I agree with you on that for strictly racing. I don’t even join those events in sports mode, but if your racing with people you know or just cruising the track it’s pretty fun. AC and PC2 also have Highway tracks which I find fun especially PC2 because of the weather and day to night transitions.
Again GTS is not the only game that has some type of highway freeway track, and while you find the track boring looking or whatever you call it to me it’s fine. Reminds me of driving a highway in Tokyo. I’m not looking for the flash, and even though GTS doesn’t have real time weather the highway becomes better looking as it becomes night. That’s something I can appreciate. What I also appreciate is the fact I can take my car to Tsukuba test on the track and also go to Tokyo Expressway stay in one lane and push the car at a different limit compared to a track where you go all out. So again you might not like the track or the design or feel it Has a midnight racer appeal, but I’m glad it’s in GTS and hope we get it in GT7 with other Tokyo city streets we’ve gotten in past GT’s.
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So you're saying that street circuits don't have a place in GT anymore?
Polyphony do outsource work, a studio called ModelingCafe have created vehicles for GT Sport and there was another company that leaked GT7 that Polyphony have been working with. So while I agree with most of your post, and it definitely appears that Polyphony haven't wanted to outsource work in the past, it does appear that they are doing so now. So hopefully your fears may be alleviated in some way.
While those pics look fantastic for their generation, the graphical leap to GT Sport is very noticeable. And going back to 2 year development cycles, Turn 10 don't do that anymore, and they have many more staff working on Forza Motorsport than Polyphony do.Funny bro, if that were true then GT7 in small gameplay gifs should look even more mindboggling like PS8 graphics, instead it barely looks better than GTSport gameplay gifs. 👎
If you really think Polyphony trying to do all of their environment art assets by themselves with only 180 employees won't be left behind by other devs taking advantage of oursourcing help with hundreds and hundreds of artists assisting, then good luck. The city environments and buildings in PGR4 on an Xbox360 game were already more detailed and impressive than Tokyo Expressway in GTSport. Also take into account Sony gives Polyphony all of the time in the word to make their games, PD was able to spend 4 years on a single racing game and still managed to release tracks looking like Alsace and Dragon Trail in addition to the low track count at launch. The big racing titles from other developers have a limit of a 2 year dev cycle on an even smaller budget.
I imagine you wanted something more than gifs though, so here's direct-feed gameplay shots of PGR4 (reminder it's an Xbox360 game). Imagine how more detail Tokyo Expressway could have been, and how many more city tracks we could have gotten if Polyphony had actually allowed for help from outsource developers. At least Hong Kong, Amalfi, and George V Paris could have been remade by now too considering GTSport is now a whopping 7 years old since GT6 released... But if you want to defend Polyphony's outdated development practices, go ahead. Just don't get so defensive when their flaws are compared to the competition.
It's a highway in the middle of a concrete jungle. It's meant to look that way. If you grew up with the Shutoko Battle Series (Tokyo Extreme Racer as it's known in the Western world) and watch Wangan Midnight and play the Maximum Tune series, these tracks hold a lot of significance. In previous games we have the Special Stage Route tracks which tried to ape Japan's highways, but Tokyo Expressway is a lot more realistic in terms of scenery. Unfortunately the layouts are not exactly the same as in real life, but that's probably because PD wants to avoid direct street racing comparisons.
^You can see the inspiration for Tokyo East's esses in the last video. The looooong straight and tunnel is based on the Wangan Line. Tokyo Central is based on some parts of the C1 Loop. Tokyo South is a bit hard to place but the docks area is reminiscent of Yokohama and the pit building is based on a real life building too.
Yes they're bad for pack racing, but you gotta remember the street racing that happened here in the 90s was mostly between 2-4 cars only. The main challenge is how precise you can be driving between those walls, and avoiding traffic (obviously not something we have in game). At night with billboards and neon signs from the nearby buildings, it doesn't look so bad. But the problem is most of the time of day options are at daytime and most of the races we have are also at daytime, which contributes to the grey lifeless look. It's fine, it's realistic. Not every track has to look like Kart Space. In fact, most real life circuits also look pretty dull during non race weekends without spectators and all the banners/flags/etc.
Basically, if you grew up with tuner culture, these roads are as significant as any famous road race in the world (e.g. Pikes Peak, Isle of Man, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio). The only difference was the racing wasn't sanctioned. I'm in no way condoning street racing, but at least this way we can imitate that safely in a game environment. Are they the best fictional tracks PD ever made? Definitely not. Am I glad that PD decides to add them? Yes.
Hope that helps explain why some crazy people like me like to drive on these boring, grey, lifeless highways
GT5 wasn't barebones at all as well. It had plenty, for me at least. Just not anywhere near GT3 (in terms of events) or GT4.
or Seattle ) the penalties will not come that often.
