The more I look at GT SPORT, the more excited I get.
In the racing game genre, it's an odd mix. Games like Forza Motorsport have just settled for adding more cars and tracks, and not really caring about the substance of their content. Sure, you can have all the V8 Supercars you want, but when you have the biggest event of their season to be only 100 miles, and not even have a full season, and just one track of their entire series, it's kind of a slap in the face.
To be fair, that's a major issue the GT series has struggled with. A selection of NASCAR vehicles with two ovals (and their respective road courses) to race on. WRC cars with none of the events.
It's sort of the same for
all racing games, really: none of the modern titles that feature a large chunk of a particular series (GT3 cars, prototypes, etc etc) have the majority of the tracks the real-world series takes part on.
Then again, if you're looking for a game that better emulates existing series, GT Sport looks pretty crap for that outside of GT3-spec racing. The top class is filled with a few modern LMP's (all of which have since been replaced), and a whole swath of fictional race cars. Group 4 road-racers and Group B rally cars are roughly the same situation.
GT seemed to be heading in that direction, a ton of cars from everywhere and such, and not much to race against, there wasn't any balance of performance, no real categories, you could make your own, but the game didn't really care. It was just a line of series with an assortment of radically different race cars racing each other.
Agreed, though I don't think that, on its own, was a bad thing. The issue was that it was more or less the only way to play. I wish it was easier to set strict guidelines to better emulate real-world series.
As from a regular racing fan's standpoint, it's disappointing going from 1000+ cars to like, an assortment of 100 or so, and only a few tracks to race in, but I firmly stand by that this is the shakeup that Gran Turismo needs badly. Many say that the series was stuck in 1999, so the team is doing all it can to change up their formula.
I don't know about you, but change simply for change's sake isn't something I'm too keen on. If there's substance there, that's great. I'm not saying there is or isn't with GT Sport: I'm only saying that we still know so little.
With this, there's a real group of cars to race each other with, and a true form of multiclass. Sure, it's weird to see maybe an open wheel car with a Peugeot 208, but they have done the balancing so that they all have their quirks while being competitive. There's also an actual structure of championship (although it being online), with racing rules, flags, hopefully penalties and such. I wish they could bring this experience to the single player aspect of things instead of feeling the light for 3 years, but it's a step in the right direction. GT Sport is great from a motorsports fan's view.
Another thing we don't know: how balanced the classes truly are. There have been rumblings that the Renault RS01 is far and away the dominant car in Gr3, at least at past events.
To me, GT Sport sounds like more of a racing game than any previous GT game. But it doesn't seem like much of a real-world motorsports fan-friendly game, since it features so little of that.
It's a shake up Gran Turismo needed, and I hope other series follow and overdo Gran Turismo in the future.
I'm of two minds on that one. I tend to agree GT needed a shake-up, but I'm not sure this is the one. I won't argue that GT still has the edge in brand recognition in the genre though, so if anything is going to kick off the eSports trend on consoles, it'll be GT. Then again, iRacing has been pushing the eSports thing on PC for years now and I'm pretty sure both AC and PC were more successful in terms of sales figures and regular players.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I prefer the old GT style of what essentially was a CarPG. I think the issue was making it engaging to more players: the series has been so bogged down in its own idiosyncrasies that it could turn away casuals. Stuff like the chassis reinforcement, or oil changes: it's very cool to those people that like to get lost in the little details, but it's another barrier to just going out and having fun for others.
GT Sport is easily the biggest shift in style since the first game, so it will be very interesting to see how the average gamer responds to it next year.
I don't see a correlation.
