It's good, but I voted:
It's below expectations because I expect more from GT.
Good:
Good GFX *for a PS3*.. I think the lighting is better than GT5.
Below expectations:
The background shadows are horrifically bad, big huge blobs jumping around all over the place.. That's just nasty looking. No anti-aliasing on the white lines on the road make the game look very old and dated.
Seems like I am constantly adjusting brightness.. If it is a dark race, I have to crank up in-game brightness, if it is sunny day race, I have to crank it down.
More laziness from PD, not taking the time to tune the setting to each track/ car, etc.. And some cars still have "tinted windshields" after 1.03 that make it darker than it should be when you look oput.. And then the interior shadows that make the gauges worthless sometimes. Stuff like that is just lazy programming, it should be fixed by now.
Good:
Physics and force feedback are good enough.. great by GT standards.
Below expectations
..but obviously there are problems. In GT5 I thought the cars acted more natural when counter steering into a drift or slide. Now it is back to twitchy, unnatural feeling snap over-steer that feels exaggerated to me, especially on some MR race cars (Audis). It seems PD usually tweak the physics just about every single update, so who knows where it will end up.
Good:
It is GT. I've been a fan since the beginning and I like much about the game, but they need to go back to their roots I think.
Below expectations:
Sales suck compared to earlier versions of GT, so they do more of what made sales suck? It doesn't make sense. Don't make the game easier, make the game more of a challenge. When GT was selling in huge numbers, it had a huge single player "game" aspect, and was a good challenge. It was just a better value back then. You got MORE GT back then. Now it is a short, easy, forgettable race to 100%, and then nothing, except waiting for scraps of seasonals, promotional cars, and other tiny short races that are over in 3 minutes. I want more of GT, not less.
I'm just about done with the game and it is way too short.. the career mode is about 3 to 5 times smaller than it should be. I should still be playing in March and not be at 100% yet.
24 minute "endurance races"? Why is Kaz and PD so bi-polar? Why can't they settle in the middle somewhere? Ok, the 9, 12, and 24hr races were ridiculous in GT5..
So then they swing all the way to the other side and make 24 MINUTES the longest endurance? Really? How about a 4 hour race being the longest? Then a bunch of 2.4 hour "24hr" races, and then some one hour races. That would be perfect and not at all "too much". As it is, it's just a waste. 24 minutes is a tiny sprint race, I don't care how many times you have to pit for tires that wear out too soon..
The Ai are dumb, sometimes worse than GT5, and they "let you win" way to often in most of the game. There should be a difficulty slider. At least in GT5 you could take a slower car and make it a challenge, now it is even hard to do that. it is like PD is forcing you to win in a lot of the races. All those races are wasted, and it is a huge number of the races in career mode.
Then we have all the other known problems..
Bugs. Man, soooo many bugs these days in GT.
Clutch. This needs fixing.. like 5 years ago.
Sound. Come on PD.. we know you can do it.. some cars sound awesome. Fix the rest.
Standing starts abolished from most of the game. So instead of fixing Ai so that they are capable of standing starts, you just remove standing starts? Lazy!
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I am not as optimistic about GT as some still seem to be. To me they have shown that they don't really care what customers want, they're going to do whatever they feel like and we can go pound salt.
I think they take for granted that there will always be another GT around the corner for them to make money off of.. Well, look at the sales compare to older, better, more complete, less buggy versions of GT in the past. People are voting with their wallets PD, maybe you should start to listen.
I think a huge part of the problem is Kaz's "racing career".. He needs to focus on GT, not racing. Either that, or give it up to someone who cares about it like he used to.