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| Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec,
PlayStation 2 |
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| Games,
Richard Young,
02:00:00,
01 October 2001 |
Rating: F4
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It’s been a long and arduous journey, but finally the most anticipated racing game ever is on our shop shelves. Was it worth the wait? For sure – but only just. For those who have been living on Mars for the last year or so, the highly popular Gran Turismo series on PlayStation has at last been bought to it’s bigger brother the PlayStation 2 in the form of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (originally titled Gran Turismo 2000
.Oh well.) The first Gran Turismo was a real gaming breakthrough due in part to Sony’s performance analysis software. Squeezing every available drop of power from the now relatively humble PlayStation meant a game that had fantastically subtle yet deep gameplay, oodles of customisable options and unrivalled graphics.
The additional power of the PlayStation 2 has significantly added to the third in the series, albeit primarily in the area of visual splendour. For these, dear readers are probably the most amazing graphics to be seen on any home console system ever. Everything from the reflections of the scenery on the cars, to the dust kicked up from the road in the new rallying stages, to the beams of sunlight that stream through the trackside foliage, has been lovingly rendered and animated. You could honestly get a kick out of just watching somebody else play this game, it’s that stunning. And that, strangely, is part of the game’s problem.
Most of the gameplay itself has remained pretty much untouched. The handling is a little more sensitive and intelligent, partly due to the inclusion of the pressure-sensitive buttons on the new joypads, but ultimately you are still battling against the same dull old A.I. that was present in the first two games. The other cars follow the same old racing lines and bunch up in the same predictable fashion as before. It’s not that the gameplay wasn’t well balanced in the first place, it’s just after a few laps around the tracks, you can’t help feeling that you have been through it all before.
The moniker of “driving simulator” is an accurate one, because aside from the odd-looking crashes that involve stopping dead when you hit an obstacle with not a scratch to be seen, this is still the most lifelike videogame representation of car racing ever. It is encouraging to see that despite a mostly anaemic library of games, the PlayStation 2 is actually a very capable machine in the right hands. One just hopes that the developers will in the future, be able to match the visuals with some equally impressive gameplay innovations.
Published by SCEE
Developed by Polyphony Digital
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