It is also the final game to support the Sony PlayStation 2.
It’s all too easy to get carried away praising the accuracy of the simulation that Crammond has produced here, hailing GP4 as the finest driving game of all time and that, but F1 is about more than just the driving.Gran Turismo 4 is a racing video game, and the fourth installment in the Gran Turismo series. What we’re still not getting, despite all the authenticity shown in the driving side of the game, is a true sense of being a F1 driver.
You don’t even get a grid walk before a race - practically a staple for any F1 game. But a brief, generic animation sequence after a race doesn’t really offer any major incentive to keep plugging away. What if you want the accuracy but don’t want to drive for either Ferrari, Williams or McLaren? Without the option for team improvement over seasons, either through the purchase or development of better equipment, you’re not really going to have much chance of success if you opt to drive for one of the smaller teams such as Minardi or BAR, no matter how much you tinker with the spring stiffness or ride height.Īnd what about the sense of achievement or reward? Certainly, there’s a feeling of progress as you get to grips with each track, learn each corner and push the speed envelope a little further with each lap. The emphasis being on simulation over gameplay throws up other problems. When choose to quit the game? Why can’t change my keyboard set-up mid race? Why is there no instant restart for a quick race? Why can't choose what data is displayed on the steering wheel readout? Why does your pit crew tell you the road is clear for you to pull out of the garage despite the fact that there are four other cars all accelerating in your direction? Why? Why? Why? Why can only save changes to the game’s set-up options Why are all the driver and team names in lower case? For example, spin out of control and end up lying across the path of another driver and will they reverse back then steer around your prone car? No, apparently Mika Hakkinen (sadly the teams and drivers are all last seasons) would prefer to continually nudge your car’s chassis for half an hour, until the marshals run on to drag you away - marshals who, incidentally, have both balls and bodies of steel as they’ll happily run onto the track as other cars scream past at a zillion miles per hour (or 1.6 zillion km per hour if you’re feeling metric) before attaching you to the invisible cranes by the side of each track.
That said, there are a few flies in the ointment of realism. The sense of racing is also much better than anything we’ve had before, with Al that on the whole does a grand job of giving you the impression of being in a real battle for the chequered flag.
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