow !

[ECG1000]

I had a copy of GT5 which I loved despite the poor sound effect/engine noises.

My favourite geeky thing to do was buy a car and set a best lap time around Eiger Nordwand. I'd go away and modify it, then come back and see how much 'better' I'd made the car.

Used to spend hours dicking about capturing my most lurid slides in photo mode. Ashamed to admit I even put my favourites in a Facebook album.

Since we're all card nerds and talking about GT, here are a few:

[lestiq]

Yep wonderful game, never owned a PS1 so my experience of early gran turismo was limited to 20 mins on friends console once in a blue moon, gran turismo 3 was where it became serious for me, bought a steering wheel, spent virtually all of my teenage years locked in my room learning every track backwards. I genuinely wanted to be a racing driver at that age and thought if I could learn all the techniques it would of course happen!! I do believe that all those hours spent thumping round the tracks made me a better driver.

[jon-]

Gran Turismo 2 is the reason I insist on motul oil on my car where possible. In game advertising nailed it.

j_s14a said:

For the faithful GT opening sequences

GT1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9n9iDEeJyk

GT2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92H3ETKIe6g

GT3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSyDa1xD24

GT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVY0O6nrK40

GT5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNAOQ7arCK4

GT6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHM1Jl68zkY


To this day, GT1 still has one of the best game opening sequences of all time.

Why don't I remember any of those songs?

They all sound wrong to me.

[Regiment]

https://youtu.be/COy_JKXtzvE

I'm sure everyone remembers the above, must have done so many laps with that on repeat in an 800hp Evo.