wonderificdave
With the DS2 I always felt like I was trying to press buttons in the correct sequence and pressure. With the DFP I feel like I'm driving.
That phrase has encouraged me to look into a DFP, thank you.
But in response to the initial topic of the thread...
I'm absolutely grateful for the difficulty of the game.
Just a few examples: I recently received God of War for christmas... I beat it once in hard mode, and then again in the newly unlocked "God" mode in about 20 hours. #2 is Ultimate Spiderman which I beat in less than 25 hours. Sphinx was under 30 hours. Goblin Commander was just around 30 hours. Wizardry was about 40 hours. Drakengard was about 40 hours. Baldur's Gate 2 was also about 40 hours. Each of these games cost me about the same as GT4, however I played GT4 for hundreds of hours, as many and more hours as I've put into ALL of the games listed above... but for the same price.
As for the missions... you just need to breathe, relax, maybe smoke a cigarrete. Not a single mission took me more than 10 tries, save for mission ?21? where you have to slingshot around the other cars by drafting. That one took me about 20 tries before I hopped on the net and viewed a replay, beat it 2nd try. Mission 34 did take me about 30 tries but that is because I drive cleany, there are many wallrides and grasscuts to make this mission as easy as the others.
As for the licenses, I haven't tackled those yet but I see a lot more 80 gold licenses than I do 34 missions in signatures... which means they were created with the intention of an average person obtaining gold (unlike the "insane" races in Spiderman 2). And even so you don't have to even bronze a single test to get 100% in the game... you need to view going for gold in the license tests as a "Bonus" for the die-hards, no good prizes just sastifaction (and bragging rights

).
If you absolutely cannot seem to play this game successfully, then there is one thing you can do... in the instruction book for GT3, there is a section "Driving school by So-and-So" or something to that effect towards the back. This explains general racing, apexing, proper corner techniques, acceleration and braking, how lines are determined and why, etc. This article will turn a bad (or even decent) driver into a good driver. From there it only takes practice to become a great driver.