- 106
- United States
- Sonic54978
I remembered playing Gran Turismo 3 when I was still a young child. Arguably one of the best games of my childhood, I never knew that it was actually a driving simulator until I was reintroduced into the franchise with Gran Turismo 5 in 2010. Gran Turismo 5 still remains to be my favorite Playstation 3 racing simulator with its unique cars, tracks, and simply how fun it was.
When Gran Turismo 6 was released, I bought it on its first day of being in stores, hoping to find a new experience with their games, and sadly, I was mistaken. Nothing much seemed to change from its predecessor and if anything, it feels like it went backwards. Lots of key features that we saw from Gran Turismo 5 was removed from Gran Turismo 6, such as speed tests, where you're able to test the speed and acceleration of your car on a long oval-shaped track that's nearly twice as big as the Nordschliefe. B-spec was also removed from the final game (although it reappears in an update, but not nearly as good as it was), and let's not forget the ability to customize your profile's interface. Simply put, Gran Turismo 6 was just a downgraded version of Gran Turismo 5, which is why I found it bad. There are some more points that I have on why I don't like this game, which I'll get to later in this review.
The way I'm going to review this game is in parts. Each part will get a 0-10 rating, and the game's overall rating will be the average.
Part I: The cars
In Gran Turismo 6, there are over 1,100 cars... which is the issue. There are so many cars in this game that it ends up affecting the PlayStation 3's performance. Keep in mind that this game was released in 2013, where the 7th generation of video game consoles were winding to an end.
The majority of the cars in the game are either too slow and weak to actually be used, or they are simply iterations of existing models in the game. A great example of this is Nissan. In the game, Nissan has the most cars, but many of these cars are either too weak or too much the same. Why do we need this? Why do we need such an unnecessary amount of cars? I'm sure that if we removed every useless car in the game, we would be left with about 600, which is healthy enough for the PS3 to run it.
Now, back when this game was released, Polyphony Digital celebrated the franchise's 15th anniversary with Vision Gran Turismo. What is that, should you ask? Vision Gran Turismo was a festival where major car companies (like Ford or Lamborghini) were commissioned to design the cars of the future and give them away as rewards for the players. Many of these cars were made as a "vision" of what racecars would look like if motorsports had no regulations, such as the SRT Tomahawk. Others were made simply as concept cars for the future. Mercedes-Benz were the first to complete their car, and about 20 other companies followed. However, even though the Bugatti and Hyundai VGT cars were introduced in September 2015, they still weren't added into the game. Not only that, but it seems like the rest of the other companies are not working on their cars anymore... what happened? It feels like Vision GT died way too soon and it makes me feel sad.
Car tuning in the game is very unrealistic and overpowered. Even though the game's offline campaign limits the power of your cars... it doesn't matter because it advertises itself as "THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR". Remember that line as I'll reuse it later in the review. In the game, I was able to buy the 2005 Ford GT, and I basically tuned it to the max. As I was tuning the transmission, I noticed it was capable of letting the car go over 311 mph?! I tested this out and I was actually right; the car ended up going 306 mph on Special Stage Route X (with, of course, help with the nitrous). This car had no spoiler installed yet, so when it went that fast, it didn't crash at all like it was supposed to if you didn't have anything pinning the car down. The SRT Tomahawk X is excused because even though it can go over 400 mph, at least it has spoilers so it doesn't end up flying into the sky!
Car sounds are still bad. When I hear these car sounds, it feels like I'm playing a game from the '90s... but even in that era, sounds were still better than this game! Many of the engine sounds barely resemble their real life counter-parts. A great example would be the Pagani Huayra. I found two videos of this car, and both are in the same camera views for reference. This is what it sounds like in the game and this is what it sounds like in real life. Look, don't get me wrong here; I'm not looking for the sounds in-game to sound EXACTLY like they would in real life, but... this is far from that.
Damage in the game is also unrealistic. Now, I'm not looking for high-definition cosmetic damage in the game because it's already pushing the PlayStation to the limits with its army of cars. What I mean here is mechanical damage. Mechanical damage, for some odd reason, can't be set as an option in single player mode. Not even in the campaign, either! It can only be used in online multiplayer. When I had this feature on in a server I owned, the mechanical damage was very weird. If you drove your car into a wall head-on, then yes, it would slow the car down if its engine was in the front, maybe it would lean to the left or right, but as time goes on, the car manages to "heal" itself. I didn't go to the pits to repair, nor did I respawn; it literally fixed itself as I was driving. Why? Seriously, why?
The same happens with the fuel system-- well, kind of. If you run out of fuel, your car will halt... to cruising speed. CRUISING... SPEED. Now, it would make sense if it was going at 5 mph, because it kind of means that the driver is pushing the car forward, but it's just moving at 25 mph. Last time I checked, if you ran out of fuel, your car DIED OF STARVATION. It can't move at all!
"THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR", everyone. The cars in this game get a rating of a 5/10.
Part II: The tracks
There are about 99 tracks in the game. However, there are actually 43. Do you feel confused yet? It's because the other 56 tracks are literally either reverse or day/night cycle versions of the tracks already in the game. This needlessly increases the amount of space the game has when the developers could've implemented the reverse and 24-hour cycle versions to ALL tracks (because for some reason, only some of these tracks are applied) within their files! And what happens when you fill up more space? The performance decreases! Some of these tracks, like Suzuka or SSR5, the game would either crash or fail to load completely. This didn't happen as soon as I got the game, but it got worse the more I played it. I thought it was because my disc was dirty, but then I found out it was actually because the console was ******** on me. My PlayStation 3 literally couldn't handle playing the tracks anymore because of how unnecessarily huge the game is!
Now, to balance the bad with good, the tracks themselves are beautiful; they look almost like their real-life counterparts. Everything is in the right places, and it makes me feel a little bit better... but not enough to save these tracks from getting a 7/10.
Part III: Realism
In this part, I'll cover multiple features of the game: The AI, the campaign, and physics.
Now, the AI in this game are very timid (even if you set it to "agressive" in the options, they're still pretty calm). Although they actually know how to drive, they're still AI; they're not like us. You'll soon realize that every AI opponent acts exactly the same and in campaign mode, you're basically playing "pass the most cars" instead of a real race (more on that later!). When you're about to lap an AI car, they do a pretty good job yielding to allow you to pass easily, which is something I praise. However, in special events like 24 Minutes of Le Mans or 10 Laps of Willow Springs, they're going to get bad. In these events, corner cutting or hitting other opponents will penalize you by limiting your car's speed for a certain amount of time depending on the severity of the issue. However, when the AI rams into ME, they are somehow excused. This has been a problem in not just Gran Turismo, but just about any racing sim and it pisses me off. Look at Project CARS or even F1 2013.
The campaign mode is divided into about 6 license classes, and you start with the easiest one: Novice. As you progress through the campaign, you'll eventually upgrade to National B, National A, International B, International A, and then, the Super license. However, the more you play in this mode, the more repetitive it gets. How? In every class, you drive a car and race against identical AI opponents, and it's the same exact formula every time: The race begins with you always near last place in a single-file rolling start, with each car at least half a second apart from each other. Then, you pass every opponent never to see them again, and then there's this one jerk in first place that's more aggressive than the rest, and it's sometimes a hassle to get through him. Finally pass him and finish the race; then repeat for the next 200 times.
For some odd reason, you can only start every race in a single-file rolling start as if it was a rally. Even in arcade mode. In order to truly get some variety on the way races start, you have to go to online multiplayer and set up a server there. Why could that not be a feature for single-player mode? Or even campaign mode? This was actually an option in Gran Turismo 1 and 2. Why did they remove it?
The physics are okay in this game, but not as good as the other physics systems used in other racing simulators like rFactor, Nascar 2003, Live for Speed or even earlier Gran Turismo games from the PlayStation 2 era. Let's say that you messed up the tuning of your suspension and removed all of the anti-roll bars (or at least made them useless), and as you're driving, you lose control and your car begins rolling. Instead of doing a barrel roll, it's as if the car is sliding through outer space because it doesn't roll as fast as it is actually moving, if you know what I mean. After a while, it'll look like it's dancing like a ballerina, and then reset back on the track as if nothing ever happened. The games I mentioned earlier in this paragraph also has these problems, but at least they're not as bad! In Nascar 2003, for example, the car would roll like normally; however, if you're going to fast, you can end up rolling faster than the speed of sound. In Gran Turismo 6, momentum doesn't seem to exist. If you bump into another car traveling at about the same speed as you are, that car doesn't seem to budge, but you on the other hand, spiral out of control until you hit a barrier or another car. I'm sure that in real life, you AND the other car would lose control if you bumped into them. Again, this is not the only game that has that problem-- in fact, the other games I mentioned earlier in this paragraph ALSO have that problem, so Gran Turismo 6 is not alone. I know it sounds like I'm a PC fanboy because the games I mentioned were made only for Windows, but I'm not, because here's the thing: All of these games that I mentioned were built on hardware so old that Gran Turismo 4 wasn't even out yet! If your game has physics that are on-par with old games built on old engines, that's not enough for "THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR", est. 2013.
The realism in this game gets a 6.8/10.
Part IV: Overall
I just want to clarify something that you're probably thinking right now. No, I don't hate this game. I'm not mad at the developers. I'm just sad and disappointed at the final results... which is honestly, much worse than being mad at it. If you're playing games that are so bad that it makes you angry, it's actually kind of funny. However, if you've been waiting so anxiously for a new title and it turns out it wasn't what you hoped it would be, it feels like you've wasted your time. It makes you sad, and you can only think of how much potential the game has. If you look at Sonic '06, Star Wars Battlefront or Order 1886, you can understand how I feel about this game. I can only wish that the developers took more time on polishing this game or even wait for the Playstation 4 to launch so they could release it there. I'm sure it would've been a much better game than it is right now. All I can say to Polyphony Digital now is... well... good luck to Gran Turismo 7.
Gran Turismo 6 gets my final score of a 6.4/10.
When Gran Turismo 6 was released, I bought it on its first day of being in stores, hoping to find a new experience with their games, and sadly, I was mistaken. Nothing much seemed to change from its predecessor and if anything, it feels like it went backwards. Lots of key features that we saw from Gran Turismo 5 was removed from Gran Turismo 6, such as speed tests, where you're able to test the speed and acceleration of your car on a long oval-shaped track that's nearly twice as big as the Nordschliefe. B-spec was also removed from the final game (although it reappears in an update, but not nearly as good as it was), and let's not forget the ability to customize your profile's interface. Simply put, Gran Turismo 6 was just a downgraded version of Gran Turismo 5, which is why I found it bad. There are some more points that I have on why I don't like this game, which I'll get to later in this review.
The way I'm going to review this game is in parts. Each part will get a 0-10 rating, and the game's overall rating will be the average.
Part I: The cars
In Gran Turismo 6, there are over 1,100 cars... which is the issue. There are so many cars in this game that it ends up affecting the PlayStation 3's performance. Keep in mind that this game was released in 2013, where the 7th generation of video game consoles were winding to an end.
The majority of the cars in the game are either too slow and weak to actually be used, or they are simply iterations of existing models in the game. A great example of this is Nissan. In the game, Nissan has the most cars, but many of these cars are either too weak or too much the same. Why do we need this? Why do we need such an unnecessary amount of cars? I'm sure that if we removed every useless car in the game, we would be left with about 600, which is healthy enough for the PS3 to run it.
Now, back when this game was released, Polyphony Digital celebrated the franchise's 15th anniversary with Vision Gran Turismo. What is that, should you ask? Vision Gran Turismo was a festival where major car companies (like Ford or Lamborghini) were commissioned to design the cars of the future and give them away as rewards for the players. Many of these cars were made as a "vision" of what racecars would look like if motorsports had no regulations, such as the SRT Tomahawk. Others were made simply as concept cars for the future. Mercedes-Benz were the first to complete their car, and about 20 other companies followed. However, even though the Bugatti and Hyundai VGT cars were introduced in September 2015, they still weren't added into the game. Not only that, but it seems like the rest of the other companies are not working on their cars anymore... what happened? It feels like Vision GT died way too soon and it makes me feel sad.
Car tuning in the game is very unrealistic and overpowered. Even though the game's offline campaign limits the power of your cars... it doesn't matter because it advertises itself as "THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR". Remember that line as I'll reuse it later in the review. In the game, I was able to buy the 2005 Ford GT, and I basically tuned it to the max. As I was tuning the transmission, I noticed it was capable of letting the car go over 311 mph?! I tested this out and I was actually right; the car ended up going 306 mph on Special Stage Route X (with, of course, help with the nitrous). This car had no spoiler installed yet, so when it went that fast, it didn't crash at all like it was supposed to if you didn't have anything pinning the car down. The SRT Tomahawk X is excused because even though it can go over 400 mph, at least it has spoilers so it doesn't end up flying into the sky!
Car sounds are still bad. When I hear these car sounds, it feels like I'm playing a game from the '90s... but even in that era, sounds were still better than this game! Many of the engine sounds barely resemble their real life counter-parts. A great example would be the Pagani Huayra. I found two videos of this car, and both are in the same camera views for reference. This is what it sounds like in the game and this is what it sounds like in real life. Look, don't get me wrong here; I'm not looking for the sounds in-game to sound EXACTLY like they would in real life, but... this is far from that.
Damage in the game is also unrealistic. Now, I'm not looking for high-definition cosmetic damage in the game because it's already pushing the PlayStation to the limits with its army of cars. What I mean here is mechanical damage. Mechanical damage, for some odd reason, can't be set as an option in single player mode. Not even in the campaign, either! It can only be used in online multiplayer. When I had this feature on in a server I owned, the mechanical damage was very weird. If you drove your car into a wall head-on, then yes, it would slow the car down if its engine was in the front, maybe it would lean to the left or right, but as time goes on, the car manages to "heal" itself. I didn't go to the pits to repair, nor did I respawn; it literally fixed itself as I was driving. Why? Seriously, why?
The same happens with the fuel system-- well, kind of. If you run out of fuel, your car will halt... to cruising speed. CRUISING... SPEED. Now, it would make sense if it was going at 5 mph, because it kind of means that the driver is pushing the car forward, but it's just moving at 25 mph. Last time I checked, if you ran out of fuel, your car DIED OF STARVATION. It can't move at all!
"THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR", everyone. The cars in this game get a rating of a 5/10.
Part II: The tracks
There are about 99 tracks in the game. However, there are actually 43. Do you feel confused yet? It's because the other 56 tracks are literally either reverse or day/night cycle versions of the tracks already in the game. This needlessly increases the amount of space the game has when the developers could've implemented the reverse and 24-hour cycle versions to ALL tracks (because for some reason, only some of these tracks are applied) within their files! And what happens when you fill up more space? The performance decreases! Some of these tracks, like Suzuka or SSR5, the game would either crash or fail to load completely. This didn't happen as soon as I got the game, but it got worse the more I played it. I thought it was because my disc was dirty, but then I found out it was actually because the console was ******** on me. My PlayStation 3 literally couldn't handle playing the tracks anymore because of how unnecessarily huge the game is!
Now, to balance the bad with good, the tracks themselves are beautiful; they look almost like their real-life counterparts. Everything is in the right places, and it makes me feel a little bit better... but not enough to save these tracks from getting a 7/10.
Part III: Realism
In this part, I'll cover multiple features of the game: The AI, the campaign, and physics.
Now, the AI in this game are very timid (even if you set it to "agressive" in the options, they're still pretty calm). Although they actually know how to drive, they're still AI; they're not like us. You'll soon realize that every AI opponent acts exactly the same and in campaign mode, you're basically playing "pass the most cars" instead of a real race (more on that later!). When you're about to lap an AI car, they do a pretty good job yielding to allow you to pass easily, which is something I praise. However, in special events like 24 Minutes of Le Mans or 10 Laps of Willow Springs, they're going to get bad. In these events, corner cutting or hitting other opponents will penalize you by limiting your car's speed for a certain amount of time depending on the severity of the issue. However, when the AI rams into ME, they are somehow excused. This has been a problem in not just Gran Turismo, but just about any racing sim and it pisses me off. Look at Project CARS or even F1 2013.
The campaign mode is divided into about 6 license classes, and you start with the easiest one: Novice. As you progress through the campaign, you'll eventually upgrade to National B, National A, International B, International A, and then, the Super license. However, the more you play in this mode, the more repetitive it gets. How? In every class, you drive a car and race against identical AI opponents, and it's the same exact formula every time: The race begins with you always near last place in a single-file rolling start, with each car at least half a second apart from each other. Then, you pass every opponent never to see them again, and then there's this one jerk in first place that's more aggressive than the rest, and it's sometimes a hassle to get through him. Finally pass him and finish the race; then repeat for the next 200 times.
For some odd reason, you can only start every race in a single-file rolling start as if it was a rally. Even in arcade mode. In order to truly get some variety on the way races start, you have to go to online multiplayer and set up a server there. Why could that not be a feature for single-player mode? Or even campaign mode? This was actually an option in Gran Turismo 1 and 2. Why did they remove it?
The physics are okay in this game, but not as good as the other physics systems used in other racing simulators like rFactor, Nascar 2003, Live for Speed or even earlier Gran Turismo games from the PlayStation 2 era. Let's say that you messed up the tuning of your suspension and removed all of the anti-roll bars (or at least made them useless), and as you're driving, you lose control and your car begins rolling. Instead of doing a barrel roll, it's as if the car is sliding through outer space because it doesn't roll as fast as it is actually moving, if you know what I mean. After a while, it'll look like it's dancing like a ballerina, and then reset back on the track as if nothing ever happened. The games I mentioned earlier in this paragraph also has these problems, but at least they're not as bad! In Nascar 2003, for example, the car would roll like normally; however, if you're going to fast, you can end up rolling faster than the speed of sound. In Gran Turismo 6, momentum doesn't seem to exist. If you bump into another car traveling at about the same speed as you are, that car doesn't seem to budge, but you on the other hand, spiral out of control until you hit a barrier or another car. I'm sure that in real life, you AND the other car would lose control if you bumped into them. Again, this is not the only game that has that problem-- in fact, the other games I mentioned earlier in this paragraph ALSO have that problem, so Gran Turismo 6 is not alone. I know it sounds like I'm a PC fanboy because the games I mentioned were made only for Windows, but I'm not, because here's the thing: All of these games that I mentioned were built on hardware so old that Gran Turismo 4 wasn't even out yet! If your game has physics that are on-par with old games built on old engines, that's not enough for "THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR", est. 2013.
The realism in this game gets a 6.8/10.
Part IV: Overall
I just want to clarify something that you're probably thinking right now. No, I don't hate this game. I'm not mad at the developers. I'm just sad and disappointed at the final results... which is honestly, much worse than being mad at it. If you're playing games that are so bad that it makes you angry, it's actually kind of funny. However, if you've been waiting so anxiously for a new title and it turns out it wasn't what you hoped it would be, it feels like you've wasted your time. It makes you sad, and you can only think of how much potential the game has. If you look at Sonic '06, Star Wars Battlefront or Order 1886, you can understand how I feel about this game. I can only wish that the developers took more time on polishing this game or even wait for the Playstation 4 to launch so they could release it there. I'm sure it would've been a much better game than it is right now. All I can say to Polyphony Digital now is... well... good luck to Gran Turismo 7.
Gran Turismo 6 gets my final score of a 6.4/10.
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, beware though, comfort tires are the norm even on Pagani Huayra. It won't bring GT6 to AC or LFS level, but closer. Check the link on my sig, the last page has the Nismo GTR 2016, drive it at norsdschleife for some fun.
