All meat, no fat.

Fantastic game, but something I never see pointed out is just how good the cutscenes are, that perfect framing and solemn storyboarding makes it feel like a modern take on classic samurai movies.

I've also always felt the film was directly inspired by Ran. Many designs and key visuals and even the castle siege scene are very similar. Even one of the attacks share its name with the family name of the movie's main character. Isshin is actually Hidetora, I have no proof but no doubts either.

"Congratulations! Getting together with your fellow drivers really motivates you to lose, doesn't it?"

Gran Turismo 7 is finally here and it's just GT Sport with a dynamic weather system, a car upgrade menu, a barebones campaign in the form of Cafe mode+license tests and an extremely predatory attempt at a service-oriented game.

Of course the game at its core is very solid, the driving model feels really good and despite the lap time grind, driving line focused ideas it has, it handles really well on a controller. But this is nothing new for people who come from Sport. Most of the content is straight up ported from the last game, I've only really seen 3 tracks and a handful of cars that are actually new. More should come in the future according to the roadmap.

The only real upgrade in this regard is that changing car parts is a new thing and feels really good, each part having a direct, tangible effect on how the car drives and sounds, it feels like more than just "speed goes up".

Cafe is the main mode and gives the game an unfinished feeling. Campaign is a bunch of races where you get a few cars and then compete in a championship, over and over. It walks you through a few car brands and then it just ends at 700pp. No group 1 or 2 races and just a couple 3/4 events. It's pointless to get any of the le mans cars or the VGT ones, or GR.2, or racing ones. There's no post game, no progression past getting the early game free shitboxes. ALL main events are rolling start races where you start maybe 30 seconds behind the lead and you have to catch up, dodging the terrible AI that hasn't been upgraded since the PS3 days. Makes me wonder where's the so advertised sophy AI, and why would they release the game without this.

Another well-advertised addition was the 'music rally' mode which is literally just a time trial with a specific song in the background (???). I don't know what they were going for. Soundtrack is nice but many tracks were just ported from sport, and many of those were just recycled from the older games. I still like the songs however.

Economy is downright awful, the outrage it caused within the community is very much justified, but despite the polyphony team coming up with a statement that they'd undo payout changes from the last update, there's more to its issues than just the payouts being lowered on purpose to encourage people to buy credits.
The only way to get cars older than 2000 is either waiting for them to be on the 'legend' store or on the 'used cars' store. Modern hypercars are locked behind 'invitations' that can be gotten through roulette spins. All of these make getting any iconic vehicles time-based to encourage MTX purchases.

Game lacks the polish Sport had (which to be fair, probably took many updates to achieve, idk, I got the game in 2020) and features quite a few bugs, and framerate dips well below the 60 fps target on PS4. There are visual glitches on certain tracks that weren't there before and the UI has some baffling UX choices despite the pretty menus, this seems to be a constant in the newer games.

There's no point in getting this game right now, no point in spending 60/70 burgers on this. It took them 2 years to make Sport worthwhile and it will probably take them even more time to fix this. GT7 is undercooked, it should not have been released on this state, it's the shortest in the series, it offers nothing new, the DRM is invasive, and what's sadder, there's a great game hidden under the absolute bullshit choices by the developer/publisher.

If you really want a GT game just get Sport for $10 or whatever, you'll get a far more polished package which includes like 80% of what 7 offers anyways. Don't be like me and arrive early to a party that hasn't started and where you don't know who will actually show up.

Da, da, da, da, da
It's the motherfuckin' D-O-double-G (Snoop Dogg!)
Da, da, da, da, da
You know I'm mobbin' with the D.R.E. (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
You know who's back up in this motherfucker! (What, what, what, what?)
So blaze the weed up then! (Blaze it up, blaze it up!)
Blaze that shit up, nigga... yeah 'Sup Snoop?

Top Dogg, bite 'em all, nigga, burn that shit up
D-P-G-C, my nigga, turn that shit up
C-P-T, L-B-C, yeah, we hookin' back up
And when they bang this in the club, baby, you got to get up
Thug niggas, drug dealers, yeah, they givin' it up
Lowlife, yo' life, boy, we livin' it up
Takin' chances while we dancin' in the party fo' sho'
Slip my hoe a 44 when she got in the back do'
Bitches lookin' at me strange but you know I don't care
Step up in this motherfucker just a-swingin' my hair
Bitch quit talkin', crip-walk if you're down with the set
Take a bullet with some dick and take this dope on this jet
Out o' town, put it down for the Father of Rap
And if yo' ass get cracked, bitch, shut your trap
Come back, get back, that's the part of success
If you believe in the S, you'll be relievin' your stress

Da, da, da, da, da
It's the motherfuckin' D.R.E. (Dr. Dre, motherfucker!)
Da, da, da, da, da

You know I'm mobbin' with the D-O-double-G
Straight off the fuckin' streets of C-P-T
King of the beats—you ride to 'em in your Fleet- (Fleetwood!)
Wood Coupe DeVille rollin' on dubs
How you feel—whoopty-whoop—nigga what?
Dre and Snoop chronic'd out in the 'lac (In the 'lac!)
With Doc in the back, sippin' on 'gnac (Yeah)
Clip in the strap, dippin' through 'hoods (What 'hoods?)
Compton, Long Beach, Inglewood!
South Central out to the Westside (Westside)
It's California Love, this California bud got a nigga gang o' pub
I'm on one, I might bail up in the Century Club
With my jeans on and my team strong
Get my drink on and my smoke on
Then go home wit' somethin' to poke on (Wha'sup bitch?)
Loc', it's on for the two-triple-oh
Comin' real, it's the next episode
Hold up, hey

For my niggas who be thinkin' we soft
We don't play
We gon' rock it 'til the wheels fall off
Hold up, hey
For my niggas who be actin' too bold
Take a seat
Hope you ready for the next episode—
Hey, hey, hey, hey



Smoke weed everyday

After some time playing through the game I realized it would never get better.

FH5 is the final GaaSification of the Horizon formula. Just an endless tangle of player retention mechanics crawling over each other in the form of weekly, daily and seasonal tasks, missable cars, an ever present roulette spin for every time you level up, car-specific XP rewards, forzathon points grind, and probably more I'm just missing. Everything fits together and creates a system to keep the player paying for Gamepass, and just goes to show how much harm this business model could do to the quality of AAA launches.

The story is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things I've ever put up with, and a lot of it is non-skippable at that. T10 really went all out to show what it thinks about the player with its cringe, corporate, safe, lifeless dialog, filled with non-characters that are borderline racist caricatures and just won't shut up (Trust me, I tried. The character voice volume slider doesn't even work).

Story events are a huge pain to go through and what's worse is they aren't even fun on their own. Exhibition events got way too big and they're just lifeless and goofy scripted 5 minute stretches at this point. There was a moment of realization when I played the monster truck event where you have to knock some giant bowling pins where it struck me, there's no more denying to it, the target audience's age for the game went down at least 10 years since FH1.

The game perfected the physics and the driving sensations, now enhanced by the vibrating triggers on the Series S/X. That's a big plus and something really solid in the game. There's a big amount of cars (even if the DLC is prohibitely expensive) and despite the absence of a few big brands, it's generally a good job even if some of the models are now generations old. That said, there's a lot of customization options on each car and seeing a lot of them have special body kits now is quite good and allows for a lot of player expression.

However as it comes to the racing itself, it's a game where nothing matters anymore. Railings, trees, stone walls, doesn't matter, the car will just destroy it and carry on. There isn't even almost any traffic at all unless you select a specific offline mode. It is a frustration free package, races are extremely short and rarely ever go past the 3 laps. No thought required, no learning curve of any sort while offline. Online is just rolling the meta car with the meta tune and trying not to get punted out of the track.

Visually the game looks really, really good. Really blows me away at times, it also makes a great use of the console's SSD, making fast travel almost instant.

There are also a lot of bugs in the game. I remember playing it a month or two after release and being unable to fast travel and then drive. The controller would stop responding in game requiring a restart. The text-to-speech would also activate on the main menu screen and the option to turn it off wouldn't work. This still happens.

There are a lot of legacy issues coming straight from FH4 and FH3 even. Namely the auction house still being broken. The controller remap menu still being pretty much useless and even some cars being listed as barn finds (but actually aren't) because apparently they forgot changing that from one of the previous games where they actually were barn finds.

The music choices were interesting. Overall I'm not a fan of it but I took a couple songs for my personal playlists. Listening to the radio stations absolutely butcher already tame songs to fit that E for Everyone rating was some sort of salt on the wound when you pair it with the literal Fortnite dances, the goofy character costumes and the hypercars doing off road, cartoonish stunts to an announcer calling your avatar a superstar in spanglish.

Overall I'm just really unimpressed with the game. I consider it one of the most disgusting things I've ever played and a biopsy of the cancer that eats away the AAA sector. The actual one with the 10/10s, not the latest EA flop people will bash anyways.

"Gentlemen, I do not believe a lady on Earth would be able to resist us now."

Replayed it for the first time in many years.
The story is embarrassing and cringe, the battles are massive and the objective-based mission structure actually allows you to plan your loadout. Very straightforward and arcadey but also with a more realistic touch thanks to the gloomy environment and planes that have more weight than those in 7.
Both gun and air to ground weapons are grossly OP giving it a very fun core gameplay despite the forgettable missions.
Replaying a 2007 game and seeing it have essentially the same ideas as 7 (2019) minus a few improvements on the newer release (and to be fair, 6 is already very similar to the previous releases) gives some hindsight on how creatively bankrupt the franchise as a whole is, but despite that I'll probably be first in line for the next game.

You know a game is gonna be terribly optimized when even the trailer runs at a shit framerate.

It's a very simple game, incredibly frontloaded to the point it peaks during the first level and everything afterwards has the progression of a flash game. Encounters and health system are rather poorly designed and the visuals get the point across but are very samey. Gotta point out it was also one of the first commercial UE4 games so some lighting and particle effects looked pretty ahead of the curve back in 2015.

Of course it's a below average TPS and the dialogue is cringe whether ironic or not, and it was only somewhat popular due to being provocative but I'm glad a game like this is given a chance to exist and be sold on a major storefront.

"When I close my eyes, the sky in my dreams is a deep, dark blue"
Replayed this game recently, even though a lot of the ideas are a rethreading of things already displayed on the earlier games I think there's a very bold difference on how aesthetics and vibe are transmitted to the player. I feel the music and story aren't the focus anymore unlike some of the earlier games. It goes all out on visuals and manages to deliver some of the prettiest landscapes I've seen in a video game. Being in a dogfight where you see blue, traverse the clouds and then find yourself under a grey sky and above a black sea is something that I can't quite put into words and feels alike to looking at the ocean through your window when a storm is coming. Other moments like flying really low above water while droplets fall on the camera and the sun filters through it while speeding past a bridge are pure magic and feels like use of hardware to its every extent to make a concept into something almost tangible.

it's very much the definition of background game to pass the time while listening to a podcast or something. retarded story and characters with rather uninteresting missions but a somewhat fun core gameplay

that said it's filled with weird design choices that seem to contradict each other. it's a parkour/climbing game but after like 15 seconds of running your stamina runs out, then the entire platforming aspect of it gets thrown out of the window once the hook gun gets in the picture. it's also a melee focused game but you die in a few hits while the enemies are tanks that take forever to die, then you unlock the stomp instakill skill and suddenly melee weapons are pointless. game puts you in situations where you're supposed to think fast but then you have to enter to the pause menu to craft medkits (with a timeout screen at that) in the middle of a fight
many people complain about the final scene being a qte but i find it better than yet another garbage tier boss fight like the big zombie and the machete guy ones

Remake filled with small changes that kill many things that made the original feel special. Graphics look really nice and the game performs well but gone are the original color palette and some iconic visual effects of the original. New character models are more realistic but less expressive. The default control scheme is changed into a more modern one yet the physics and camera are way clunkier than the original. Voice and audio work is far inferior as well, particularly Dormin's echoing voice lacking any sort of mysticism. The saving system being changed into the current day auto save standard in AAA games just absolutely obliterates any sense of place and adventure that the shrines provided.
No additions that would have made it an objective improvement (including cut colossi for example or extra content) were added and we got time-wasting collectibles, a photo mode and filters instead.
Hope this remake isn't the way SOTC will be remembered, and it makes me think twice about taking the convenient route and playing the demon's souls remake instead of the original