Gran Turismo 4. This is it. I don't think I can overstate how big this game is, both in terms of its content and its legacy within the racing game genre. This game basically takes everything from the previous GT games and cranks it up to inhuman levels. The GT series to this point has always been in the upper echelon of console racing games, but with this game, they basically created a golden standard for the genre. Like, when the developers for the first Forza game were talking about competing with the PS2, they weren't talking about the GT series as a whole. They, like many others, were trying to dethrone this game specifically. That's how big this game is. It's an absolutely monumental racing game that can absolutely last you a lifetime with how much content it has. With all that being said though, it still ain't my favorite racing game, or hell, even GT game.
Firstly, the good. They basically took GT3 and gave it a simulation mode that puts it more in-line with the insane sim mode in GT2. There's the same "do events, earn new cars that give you access to new events" loop that made GT2 so engaging, and there's things like used car dealerships to get rid of the credit-grind slog that was GT3's campaign. There are over 700 cars to collect across all sorts of events. Circuit tracks, city tracks, one-make manufacturer events, specific car type events, rally events, endurance events, you name it and it's here with an insane amount of polish. The driving in this game is the best that the series has been up to this point, with it having that nice realistic feel to it. I am no real life race car driver so I can't actually comment on how ACTUALLY real it is, but it certainly has a good feel to it. The UI and soundtrack are as fantastic as always (though I still found the licensed race music kinda eh but I think that's just how things are gonna be), and visually this is one of the best looking games on the PS2 with an insane amount of visual polish, and even support for progressive scan and a mode that uses some interlaced shenanigans to get a high-res mode of 576x960!!! Considering the power of the PS2 the fact that they can get something like that working at all is incredible, much less running as good as it does with the visuals that it has. In terms of technical mastery, gameplay polish, and stylish UI, this is the GT PS2 magnum opus.
But unfortunately, there are still quite a bit of qualms that I have had with this game in my entire playthrough. While I do have a decent enough PS2 wheel that I can use with this game, I really don't prefer to play with a racing wheel over a pad and I don't have a good place to even set up the wheel anyways so I was kinda screwed on the control front. The game uses the pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2 controller and it's not able to ever be turned off, and I find the dualshock 2's pressure sensitivity to be a bit too mushy to be used as precisely as needed for a type of racing game like this. I played the first half of the game using a very cobbled-together wheel setup that shook when literally any FFB happened, before eventually giving up to use a controller with the steering bound to the left stick and accelerator bound to the right. Neither control scheme was really elegant for me. If this game supported the neGcon (which it very well could have), then this would all be a non-issue and it would absolutely elevate this game to an 11/10 status, but some things are just not meant to be. The high-resolution mode is also more of a gimmick than anything, as my upscaler didn't really like how it tried to display the image, my cables are too crummy to get the best out of it, and the menus and UI all run at 480i anyways so I honestly stuck to the default resolution the whole game as well. Lastly, my final issue with the game comes from its pacing. While the core racing structure of GT2 is back in this game, it doesn't feel nearly as well-paced when it comes to what agency the game gives through prize cars. A lot of events end up giving you a prize car that can't really be used anywhere else, leading to a lot of "dead end" moments, where I just kinda had to sell the car for credits to get the cars that I did need, or just ignored them altogether. Since earning certain things is locked to overall completion percentage, I found the best thing to do was just to do the rally events as they offered the highest payouts alongside cars that I could actually use in a multitude of events. Playing that way just meant I spent most of my time doing a bunch of really slippery rally events, when I'm honestly more of a fan of the street/circuit racing... And then the GT world championship at the very end is both such a huge difficulty spike and time sink, being 3-4 hours long for a single attempt with insane competition that I really got kinda sour by the end of the playthrough. Getting the REALLY good cars to breeze through the GT world championships involves winning the endurance races, and those can take up to 24 hours of real time to complete, and considering the fact I barely had time to attempt the 3-4 hour GT world championship, I REALLY didn't have time to get the best cars to smoke the competition. You could say that problem is def a skill issue from relying too much on better cars and parts over driver skill to win (and it certainly is, I suck at GT), but I think it's lame that the game lets you get away with that strat for everything BUT the one event I really didn't wanna get stuck in.
So yea. sorry for the long review, this is a game with a lot of things in it and as such I had a lot to say. It's honestly a masterpiece of the racing genre with so much care, attention to detail, and CONTENT put into it. I didn't even mention things like the B-spec mode where you can train an AI to race events for you, or the photo mode that allows you to render extremely high res (for the time) photos of your cars to a USB drive. It's one of those games that I'd absolutely consider for a "desert island" pick, for sure. But I still think that GT2s campaign pacing and flow was more engaging than this. Regardless, if you are even SLIGHTLY a fan of cars, racing games, the PS2, or just driving in general, you HAVE to give this game a go.
Firstly, the good. They basically took GT3 and gave it a simulation mode that puts it more in-line with the insane sim mode in GT2. There's the same "do events, earn new cars that give you access to new events" loop that made GT2 so engaging, and there's things like used car dealerships to get rid of the credit-grind slog that was GT3's campaign. There are over 700 cars to collect across all sorts of events. Circuit tracks, city tracks, one-make manufacturer events, specific car type events, rally events, endurance events, you name it and it's here with an insane amount of polish. The driving in this game is the best that the series has been up to this point, with it having that nice realistic feel to it. I am no real life race car driver so I can't actually comment on how ACTUALLY real it is, but it certainly has a good feel to it. The UI and soundtrack are as fantastic as always (though I still found the licensed race music kinda eh but I think that's just how things are gonna be), and visually this is one of the best looking games on the PS2 with an insane amount of visual polish, and even support for progressive scan and a mode that uses some interlaced shenanigans to get a high-res mode of 576x960!!! Considering the power of the PS2 the fact that they can get something like that working at all is incredible, much less running as good as it does with the visuals that it has. In terms of technical mastery, gameplay polish, and stylish UI, this is the GT PS2 magnum opus.
But unfortunately, there are still quite a bit of qualms that I have had with this game in my entire playthrough. While I do have a decent enough PS2 wheel that I can use with this game, I really don't prefer to play with a racing wheel over a pad and I don't have a good place to even set up the wheel anyways so I was kinda screwed on the control front. The game uses the pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2 controller and it's not able to ever be turned off, and I find the dualshock 2's pressure sensitivity to be a bit too mushy to be used as precisely as needed for a type of racing game like this. I played the first half of the game using a very cobbled-together wheel setup that shook when literally any FFB happened, before eventually giving up to use a controller with the steering bound to the left stick and accelerator bound to the right. Neither control scheme was really elegant for me. If this game supported the neGcon (which it very well could have), then this would all be a non-issue and it would absolutely elevate this game to an 11/10 status, but some things are just not meant to be. The high-resolution mode is also more of a gimmick than anything, as my upscaler didn't really like how it tried to display the image, my cables are too crummy to get the best out of it, and the menus and UI all run at 480i anyways so I honestly stuck to the default resolution the whole game as well. Lastly, my final issue with the game comes from its pacing. While the core racing structure of GT2 is back in this game, it doesn't feel nearly as well-paced when it comes to what agency the game gives through prize cars. A lot of events end up giving you a prize car that can't really be used anywhere else, leading to a lot of "dead end" moments, where I just kinda had to sell the car for credits to get the cars that I did need, or just ignored them altogether. Since earning certain things is locked to overall completion percentage, I found the best thing to do was just to do the rally events as they offered the highest payouts alongside cars that I could actually use in a multitude of events. Playing that way just meant I spent most of my time doing a bunch of really slippery rally events, when I'm honestly more of a fan of the street/circuit racing... And then the GT world championship at the very end is both such a huge difficulty spike and time sink, being 3-4 hours long for a single attempt with insane competition that I really got kinda sour by the end of the playthrough. Getting the REALLY good cars to breeze through the GT world championships involves winning the endurance races, and those can take up to 24 hours of real time to complete, and considering the fact I barely had time to attempt the 3-4 hour GT world championship, I REALLY didn't have time to get the best cars to smoke the competition. You could say that problem is def a skill issue from relying too much on better cars and parts over driver skill to win (and it certainly is, I suck at GT), but I think it's lame that the game lets you get away with that strat for everything BUT the one event I really didn't wanna get stuck in.
So yea. sorry for the long review, this is a game with a lot of things in it and as such I had a lot to say. It's honestly a masterpiece of the racing genre with so much care, attention to detail, and CONTENT put into it. I didn't even mention things like the B-spec mode where you can train an AI to race events for you, or the photo mode that allows you to render extremely high res (for the time) photos of your cars to a USB drive. It's one of those games that I'd absolutely consider for a "desert island" pick, for sure. But I still think that GT2s campaign pacing and flow was more engaging than this. Regardless, if you are even SLIGHTLY a fan of cars, racing games, the PS2, or just driving in general, you HAVE to give this game a go.