A trip down memory lane.

[Bimmy540]

Hello fellow racers. Dirty and clean! I've been playing Gran Turismo since GT1, when I used to rent it from a grocery store, and no one else knew what it was yet. I've been playing GT7 since launch and honestly nothing about it keeps me wanting to come back to it, or I turn it off after only a few races (waiting too). I try making my own fun even with elaborate custom races that take me hours to set up. Still not much satisfaction.

So I thought maybe I'm just getting too old? Does it really work like that? Then again, I can sink hours a day into Wild Rift or Hitman 3 without even thinking about it once. So it isn't that aspect at all. I always hear people reminiscing about GT4 on here, and I had just jailbroke my ps3, so I thought what the heck? Let's try GT4 again, as I know from experience, that the past is mostly seen with rose colored glasses. So let's see.

So I fire up GT4 and forget how the menus work.... triangle is cancel. What's a memory card? Oh yeah! 😉 I put it in 480p wide-screen and let my TV upscale to 720p as 1080i looks kind of gross. It looks pretty good and my TV is doing some quasi hdr stuff at night. Cool! The only jarring thing is the trees, if there was a way to make them less sharpened that would be great. Otherwise the framerate is good. I tried an arcade race and immediately saw all the cars that aren't in GT games anymore, but also immediately missed Porsche an Ferrari. So many tracks available just for arcade racing, some I couldn't even remember.

I took an RUF around Nurbergring and it felt different, but good. I could get the car to do more lively things and it didn't have the same feel of weight. The ai was much better than in GT7 which I didn't believe until I tried it. When you hit them they don't feel like they are a building with a foundation. The ai cars will give way a bit when you nudge the rear quarter, you don't go bouncing off. If you do wreck the other cars will avoid you instead of hitting you, what a concept! I raced side by side with two ai and never once had the feeling that I was about to get screwed over. They hit me a couple times but it didn't send me flying off the track and it was just aggressive racing because I had the difficulty cranked up. It was also partly my fault, I wasn't just in the cars predetermined magnetic pathway. I noticed Trial Mountain had more flow.

Then I notice something else.... I've already been playing for over 2 hours, and I have a smile on my face... Something that's rare these days, and something I haven't felt with Gran Turismo in a long time, maybe I thought so when GT7 launched, but no because this is that great feeling. I had simply forgotten it. 😔 So the people saying GT4 is "better" are actually correct as I experienced for myself. You really see how graphics don't necessarily make the game better. It's the whole package, the enterage effect if you will. There's no soul in GT7 and it feels sterile and empty in comparison, as I played it right after GT4.

I'm not saying GT7 is a bad game, infact we're spoiled and have high expectations, but those expectations were set pretty high with GT4. I can't wrap my head around how it could degrade in quality and content so much. I would rather have GT4 4K than GT8 and whatever gimmicks they half bake for it, and more of Kaz's excuses about "how new online racing is" its almost 2024 Kaz... come on. So if you haven't and can do it, I would recommend giving GT4 another go for that good Gran Turismo feeling. Oh and there's like no bugs or updates for said bugs. Imagine that? No gamebreaking bugs on release day. Wow!! 😅

 

[Pizzapants]

The AI cars all having the mass of a Sherman tank should at least be something you can disable in custom races. It’d be nice if there was at least an OPTION to create a realistic simulation.

GT7 is such a lazily-designed failure.

 

[HarVee]

I agree with the sentiment that GT7 is badly designed, but I don't get the fondness over GT4. Maybe it's because I never got the chance to really play it since my PS2 wouldn't recognize the DVD... and I've had little interest in playing it on emulator since I'm not very fond of emulators as they're overly complicated for seemingly no reason.

 

[shadow0460]

I still have a working fat PS2 and Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are both installed on the hard disk. I've been meaning to replace the hard disk with a ~300 GB Compact Flash card for even faster loading times. The DVD drive is failing, but I have retail copies of all my games.
I never finished either of those. GT3 never worked with the manual shift on the Driving Force wheel but it was still a great ride. GT4 was just too big a game to do all at once.
Sometimes I bust out the 2600 and play a game called Yars' Revenge. There are only four or five objects on screen at once yet it is one of the best games in my collection. Sales were strong enough that the game was reissued around 1990.

 

[Bimmy540]

I can't use the G29 on GT4 unless maybe my Drivepro has something for it. I use my Driving Force GT. It still works great. Once I get used to the graphics change it's all good.

Sometimes I bust out the 2600 and play a game called Yars' Revenge. There are only four or five objects on screen at once yet it is one of the best games in my collection. Sales were strong enough that the game was reissued around 1990.

I find myself playing lots of old games from my childhood. I find older arcade games to be simple but have addicting qualities. I've watched Mike Matei play that game on YouTube. I'll go check it out later!

 

[SnakeEyes427]

Personal, I miss B-Spec. Sometimes I just want to watch a race when I'm eating or doing housework. The credits where a bonus.

 

[BigSarj]

I still have a working fat PS2 and Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are both installed on the hard disk. I've been meaning to replace the hard disk with a ~300 GB Compact Flash card for even faster loading times. The DVD drive is failing, but I have retail copies of all my games.
I never finished either of those. GT3 never worked with the manual shift on the Driving Force wheel but it was still a great ride. GT4 was just too big a game to do all at once.
Sometimes I bust out the 2600 and play a game called Yars' Revenge. There are only four or five objects on screen at once yet it is one of the best games in my collection. Sales were strong enough that the game was reissued around 1990.

I hope to get the new rerelease of the 2600 almost solely for Yar's Revenge. Great game. Sometimes I wish I was old enough to have played it at the arcade.

 

[330_D]

I still have a working fat PS2 and Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are both installed on the hard disk. I've been meaning to replace the hard disk with a ~300 GB Compact Flash card for even faster loading times. The DVD drive is failing, but I have retail copies of all my games.
I never finished either of those. GT3 never worked with the manual shift on the Driving Force wheel but it was still a great ride. GT4 was just too big a game to do all at once.
Sometimes I bust out the 2600 and play a game called Yars' Revenge. There are only four or five objects on screen at once yet it is one of the best games in my collection. Sales were strong enough that the game was reissued around 1990.

I remember a buddy of mine had a 2600. My older cousin had a colecovision. First one I had was a Master system.

Gran Turismo was the game that changed my gaming habits though. It literally took over for a period in my life. Fond memories. I wish 7 was a little better for sure, but mostly I'm just stoked to still be playing the same game that I was so into a long time ago.

 

[SluggerDandy]

Hi,

I understand what you mean.
I've rebooted my PS3 months ago for GT5 and 6.
Those games had a soul, a real one.
There also were some "bosses", as on all GT titles except Sport and 7.
I mean, those unbeatable cars on endgame events (Toyota 7, my all time favorite race car).
You also had intersting brand choices (Lister, Panoz, Marcos...) and very cool special events (NASCAR, Goodwood).
I think that PD failed at that since GT Sport.

The thing that saves GT7, for me, is really the FFB on DD wheels and the PS VR2.
If they implement Sophy, it will totally flip the game and its place on the GT games tier list.

 

[Bimmy540]

Hi,

I understand what you mean.
I've rebooted my PS3 months ago for GT5 and 6.
Those games had a soul, a real one.
There also were some "bosses", as on all GT titles except Sport and 7.
I mean, those unbeatable cars on endgame events (Toyota 7, my all time favorite race car).
You also had intersting brand choices (Lister, Panoz, Marcos...) and very cool special events (NASCAR, Goodwood).
I think that PD failed at that since GT Sport.

The thing that saves GT7, for me, is really the FFB on DD wheels and the PS VR2.
If they implement Sophy, it will totally flip the game and its place on the GT games tier list.

I have also played GT6 again and you are correct about that "boss" aspect. I miss the feeling of not knowing if I was able to win a championship series and maybe only winning it by one point, and almost having a heart attack along the way. Now I know if I do certain things and stick to a script I will win because the races are too short and predictable.

I will say that yes the ffb is better in GT7 and PSVR2 is a lot nicer than I imagined it would be. I was a sucker and got the screen door 1st model, so it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I broke my hand playing Creed because I full force uppercutted my desk. I'm tall and I've trained in boxing for awhile so I was doing footwork and moving around too much. Thank God it wasn't the tv.

 

[Pizzapants]

Hi,

I understand what you mean.
I've rebooted my PS3 months ago for GT5 and 6.
Those games had a soul, a real one.
There also were some "bosses", as on all GT titles except Sport and 7.
I mean, those unbeatable cars on endgame events (Toyota 7, my all time favorite race car).
You also had intersting brand choices (Lister, Panoz, Marcos...) and very cool special events (NASCAR, Goodwood).
I think that PD failed at that since GT Sport.

The thing that saves GT7, for me, is really the FFB on DD wheels and the PS VR2.
If they implement Sophy, it will totally flip the game and its place on the GT games tier list.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Sophy -- adding that code would do absolutely nothing to improve the game. One things the devs have accidcentally proven is that the stock AI is PERFECTLY FINE when tuned to be so. There are a tiny handful of races in GT7 where the AI drives at full throttle, and can keep up with any human driver, respects blue flags, and takes sane lines. The lazy and incompetent GT7 programmers have ACTIVELY CHOSEN to lobotomize the AI on the vast majority of races, making the lead driver intentionally slow and stupid. It's bad game design, not lack of technology, lack of resources, or lack of development time. Unless their fundamental race gameplay philosophy changes, Sophy will be gimped in the same way to meet whatever idiotic goals are being dictated by the game's producers.

 

[shadow0460]

I remember a buddy of mine had a 2600. My older cousin had a colecovision. First one I had was a Master system.

Gran Turismo was the game that changed my gaming habits though. It literally took over for a period in my life. Fond memories. I wish 7 was a little better for sure, but mostly I'm just stoked to still be playing the same game that I was so into a long time ago.

My first game to take over like that was the Final Fantasy Legend. That was 1993 and I was on that thing every chance I got til I got stuck on 6F. I still played it, leveling up my characters though unable to find one of the Orbs for some reason.
Recently I got hold of the WonderSwan Color remake of the original game: Makai Toushi SaGa. It is outstanding! I also played through Shadow or Light for the first time, that's the DS remake of the Final Fantasy Legend 3. They added tons of detail to the game world, including quite a few side quests. One can play straight through to the final boss if desired, but being prepared for it means diving into the side quests that weren't in the original game (like taking Faye to the Upperworld shrine before the Talon is launched or reviving the pirates in one of the shipwrecks).
I really wish these re releases had seen the light of day in the US. I bought retail copies of them from the Japan market to cover licensing fees, then used flash carts and English translated ROMs to play them. The SaGa 2 and 3 ROMs are on separate EPROM carts with their respective artwork translated to English. Expensive, yes, but impressive from the word Go.

 

[330_D]

My first game to take over like that was the Final Fantasy Legend. That was 1993 and I was on that thing every chance I got til I got stuck on 6F. I still played it, leveling up my characters though unable to find one of the Orbs for some reason.
Recently I got hold of the WonderSwan Color remake of the original game: Makai Toushi SaGa. It is outstanding! I also played through Shadow or Light for the first time, that's the DS remake of the Final Fantasy Legend 3. They added tons of detail to the game world, including quite a few side quests. One can play straight through to the final boss if desired, but being prepared for it means diving into the side quests that weren't in the original game (like taking Faye to the Upperworld shrine before the Talon is launched or reviving the pirates in one of the shipwrecks).
I really wish these re releases had seen the light of day in the US. I bought retail copies of them from the Japan market to cover licensing fees, then used flash carts and English translated ROMs to play them. The SaGa 2 and 3 ROMs are on separate EPROM carts with their respective artwork translated to English. Expensive, yes, but impressive from the word Go.

You know, I reread my post and realized I missed a whole huge part of my video game youth. I played through a fair number of master system games. A fair few genesis games and then had a lull. I guess they took over before GT did. I was young though and without responsibility so I'm not sure it counts like GT does.

I remember most of the master system cases were terrible translations of the Japanese originals and the manuals were mostly awful word for word adaptations of the same. Alex Kidd and Psyco (that's how it read on the game case) Fox were super weird. Full commitment though. No saving. You start here and maybe make it through, maybe not but to do so you have to give it at least an hour. I loved that.

 

[shadow0460]

I was too young to get serious in the early '80's, but later on Dragonstomper and Survival Island ate up a good chunk of time. The first beatable RPG style game I won was Escape From the MindMaster. It's a 2600 game that, shockingly, runs wire frame 3D very well. I did that when I was 11 or 12, but didn't finish the three others in that set until years later. Dragonstomper and Survival Island just take persistence. Sword of Saros is a difficult game by any standard; either that or Spike's Peak was the last 2600 game I feel I've "beaten" (Spike's Peak keeps going but gets tougher).
I recall beating newer NES games with less effort. Castlevania, no problem. SMB 1 and 2, no problem.
If any of ya'll ever get the desire to play 2600 games, look up Starpath. It was a developer known in part for producing games on actual cassettes. Atari doesn't require games to be licensed to play on the 2600, no generation of the company ever has. Starpath built a cartridge similar to Virtua Racing and Star Fox with extra hardware in it and the games loaded into it from cassettes. The memory ordinarily reserved for game code was now RAM, allowing for some gameplay and visuals not seen anywhere else on the 2600.
Check out the attached image. Yes that is running on a 2600!

 

[sswishbone]

Funniest thing is this thread contains a "truther" GT4 is the best single player experience though I will agree

 

[Bimmy540]

Funniest thing is this thread contains a "truther" GT4 is the best single player experience though I will agree

I'm having a blast playing GT4 and Initial D on Ps3. I can't understand Japanese and that adds to the entertainment. I have overclocked my ps3's RSX and now GT6 doesn't have screen tearing and hits a solid 55fps in cockpit. 60fps steady in 720p and about 55 in 1080p. A noticeable improvement. Looks so smooth now. Oh and in GT6 you can feel something in your wheel. It's called the "road". Gt7 ffb is a bad joke after you play GT6 again. You can feel your tires slip! They forgot the code or what?! New online game? Ahhh. Is online gaming bleeding edge technology? Take a wild guess.

I went further down the rabbit hole and found out I can put a ps3 emulator on my Ps3 so I can mess with things further. I can make the fan so the chip never goes over 65° C , so it's safe and I have a more energy efficient slim model.

I haven't touched my Ps4 Pro in like a month because I found again that graphics don't mean everything, and I should have learned that lesson when I bought a gaming pc during covid and enjoyed older racing games like Assetto Corsa and Project Cars 1 and 2, but I got a refund for 3 after one race.

 

[dimassa19]

Creating new roads to memory.

The funny thing is that I just created (a year and a half after lauch!) the best Super Car race - inspired in my memories of GT4.

"Callaway C12, Nürburgring, 200-point race". It was very competitive, but the beauty of track - for the time - was what captivate me most.
My favorite GT4 race was an Arcade Race. (Except Grand Valley 300Km, Citta Di Aria Rally and the New York Driving Mission).

That new one I created is: Nürburgring, 3 laps, aboard the Ferrari F8, with Sport Soft. Everybody behind me with Racing Soft.

But it's not just a normal race at the Nurburgring... No. It's a race at the best Nurburgring in the entire Gran Turismo series. With the most beautiful cars in the entire series. With the best engine sound of the entire series. And unlike the GT4, you have the cockpit view.

And, for the first time in the entire series, the headlights work!

Below, the start of the third lap and the guys keep pushing hard...

Approaching the last session without any respite.

But a game has other things besides racing...

Time Trial

This is a new memory that is unlike any other in my entire 'career' on the series: My first World Top 50!

I finished P33 at Spa!

Photo Mode

Another big nostalgia I have for the GT4 was the photo mode. I remember the Audi Le Mans in New York very well... But I've never photographed as much in my life as I did in the GT7. More than 5 thousand...

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The only thing in which my second favorite game - GT4 - surpasses my favorite - GT7 - is the soundtrack and the menu songs, which I revisit with some regularity on YouTube.

 

[Bimmy540]

Creating new roads to memory.

The funny thing is that I just created (a year and a half after lauch!) the best Super Car race - inspired in my memories of GT4.

"Callaway C12, Nürburgring, 200-point race". It was very competitive, but the beauty of track - for the time - was what captivate me most.
My favorite GT4 race was an Arcade Race. (Except Grand Valley 300Km, Citta Di Aria Rally and the New York Driving Mission).

That new one I created is: Nürburgring, 3 laps, aboard the Ferrari F8, with Sport Soft. Everybody behind me with Racing Soft.

View attachment 1288507

But it's not just a normal race at the Nurburgring... No. It's a race at the best Nurburgring in the entire Gran Turismo series. With the most beautiful cars in the entire series. With the best engine sound of the entire series. And unlike the GT4, you have the cockpit view.

View attachment 1288531


And, for the first time in the entire series, the headlights work!
View attachment 1288509

Below, the start of the third lap and the guys keep pushing hard...

View attachment 1288510

Approaching the last session without any respite.

View attachment 1288511

But a game has other things besides racing...

Time Trial

This is a new memory that is unlike any other in my entire 'career' on the series: My first World Top 50!

I finished P33 at Spa!

View attachment 1288512

Photo Mode

Another big nostalgia I have for the GT4 was the photo mode. I remember the Audi Le Mans in New York very well... But I've never photographed as much in my life as I did in the GT7. More than 5 thousand...

View attachment 1288530

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The only thing in which my second favorite game - GT4 - surpasses my favorite - GT7 - is the soundtrack and the menu songs, which I revisit with some regularity on YouTube.

I still haven't been able to make a custom race where I actually feel challenged. I nerf my car to the point where it can't win theoretically, but I still do because of the ai slowing down. I've sunk hours into setting the cars up, proper tires and it's like why am I doing all the game testing? People get paid to do this. Then you nerf your car so much it can't even compete but you still win anyway because first place pits his blinker on and let's me by on the straighaway. I read the custom race thread here all the time.

 

[Meythia]

I still haven't been able to make a custom race where I actually feel challenged.

A few issues with custom races:

• AI will always use the tyres the car has when purchased and ignores the tyres from your setup
• AI doesnt use 100% throttle input but is very short of that. When there is no other car around, the AI will do shortshifting according to what seems a good RPM to save fuel (even if that is not required).
• AI is limited to easy/medium/hard difficulty which isnt the maximum it knows, the missions have a higher difficulty rating

?- propably even more

 

[Bimmy540]

A few issues with custom races:

• AI will always use the tyres the car has when purchased and ignores the tyres from your setup
• AI doesnt use 100% throttle input but is very short of that. When there is no other car around, the AI will do shortshifting according to what seems a good RPM to save fuel (even if that is not required).
• AI is limited to easy/medium/hard difficulty which isnt the maximum it knows, the missions have a higher difficulty rating

?- propably even more

It's really frustrating for me. I read the custom race thread religiously because I find the best races are the ones I make myself, usually around 500- 550 ppish so you can mess around in corners with no real reprocusion. I don't care about the pay out, just the action. I like fighting in corners and the "give some, get some" type racing, but no contact like a gentleman. And you can do that in custom races but it's sooooo soul crushing when you fight and fight for position for hours, only to have 1st place let you by, even turning on his blinker and moving over. Where's the climax we built to? A ghost load. That's what. 😄 For Kaz being portrayed as just "sooooo into art", he sure isn't into the art of racing anymore.

 

[Pizzapants]

A few issues with custom races:

• AI will always use the tyres the car has when purchased and ignores the tyres from your setup
• AI doesnt use 100% throttle input but is very short of that. When there is no other car around, the AI will do shortshifting according to what seems a good RPM to save fuel (even if that is not required).
• AI is limited to easy/medium/hard difficulty which isnt the maximum it knows, the missions have a higher difficulty rating

?- propably even more

even with rubberbanding disabled, the AI still speeds up a ton when it's behind and slows down a ton when it's ahead in custom races. very frustrating.

 

[Kean_1]

You know what bugs me the most and really doesn't motivate me to play as much as I do? The lack of consistent payouts.

I really wish the game would use a reward system that actually makes sense based on time, difficulty, skill settings and other factors. Just be consistent across the board.

If that were the case, I would happily revisit other races and even create more custom ones where I could feel feel are really worth investing time and effort into. It's ridiculous how low the payouts are in custom races and the point of diminishing returns comes on hard as the number of laps / time increases.

Kaz had mentioned long ago that they wanted to avoid creating go-to events that people would grind for credits but they have done nothing to incentivize folks to explore other races and create their own in this respect. Those relatively few races are still the ones that pay out way more than anything else and what people are going to use to increase their in-game wealth to buy new cars, etc. ....and they know this.

That is what kills the game for me, personally. Otherwise I'd be logging a lot more hours in GT7. As for racing against others, I had a bad experience each time with it and have zero interest racing against real players (putting up with the bad elements) as a result. Sophy is the one thing I am really looking forward to though.

 

[Nebuc72]

even with rubberbanding disabled, the AI still speeds up a ton when it's behind and slows down a ton when it's ahead in custom races. very frustrating.

You can't disable rubberbanding so I mean.. yeah? The fact there's rubberbanding at all is the annoying part.

Boost isn't rubberbanding, if that's what you mean.

 

[Meythia]

The fact there's rubberbanding at all is the annoying part.

When/if/however it exists, to me it doesnt have any impact on the custom race experience at all - fast cars are still faster, slow cars are still slower.
Though I have not done any "mixed class" racing. Always only "same class" or around the same PP, which may explain why I havent seen it happening in the very few custom race runs I do.

 

[MonoTonouS]

The AI in Gt4 is the WORST in the series. You claiming they don't feel heavy is a blatant lie , they were GLUED to the damn track . The physics were also bad. Not as fun as GT3 but not as complex as 5+ so they were in an odd and unenjoyable place . Understeer heaven .

 

[Nebuc72]

The AI in Gt4 is the WORST in the series. You claiming they don't feel heavy is a blatant lie , they were GLUED to the damn track . The physics were also bad. Not as fun as GT3 but not as complex as 5+ so they were in an odd and unenjoyable place . Understeer heaven .

The AI is bad but I massively disagree on the physics, they were fantastic for their time and to this day it feels great to drive. Heavy cars like the Stagea are awesome because of the bodyroll and weight transfer.
Understeer is only a problem when you leave the assists on. It's not inherently part of the handling model - but the default assists are ridiculous and completely neuter the cars.

GT5 instead had pretty bad physics, they somehow toned stuff like that down from GT4, which made every car feel very samey and flat. With little body roll, there was little character to some of the cars.

 

[MonoTonouS]

The AI is bad but I massively disagree on the physics, they were fantastic for their time and to this day it feels great to drive. Heavy cars like the Stagea are awesome because of the bodyroll and weight transfer.
Understeer is only a problem when you leave the assists on. It's not inherently part of the handling model - but the default assists are ridiculous and completely neuter the cars.

GT5 instead had pretty bad physics, they somehow toned stuff like that down from GT4, which made every car feel very samey and flat. With little body roll, there was little character to some of the cars.

If you think GT4 had better physics than GT5 you are smoking some bad stuff.

 

[Nebuc72]

If you think GT4 had better physics than GT5 you are smoking some bad stuff.

What a lovely nuanced conversation, very insightful 👍

 

[Bimmy540]

The AI in Gt4 is the WORST in the series. You claiming they don't feel heavy is a blatant lie , they were GLUED to the damn track . The physics were also bad. Not as fun as GT3 but not as complex as 5+ so they were in an odd and unenjoyable place . Understeer heaven .

I dont find any of that at all to actually be true. While the ai isn't as dynamic, they definitely seem lighter when you make contact. When is the last time you played? Today?

 

[sswishbone]

I dont find any of that at all to actually be true. While the ai isn't as dynamic, they definitely seem lighter when you make contact. When is the last time you played? Today?

I've been live Streaming GT4 on YouTube, the AI is like trying to ram a Range Rover off the road in a Smart Car when it comes to contact. Made for some hilarious moments, no doubt the AI is really heavy