The AI is an excellent team player.
Quotable quote.

👍
The more one plays against the AI the clearer this becomes. They work together against the player. If the player 'leaves' the race (e.g. buzzing off to the finish line at an excessive speed) the AI go back to racing each other.
They are always ready to come out and play, no matter how you approach the race yourself.
Yes. If there is one characteristic that stands out it is that they are always ready to play - whatever driving game you want to play with them. I can spend hours just hanging out with them watching their strange and hilarious shenanigans.
The fact they drive some pretty nifty cars also helps to hold my attention.
If you go fast, they go fast. If you go slow, they wait for you.
Very true; they are always 'aware' of the player and constantly adjust to give the player a fair game.
And if you go Gran Theft Auto, they will surely join the fun. It's just a matter of finding the right approach, or combination of approaches.
They remember, they learn your driving line, they pick up on what your objective is if you keep repeating the same race with the same field, and they will play real hard if the player starts to also play hard. The 'Commander' and "Pace car' type events bring this to light very quickly.
In short - the more a player plays with the AI the more
that player's AI gets to know the player and adjusts to taste.
If a player runs a race once and leaves the game, or if a player has hardly a hundred thousand miles with the AI then the judgement of the AI by such a player merely reflects that lack of in-depth knowledge of
their AI.
Let alone the AI in general.
Let's look at the game the AI plays:
For a start we will remove everything that is not strictly 'game' related.
We can take out GTAcademy, GPS Activity, Photomode, Course Editing, Online lobbies. Arcade Mode, etc, etc - all these peripherals can be removed and a core game still exists.
The core game is a bunch of AI set on various tracks ready to race.
The races are set at levels that graduate from very easy to very hard - but here is where it gets complicated. In order to cater to millions of players whose ideas of 'easy' and 'hard' are extremely variable, the AI has to adjust.
To make it more complex, the player has a lot more adjustablity of their own because of the wide variety of cars and tuning options.
So we have a huge number of variables offered by the player that the AI have to deal with in offering a fair game themselves.
This would be almost impossible for a pack of human racers to offer a player - which is why online lobbies with humans racing against each other are usually a scattered shambles unless players are culled and picked to race each other on the same level (as in our own WRS events, etc.)
The AI, however, are robots - and can be programmed to satisfy many levels of player skill, programmed to adjust and change accordingly as the player improves their driving.
Having consistently studied the AI, and also compared them with AI from various other games I am of the opinion that the Gran Turismo AI is among the best when it comes to giving a player a close (and good) race.
But
what is a 'good' race?
Obviously this will change from player to player. A player who races to the finish line, whizzing by the AI cars so fast that the AI are hardly noticed, may say: "That was fun and easy, yay!"
Another player having that same experience will say 'Ah! The AI are lame. No contest.'
Looked at this way, the same race (same AI performance) outputs two different 'satisfaction' levels. One player is happy, the other is not.
How can we then fault the AI? It is the players' personal view of the race that was used as 'objective' judgement.
And it is not - much of the satisfaction/dissatisfaction is subjective.
So we have logical Artificial Intelligence attempting to satisfy illogical human desire. A tough program to write actually.
But, how well does the present generation of Gran Turismo AI attempt to satisfy these millions of different players?
Very well indeed -
but it all depends of how well the player plays, themselves - and what is brilliant about it is that 'how well' the player plays has not so much to do with their driving/racing skills as to do with their
playing skills in getting the AI to race well.
To demonstrate this, I will throw
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo PIRELLI into my PS3, go into Quick Race mode, select 'Dynamic', grab one of the 3 available 430s and take it to Monza for a 3-lap race. The disc-case this game arrives in states clearly that it is the 'most advanced AI of any racing title' and that the game has 'life-like' AI that adapts to the players' racing strategies and styles.
Right there we have a problem.
Who can define 'life-like'?
Ignoring the abysmal FFB (GT has spoiled me) and the terrible graphics (GT has spoiled me) the insipid sounds and the awkward POV of FC I get to racing. Right away I'm in the thick of battle.
Maybe not to other players, but to be jammed into a flock of cars and desperately battling to get away and reach the leaders is fun. I start out 16th (rolling start) but manage to push the 430 to its max and get P6.
The leader is doing 06:02:06, and I'm almost 14 seconds behind. In that race I also had a couple of brushes with two of the AI cars. The pace was hectic, and in spite of the shabby graphics and horrifying (and practically unadjustable) FFB I enjoy the race
because of the proximity of the opponents.
If I had started out on pole 5 cars would have raced me to the line - but because I started out last I had to battle with 10 opponents to get P6.
This makes it clear that starting on pole may not give a racer a 'good' race; if they are skilled racers and have a fast car they may never see an opponent at all, and end up actually turning the race into a TT and nothing more. The player has to
race opponents (not just pass or overtake them in a second) to feel that something like a race is taking place.
I go back for a retry:
The leader stayed in place, the opponents just ahead of me have increased their speeds - and meanwhile - the opponents I had skirmishes with in the previous race now do their best to take me out. I have no recourse but to battle them back.
This, I guess, is a definition of 'life-like' - holding grudges.

This FC AI has been programmed with humanity's 'bad stuff' - either that or they believe in karma.
I go in for the third time, and the AI have definitely turned vicious; the two I had skirmishes with have made it a priority to block or take me out, and the rest of the AI work to corral me. This has now turned from racing into a game of survival. I struggle to make P8 - even though the leader has slowed because of all the action behind them. Shades of NFS AI start to appear.
Here's the third try:
I'm no stranger to using a vehicle as a weapon, so I go in for the fourth try with my blood up and no quarter given. The battle is hot, fast, and intense, everybody driving like we are out to kill each other.
It's not racing anymore - we are fleeing down the highway escaping a tsunami, and no one else on the highway matters.
There is nothing I can do to the car - I have to race it as is.
I manage P6 again.
On my fifth try I blaze away making sure I dodge the revengeful AI and not waste time, and do better, even though the leader has now significantly increased their speed:
This obviously pisses off the AI and they go absolutely frenzied trying to stop me - my sixth try is a demolition derby and I end up P8:
This pisses
me off and I go back with all negative levels at the red-line - having almost won the race and being taunted is now turning me into a terrible driver; I need to win this at all costs and I'm not racing in the technically satisfying way I drive in GT, I'm racing like an online troll.
I manage to get P4, but now in addition to the muscle-numbing FFB, eye-blistering graphics, and all-round dissatisfying feel of the 430 I'm done with this game for the moment.
I switch to GT6 and look for a similar race and find one - 3 laps at Monza in the Italian Festival series.
The AI are the same as we just raced against in the previous Beginner's Seasonal at Rome - in fact the Rome race is right there, too.
I get a 430 and jump into Monza.
Right away the exquisite FFB and brilliant graphics of GT6 is orgasmic. The 430 feels like a real car should feel - even though my experience of real cars is limited to passenger vehicles and speeds that never exceed 100 MPH, I have enough to compare with and feel this.
I take off for the finish line, the GT AI just a blur of colour as I flash past. This was no race. It was a lovely Sunday drive in a spiffy Ferrari with me in a bit off a hurry to get to the beach quick.
Nice, but no real race:
I am at full PP with TCS1, ABS 1, everything else off, stock car. But this wasn't playing fair. I take off the TCS and ABS, all off, driving a rather dangerous Ferrari now:
But I'm still not 'feeling' a race. I take longer to overtake some of the opponents, and this longer 'overtaking' feels like racing, but not really different to what I would encounter on the highway and the everyday drivers we meet on the road who don't like to be overtaken for some misbegotten reason or another.
I'm still well over a 20-second lead in a 3-lap sprint.
Not good - unless I'm driving to enjoy the Ferrari (which I have to admit I am - GT simulates the sheer joy of driving very well all things considered. To make it a closer race I now drop the tire compound to CH:
This was a better race - a lot of time spent racing each particular opponent as I passed, but not in the arcadey fantastical way that the FC AI raced. The GT AI raced me a lot more realistically. I still made it with some seconds to spare. It was time to take off the winged sandals and run barefoot - so I now reduced the 430 to its full 50% reduction.
Now I'm racing a 430 at 50%, all off, on CH:
and getting a helluva close and exciting race:
I'm spending more time with the opponent AI as I overtake them getting to the lead, and this feels a lot more like racing now. I'm also glad I'm not on pole or else I would have never seen any AI as I sped to the finish line. I have a close win:
I repeat, going even faster, with several close wins.
This could go on all night, I decided, but what was I doing racing a 430 against cars like this? Mitos? Puntos? It was no wonder I had to cripple the 430 to get a close race.
And then the light went on. It was then I realised the 'secret game' hidden in GT.
We have raced this particular bunch of Italian rabbits several times - and it was
Morvan in the Dino or
Hirvonen in the Stratos who were the leaders.
My choice of car then was actually a Stratos or a Dino.
I took a bone stock Stratos, all off, B/B untouched, and went into battle again, asking for a new field. Bingo! Hirvonen appears right away in his Stratos:
We had at it. The Stratos was a blast to drive, the AI were better matched to tussle with me, and I had a heart-pounding race that resulted in:
Obviously I had stumbled right into the seat of PV1.
Now my blood was up - but not in the frustrating way that the FC AI had brought about. This GT AI was infinitely interesting, fighting hard (and legally) to not let me overtake them and giving me a good race:
I get better at handling the Stratos - but
Hirvonen keeps up:
The AI now work really hard to make my overtakes longer and more difficult; I'm racing for all I'm worth. But even with the slower lap-times
Hirvonen slows to let me race him to the finish line:
I let go of Hirvonen, now I'm hunting
Morvan in the Dino. I ask for a fresh field and once again - Bingo!
Morvan shows up. We race like devils:
I can't leave the console. The Stratos and I are one now - I'm so enjoying the car, and need any excuse to drive it. Racing this funny, perceptive, incredible flexible AI, who will not hesitate to take the win from me if I so much as breathe wrong has got me hooked. The FC AI seem childish by comparison. I repeat the race several times, losing some, winning some, learning to handle the Stratos a lot better, and the AI keep getting faster and faster - and more inventive at preventing me winning as I go along - keeping pace with my skills perfectly.
This was definitely worth $60.00.
Like I said, they could get rid of everything in this app and just give me the cars, tracks, and the AI . . . and the game is complete.
Having said that, however - Whoosier Rule. To each their own - but I think I found my own.

Can you tell I'm all excited to see what the next generation is going to give me?
Well, back to the console, and the Stratos. The Dino next.
So many events . . . so many PV1s to discover.
So much driving and racing and enjoying hundreds and hundreds of cars . . ..
____________________
Entries for the last round are now closed. OP fully updated with new winners. Standby for new challenges.