What is the first thing I say about online gaming? Right- I'm not really an online guy. But if I was an online gamer, I have a number of weapons in my armory to bring online... I should say cars from my [virtual] garage. I would like to say that I'd like to use anything available to me that I can bring to bigtime racing. Keep in mind that a few new cars and tracks(?) will find their way to GT4. I'd want to try out the newer MX-5 in the game and give a few more cars the John treatment.
I'd likely go with fast race cars and hard-tuned sports cars, and here's why. If I was racing online, the majority of automobiles that will be taken into online competition are likely cars that can do 170 mph or more, and most likely on tracks like the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The key factor I'd think about is that if you're going to do racing against more mainstream opponents, you have to "play the system," you dig? So if it means that you're used to a Nissan S15 Silvia (damn shame that this car never was sold in America) around Midfield Raceway or Tokyo R246, then you're going to have to assimilate to the mainstream because if you don't, you are going to lose a handful of races. So if I was going to take on the world online, I'd have to get used to what all the mainstream people are playing online. I would also have to fine-tune my racing skills to meet other people. I have always attacked the statement about AI not being an issue because of human opponents. I still believe that you can't trust people will race any better than the AI racers. There will still be the losers who want to throw you off the track.
Assuming that 60+ percent of online races will be with the fast cars on tough tracks, I'd go with my own underdog effort- the GT Skyline Pace Car. This was the ultimate treat as it can drift, it can race, it can handle, it was the ultimate surprise. This is not to mention that you can put on a light show as you enjoy speedfreaking it around the track. I'd bring the beautiful 2004 Pescarolo Courage (not to say the 2005 isn't a French beauty either) to real race car tracks. I like all the JGTC/Super GT Supras, but the WoodOne Supra has the V8 engine and actually performs better than the older Supra race cars. It is still a far cry from the 680hp Castrol Supra from GT1 and GT2 in terms of power, but it's still my JGTC weapon. If rally cars is the game, I have three picks. First is the awesome Lancia Stratos Rally Car powered by a Ferrari engine and won the rally championship three years straight in the mid-late 1970s. Second, I'll go with a Mitsubishi Lancer Super Rally Raid Car. It is a fancy name for a car that sells for 7-figures in GT4, but it really is a nice machine. Third, I'd pick a car that is everything the Escudo Pikes Peak was, only more sane- the Toyota R?? Rally Raid Car. It may be beastly-looking, but fear not, player... it's beastly on the track as well. My other pick would be the Lancia Delta S4. If you want rally racing, look no place better than Lancia. They make solid rally cars. If trucking is the game, I can go American or Japanese. I'd want to play the underdog and use the Toyota Tacoma X-Runner. I think this is more of a car than a truck. It's a car in a truck body, and with tuning, it's probably the best truck in the game even if it gives up a lot of horsepower. It's also the lightest of the four commercially-available trucks. Kei racing? I'd go with a tuned Suzuki Cappuccino or a tuned Mazda AZ-1. For racing, I need not say more than the Honda S800 Race Car, a car that is a front-engined go-kart. So much fun to race for a small package.
That is, if I was online. You call for a challenge and I was an online racer, I'd say, "let's rock!"
