Can you recall the moment GT hooked you?

[2clicks]

Starting off with GT1 in 2000 when I was just six, my brothers were infuriated by that one A License test on Trial Mountain with the R33 GT-R. Night after night they would toil just to pass. One particular night, I was sitting and quietly observing the tumult, until I finally said 'I wanna try!' I had only played Arcade mode a few times before, when they allowed me to. They just seemed to say 'You know what? We give up, go for it.' After failing twice for going off course, I finally nailed it, and earned a silver to boot. They were amazed, and I realised how exhilarating it was just to nail a time, not just to be the first one to cross the line. It was then that they allowed me to take on the rest of the tests by myself, and I ended up clearing all of them within the space of a week.

 

[unit-one]

GT3.

The opening movie with Feeder was jaw dropping and the moment with the red RX-7 sliding in-to view looked too real to be true.
The whole game felt solid and truly next-gen.
The music, the sound.
The street lights and christmas lights on threes on a night track. The wet night track.
The best version of Trial Mountain with it's crepuscular rays down the straight.
The feeling when you are going from gravel to asphalt in Smoky Mountain and it's eye burning sun.
The car I remember the best is a silver RUF RGT.

 

[JockeP22]

Can you recall the moment GT hooked you?

Sure can. It was reading this magazine in 1998.

 

[Alex p.]

Awesome thread and awesome responses!
My story: funnily enough I first disliked GT. My stupid child mind (I was 9) was bored and intimidated with the realism of the first GT. I tried it at an older friends house, but liked NFS3 much more (it had cool cars, tracks and police chases yay *rolls eyes*). About one year later I, as many others, played the demo one disc and it got me hooked good. One of my pals and me played through the entirety of GT1 and GT2. It was awesome.
By the time GT3 was about to hit, I was 13 years old, bought gaming magazines and bought every single one containing pictures or an article of/about GT3. I was so immensely hyped. Then the game released and it definatly did not disappoint. I mean I have seen hundrets of pics and many videos of it before buying and playing it, but it still managed to impress me graphically so much, and also the handling felt so real.
Then about some months later I bought the official GT3 wheel, the Logitech Driving Force: wow, I could not believe the realism. It felt sooooo amazing and that was the moment I was hooked definatly for eternity. I love GT.

 

[Alex p.]

GT3. I had started the game a couple of times and not really been able to get into in. A good friend recommended I should start with the license tests. There was this one test at the start of trial mountain that I just couldn't get the gold time on, the car was fighting me at every turn.
Then something just clicked. I worked out the racing line and the car stopped fighting me and felt like it just intuitively went where I wanted it to go. I stopped fighting the car and started driving it instead
I've loved racing sims ever since

I can relate a little.

Grand Valley East with the Stingray '67.
As a kid, the music and background picture were so mysterious.

Here I can also relate. That very same dealer I also found so mysterious, so cool.

I saw a replay of GT4 in a store and realized that the level of realism of the cars was very good. I did not play video games, but because I'm passionate about cars, I thought I could have a museum of virtual cars in my house. And as I said in another thread, my intention was just to look at the cars at the dealerships

So it was the replay at SSR5 that hooked me.

That's a really cool story!

Starting off with GT1 in 2000 when I was just six, my brothers were infuriated by that one A License test on Trial Mountain with the R33 GT-R. Night after night they would toil just to pass. One particular night, I was sitting and quietly observing the tumult, until I finally said 'I wanna try!' I had only played Arcade mode a few times before, when they allowed me to. They just seemed to say 'You know what? We give up, go for it.' After failing twice for going off course, I finally nailed it, and earned a silver to boot. They were amazed, and I realised how exhilarating it was just to nail a time, not just to be the first one to cross the line. It was then that they allowed me to take on the rest of the tests by myself, and I ended up clearing all of them within the space of a week.

Respect for being such a capable racer at such a young age!

GT3.

The opening movie with Feeder was jaw dropping and the moment with the red RX-7 sliding in-to view looked too real to be true.
The whole game felt solid and truly next-gen.
The music, the sound.
The street lights and christmas lights on threes on a night track. The wet night track.
The best version of Trial Mountain with it's crepuscular rays down the straight.
The feeling when you are going from gravel to asphalt in Smoky Mountain and it's eye burning sun.
The car I remember the best is a silver RUF RGT.

Yes, yes and yes. I feel the love.

Sorry for the DP, I forgot how all this quoting thing worked.

 

[05XR8]

1997. PAssing a local game store on Fordham road in The Bronx. Watching a demo of a green Honda Civic, racing against a Corvette around Grand Valley. Looked so real. Went inside to get the game. Life changed forever.

 

[P0T5]

Playing it at a friends house for first time when I was only 7 and being so jealous I didn't have a PS1 at the time lol

 

[ron24]

Im 46 and didn't get into GT until I picked my first wheel a Logitech Driving Force GT then tried GT5 prologue and I was hooked. Wish I had a wheel sooner in life. My wheels got costly because of GT as I kept wanting a better experience. Wheels owned Logitech G25 G27 , Thrustmaster T500, T300 Fanatec Gt2, Fanatec CSR, Fanatec CSW V2, now Fanatec CSL Elite Ps4 version. Not much a online person but I really enjoyed the GT Sport Demo over Project Cars 2.

 

[Earth]

I was continuously finishing 4th or 5th in one of the lower leagues in Gran Turismo 1. Until I discovered tuning parts where I improved my car enough to start winning. The simulation style physics, the idea I was racing in the 'lower leagues' vs normal cars when there was a chance I could eventually be racing in proper race cars, and working hard to earn credits to save up for tuning parts gave me a very real feeling of car ownership. Thats what made me hooked.

 

[dimassa19]

Funny story actually. I sent my girlfriend to pick up Need for Speed from the store, as she didn't have a clue about video games and saw a car on the cover she bought GT2 by mistake and brought it home, I never played NFS again.

lol!

 

[Fredzy]

Starting off with GT1 in 2000 when I was just six, my brothers were infuriated by that one A License test on Trial Mountain with the R33 GT-R. Night after night they would toil just to pass. One particular night, I was sitting and quietly observing the tumult, until I finally said 'I wanna try!' I had only played Arcade mode a few times before, when they allowed me to. They just seemed to say 'You know what? We give up, go for it.' After failing twice for going off course, I finally nailed it, and earned a silver to boot. They were amazed, and I realised how exhilarating it was just to nail a time, not just to be the first one to cross the line. It was then that they allowed me to take on the rest of the tests by myself, and I ended up clearing all of them within the space of a week.

Nice!! This reminds me of the night my buddy and I got GT3. We got it like a week early, but that's another story! I was the expert between us, so I was burning through all of the license tests. We got to this test with the Toyota GT-One at Monaco and I couldn't crack it. We were using automatic transmission because the thing was such a handful - maybe aids weren't available or were too slow. Either way we couldn't control the car. He had an epiphany, I gave him the controller. He changes to manual transmission, which he didn't even use typically ... he used higher gears as a sort of traction control and passed, maybe even silvered. It was a moment for sure!

 

[Marky264]

I was in Philippines at the time visiting my mothers side of the family, I was around 7 Years old. Down the road from My Grans place there was an Arcade. They had the original PlayStation console set up on a massive CRT TV at the time. They had Gran Turismo set up! I remember picking an Acura NSX and spending over 6 Hours on it as I had never played a PlayStation before up to that point. I was addicted! Since then I bought a PSOne with all the Christmas/Birthday money I had been saving & GT2 had launched at the same time which was perfect.

 

[Fredzy]

The best version of Trial Mountain with it's crepuscular rays down the straight.

Oddly, those rays of light are the most memorable positive thing from GT3 for me. I'm won over easily, I suppose. The most memorable thing in general was when you'd win a prize car and see all of those silhouettes spinning, realizing how many times you might have to do this long, difficult thing to get all of those darn cars

By the time GT3 was about to hit, I was 13 years old, bought gaming magazines and bought every single one containing pictures or an article of/about GT3. I was so immensely hyped. Then the game released and it definatly did not disappoint.

My god, you were at the eye of a perfect storm of mind-blown-ness in the history of video games. You're lucky your young heart didn't simply give out from the euphoria at the end of that hype-train ride! Seriously though, it's that kind of experience that gives GT mythological hype status.

 

[MadJacks7]

Gran Turismo 1

Been hooked ever since. I enjoyed all the other sequels, but havent been looking forward to a game (Gran Turismo Sport) like this in a long time. Went and bought a 55" 4k tv and upgraded to a PsPro. Guess I need to figure a wheel setup to get next. Counting down the minutes...

 

[eCiD]

gt 1:

1. the moment my brother n me watching the first replay and stating "those cars look so damn real, theres no way any game in the future could look any better than this"

2. our father (a real world race driver at that time) helping us out with tuning and stating "theres nothing real about this, wheres the tyre pressure? thats the first thing you tune"

3. a very best friend of mine bringing his copy of the game saying "put this in, its the japanese version" "why?" "listen to the music"

now so many years later i called my brother and best friend (all of us have own kids now) like every new gt game to come over and play through the night.

 

[Lord Kacperov]

My brother played PS2 games a lot around the time I was born (I was born in 2002), which included GT3. Apparently, I loved watching my brother play, and by the time I was 2-3 years old, I started playing racing games on my own, and GT3 was my favourite racing game. I remember starting GT Mode in the game on my own. The first car that I bought was a white Toyota Sprinter Trueno *Running In The ‘90s intensifies*, and I remember chasing a red Honda Civic at Super Speedway, and a grey/white Civic at Midfield Raceway, and back then it was very difficult (yes I struggled with the Sunday Cup, bite me). But I eventually won those races after many failed attempts, and oh boy I can recall my joy. I also remember driving the F1 cars in GT3, which was a blast. And I also did the 100 lap Super Speedway endurance race in the early ‘90s style F1 car just to get a blue version of it. That never happened, unfortunately.

I always loved watching GT3’s intro while singing to Just A Day by Feeder in not so great English.

My very earliest memory that I can recall included GT3 (which probably happened from anywhere in 2005 to early 2006). My brother was in the Super License, and he asked me which license test to pick. Now little me chose the final one, which was the graduation test where you had to drive one lap around Cote D’Azur as fast as possible in a Toyota GT-One, but none of the tests were even completed. But little me was too stubborn to understand.

The last time I properly played this GT was around 2010-2012. I got a Wii and a PS3 in that time zone, so I got less interested in my PS2 and GT3. The last time I booted up the game was in March 2014 according to a save on one of my PS2 memory cards. And I haven’t played it ever since because the only GT3 disc that I found doesn’t work, and I haven’t gone to a game store yet to buy a working copy of the game that truly defined my early childhood...

I remember playing a lot of GT4 in the Arcade Mode, but I never played its GT Mode because it looked way too complicated for me, from what I can recall. And luckily, I can play GT4 whenever I want, because I still have a (working) copy of GT4. And the nostalgia intensifies whenever I’m in the GT Mode or the Arcade Mode, or when I watch its intro which was so awesome, especially the beginning.

Then Christmas Eve 2012 happened. It was the year my parents told me the fat man who breaks into millions of homes and eats cookies and drinks a glass of milk in every single one of those homes, who then leaves multiple presents behind in every single home, doesn’t exist, and the world was supposed to end 3 days before the night before Christmas. I finally got a 500GB PS3 Super Slim with GOTY: Uncharted 3 (which I didn’t give a single 🤬 for) and Gran Turismo 5: Academy Edition. I was amazed when I saw that there was an interior view for the game, and I was also shocked when I saw that karts and the F10 Ferrari were part of the game. It was the first GT game in which I would play in all modes. My first car was a black Toyota GT86, and I remember being happy when buying a green Murcielago and a red F430. I fell in love with the photomode but my brother told me that these photos took up a lot of space (which I later realised it was a total lie). Then my brother got me GT6, and it was the first GT that I almost fully completed (still have plans to get to 100%, I’m at 98% right now). I got addicted to GT6 with ease. It was the first GT I played online, but it was also the game that taught me what screen-tear and anti-aliasing was.

And GT Sport will be another GT I will get hooked to, because I like what’s it got. But first, I’m going to need a PS4 (Pro), and to get that I need to get some better grades in school! And Imma do just that... Just let me procrastinate a bit.

But I can’t recall when I got hooked to GT simply because I was too young. But I do know that I got hooked to the franchise long before I started talking, and I still am to this very day.

 

[unit-one]

Oddly, those rays of light are the most memorable positive thing from GT3 for me. I'm won over easily, I suppose. The most memorable thing in general was when you'd win a prize car and see all of those silhouettes spinning, realizing how many times you might have to do this long, difficult thing to get all of those darn cars

The wheel-of-fortune was the worst part of the game

 

[KoenigseggFTW]

Yea, I remember. Christmas of 1997 (I think), I got a PS1/Final Fantasy bundle. AND HATED IT. My birthday was coming up and my family had noticed I wasn't playing the PS1 at all. They weren't happy about it. At the mall, I saw GT1 on display around my birthday. Read the back, looked at the photos. Had to have it. I was a girl that when I got in my red Power Wheels Corvette (3yrs old?), I was disappointed that it didn't go faster. The guy at the counter asked me if I was sure I wanted it (dick). Of course I did.

Got home, popped it in. Oh. My. God. That intro. It was game over for me. Every subsequent version was ordered, limited editions collected. Would grind the licenses and then begin buying dream cars. All the cars I wanted from the time I was 12ish. All the cars Gran Turismo taught me about that I never knew of (poor little American girl). The fundamentals of car handling and tuning. The Gran Turismo franchise has brought me so much joy and knowledge over the years. I don't think I'd be the car person I am today (one who respects/appreciates cars from all different countries/brands), if it weren't for GT.

It isn't a joke that for the longest the only video game series I ever played was Gran Turismo and the only reason I ever bought a PS2 and PS3 was because of Gran Turismo. It wasn't until well into GT5 (maybe a year before GT6) that I even TRIED online lobbies. Once I did, I met so many great car people. We would trade cars and paint chips. Just chill and cruise and tune. From GT4 on, I did tuning worksheets. Made custom ones in Google Docs for GT6 and will probably do the same for GTS.

Honestly, what a testament it is to the game that a lot of us spent so much time racing solo. GTS may not be perfect (God knows GT6 wasn't), but I enjoy the hell out of it. Just like GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4, and GT5/6.

 

[Snaeper]

I was over at my Uncle's house and got to watch him play GT2. He was driving an Escudo on Seattle and demolishing everything around it.

Now there is a classic GT car that I hope can be resurrected with a premium treatment.

 

[rex1825]

View attachment 680689

...this was the moment. Nicely found

I remember I was playing the demo with my friend, and we commented how game was uber... and one moment we both said: "lol there is no BGM, well, it must be because of the beautiful graphics and gameplay..."

 

[Wiegert]

One of dad's work buddies subscribed to the Official UK PS mag in 1999. He had no use for the demo discs so my dad would take them off his hands for me and my brother to play with. Said work friend also gave us an old PS1 earlier that year.

The '99 Christmas issue disc was one of the first we got our hands on with one of the strongest demo line-ups to come out for the system. CTR offered the most fun and longevity with its multiplayer options, but GT2 was a completely different beast which needed my attention first and foremost.

It wasn't so much the gameplay that hooked me however, but the quality of the race replays and the car selection that was almost entirely sealed off that served to tease my young mind. The "COMING SOON!" GT Mode menu added to that temptation with more every-day models appearing in the Ford dealership, including an Escort GTi that looked enough like my dad's own Escort that I couldn't wait to try it out.

Of course, that Escort never did show up outside of the demo. And rather than pick up the full game on release, my dad brought home a used copy of GT1. Not quite the same game that originally caught my eye, but it is one that evokes nostalgic memories of trying to beat him and my brother on Trial Mountain with the C2 Corvette, or watching dad try and fail to create a decent set-up for his MX-5 while wishing he could just buy the GTO as a starter car instead.

 

[FerrariF1GT]

I was hooked when I started GT6 on day one. Yeah, I'm quite new according to the standards here, yet I did get the rest of the series plus Tourist Trophy, however.

 

[zzz_pt]

My parents gave me a PS1 for Christmas in 1998 with Ridge Racer Type 4. I was 8. Soon after that a friend of mine told me about GT and the Hondas (he loved the Civics and CRX IRL) and I asked my parents for that game.

Never looked back. Still remember my first car. The almighty Honda Civic Ferio VTi '93

Like this but silver. I did a good chunk of the career mode with it, upgrading it bit by bit.

Spoiler: off-topic, non GT1 related

Still remember the day I got Gran Turismo 2 and how I went home on the passenger seat of my dad's BMW E30 looking at the back cover with all those amazing (and tiny) pictures of cars.

After that, I bought every single GT game (including the Tokyo-Geneve) for every home console on day one. GT3 I even had it for my birthday before having the console. The game was launched when I was on holidays with my parents in Sevilla, Spain and we went to El Corte Inglés to get the game then a few days later I got the PS2.

Now I'm here waiting to go and get my CE copy of GTS.

ps: I bought with my own money everything that came for the PS3 (including the console) and later on until today.

 

[Ether]

I vividly remember as a 12 year old standing in a Toys R Us in front of a playable demo of Gran Turismo HD Concept. I hadn't heard of Gran Turismo up until this point, but after just one lap of Eiger Nordwand in the Infinity G35, I was absolutely hooked. The game looked so photorealistic to me at the time, especially as someone who had only ever owned a gamecube. Unsurprisingly then, GT5 Prologue was my first PS3 game two years later

 

[zr1chris]

The moment I found out GT1 had over 100 cars (when every other game at the time had 20-30) with performance mods and 0-400 meter timing.

 

[dimassa19]

Yea, I remember. Christmas of 1997 (I think), I got a PS1/Final Fantasy bundle. AND HATED IT. My birthday was coming up and my family had noticed I wasn't playing the PS1 at all. They weren't happy about it. At the mall, I saw GT1 on display around my birthday. Read the back, looked at the photos. Had to have it. I was a girl that when I got in my red Power Wheels Corvette (3yrs old?), I was disappointed that it didn't go faster. The guy at the counter asked me if I was sure I wanted it (dick). Of course I did.

Got home, popped it in. Oh. My. God. That intro. It was game over for me. Every subsequent version was ordered, limited editions collected. Would grind the licenses and then begin buying dream cars. All the cars I wanted from the time I was 12ish. All the cars Gran Turismo taught me about that I never knew of (poor little American girl). The fundamentals of car handling and tuning. The Gran Turismo franchise has brought me so much joy and knowledge over the years. I don't think I'd be the car person I am today (one who respects/appreciates cars from all different countries/brands), if it weren't for GT.

It isn't a joke that for the longest the only video game series I ever played was Gran Turismo and the only reason I ever bought a PS2 and PS3 was because of Gran Turismo. It wasn't until well into GT5 (maybe a year before GT6) that I even TRIED online lobbies. Once I did, I met so many great car people. We would trade cars and paint chips. Just chill and cruise and tune. From GT4 on, I did tuning worksheets. Made custom ones in Google Docs for GT6 and will probably do the same for GTS.

Honestly, what a testament it is to the game that a lot of us spent so much time racing solo. GTS may not be perfect (God knows GT6 wasn't), but I enjoy the hell out of it. Just like GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4, and GT5/6.

Your Koenigsegg is very nice...And cool story!

 

[racingchamp30]

I first started playing GT when it was on the PS1 and ever since then i got hooked. Had to get GT2, 3, 4, GT5 Prologue, 5, 6 and picked up my copy of GT Sport earlier today even though it is a Christmas gift. I always loved auto racing games since Pole Position so GT went right down my alley the moment i started playing it on the first Playstation.