Gran Turismo PSP
Hello GTP Forum, I'm SiNiST3R on this Board, I am NOT a "Gran Turismo or nothing" type game racer, I actually play pretty much every Racing game that comes out, currently on my PS3 I'm enjoying Shift, & GT5P waiting for the release of GT5. We thankfully have something that will bridge the gap while waiting for the up coming GT5. The 2 games will expand the enjoyment of each other when coupled together.
As a whole I think Gran Turismo PSP is getting dogged and poor reviews from clueless people. I intend to change that, Ill give you the real deal on why this is such a great PSP Title, an absolute must have for any racer with a PSP.
I will give you some info, & details on the game mixed with my impressions and opinions. Keep in mind these are my opinions, I have no connection with Polyphony Digital or Sony.
The Review
The Grafix
The Grafix are incredible. The "In-Car-View" is great with all mirrors working. The cars have plenty of detail and replays are enjoyable to watch, looking like videos of GT4 converted to run on a PSP.
There are quite a few screenshots out from GT PSP NONE of them do justice to the games grafix's quality for a good reason. 60FPS with no slow down EVER! This makes for incredible visuals while in motion, but tend to show up pixilated when you freeze the frame. It's like looking at a comic book picture. If you look at the image at a short distance, the image lines and colors look solid and crisper, then if you put your face up to the page and analyze it from close up. With it close up you notice allot of the colors are only dots with large gaps around them, only looking like a solid color from a distance. This is the same with GT running at 60fps While the Cars are moving there are 60 images per second being flashed at us, making it impossible to relay image quality to a single frozen screenshot. What you can get from the screenshots is an idea of the quality of the Grafix.
They have also brought The "In-Car-View" to PSP (I cant say ****pit, on this forum, even though its not a bad word) They use the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) moto here, where they lose the wheel and animations, but leave you with a satisfying "In-Car-View" I use it all the time... Keep in mind all mirrors work, Sweet!
Ive been surprised over and over with the clarity and detail on the cars I acquire over and over again, blown away that this is a PSP game.
800+ Cars & 30+ Tracks/Track configurations
WOW, thats quite a bit for ANY console, let alone the PSP. Lets look into this a bit.GT PSP is using GT4 as its base. The track, car models, are ripped from GT4 with the few added exceptions. There is a New Track, and a Few cars not in GT4 (GTR R35 & THe ZR1 to name 2) The cars Details have nicely been brought to the PSP with a lot less detail loss then I expected (I figured this was how they would build the game 5 years ago) Dont expect to find every current car, but rather expect all the cars you fell in love with in GT4, with a few new ones to fall in love with. The same goes for the tracks, all the loved ones are back with a new track to get into. The tracks like I said before have been ripped from the GT4 game, so they are in the state when the Track was mapped for GT4. This has the backgrounds look like they did years ago, and not reflecting the current state, but the Track is spot on.
Buying Cars
You can only choose between 4 Dealerships on any given *Day* (*Day count in the game) In those dealership is a limited number of available cars from that Dealership. Don't worry, they cycle with the days. This will have people upset, but if you think about it it makes sense. If you could buy any car, all your focus would be on obtaining them, but once obtained the game would dry-out. Also making the obtaining of cars for GT5 Prologue too easy through the PSP system. Like this the cars you want are valuable and Rare. you have to keep looking and Racing to progress the Day count, buying cars to better suit higher competitions and win large cash amounts. heavens forbid you dont have enough to buy the car you want on its first time buy. Getting the car you want becomes rewarding like this. Again this only adds to the longevity of the game.
Driving Dynamics (How do the cars handle)
The Polyphony Digital Team did a remarkable job, insuring the Driving feels right out of the Gran Turismo series, even though the PSP lacks analogue buttons the control of the cars is smooth and precise with both the D-Pad & Analogue Stick.
Tuning
Gran Turismo PSP DOES have car tuning. Just not FULLY. Take the "Quick Tune" out of GT5 Prologue simplify it, and you have GT PSP. Just like GT5P you dont buy parts, but can adjust setting. There are not as many tuning options, but enough to get a great suspension set up. There is Power & Weight adjustments (Increase or decease by percentages) This is only available for Drift Trials, and not Single Player Races or Time Trials.
You can adjust the following for all cars out of the Box (No purchasing of any parts) Ride Height, Spring Rate, Damper, Toe, & Camber Angle. Some cars you can also adjust the Aerodynamics Down force. Drift Trial will add the ability to increase the cars Horse Power up to 20%, & reduce the weight by up to 20%.
No Power or Weight adjusting for Single Player Races or Time Trials, is the only thing I personally find upsetting, but I have taken a look at it from a objective perspective and it makes seance as to why they did it. They want to add longevity to the game, Ill explain more in the section about Single Player Mode.
Single Player Mode, Status Report & Driving Challenges
Single Player Mode
Gran Turismo PSP has a lack of Career Mode. Or does it? Single Player mode IS GT PSP's "Career Mode". In Single Player Mode, you have access to All the tracks in the game BUT not at all difficulty levels. You will need to race each track, at each difficulty level progressively. Starting with D-class moving up to A-class & S-class. The lack of increasing the Hp, and reducing weight of the cars makes every race with any car a fun competitive race (relatively) That makes it EASY to pic up the game after not playing for a while and grabbing any car, jumping into any track, and having a good race. This is done to make the game more suited to the PSP platform, & work with the up coming Gran Turismo 5 release. The PSP is a handheld, and they realize this will be put down when the PS3 is fired up and GT5 is played. They want the games to work together, allowing you to transfer cars from the PSP GT to the PS3 GT5. Clean STOCK cars will be transferred up.
Status Report
Your Single Player Mode & all Stats are tracked in your Status Report. This kinda makes the "Single Player Mode" A type of "Career" Mode. It gives the Progression of the Driving class, or how they refer to it in this menu AI Driver Level, as essentially the different Classes are better cars mixed with better AI drivers. How many online/offline wins are tracked, as well as Driving Distance, Amount of Cars in your collection, your completed driving challenges Vs remaining, & Your trophy count. There is enough stuff to keep you occupied.
Driving Challenges
To make the game more interesting they also have a Driving Challenges Mode, that resembles the License test we are all used to from the series. Only they have quite a few "Test" the good side to this is that passing the test get you cash, big money for Gold. Some of these test are very challenging and I only have a few golds, but plenty of bronze trophies.
Multiplayer Mode
The Multiplayer mode is incredible if you have some friends with PSP's and copies of Gran Turismo. You can race each other, and include some AI cars to spice up the race with some traffic. Best of all is if you keep racing with each other the game will adjust head starts and change cars to keep the race competitive, if you select the option. The only problem is finding friends to race with...
There is no online play, a drawback, however, they are putting allot of work into the PS3 Online System already evident with GT5 Prologue. Its unfortunate they don't have it, but I personally wasn't expecting it to have it. The GT4 game took a tad longer to bring over to the PSP. Especially with the development they are putting into GT5. TO futher complicate things with online mode would of only pushed the game further back.
Lets show them how successful this tittle can be, so they can have it develop on its own. This game was pretty much a gift from Polyphony Digital, as I don't see them racking in the cash with it.
Menu Navigation
The menues a Big clear, and easy to use, cant say too much, about them as I spend more time in a Race, but for the brief time Im in them, they work fine and are easy to go through.
Music & Sounds
The cars sound good. Basically just like they did in GT4, but earphones will be needed to get the best experience. the Music in the game is okay, BUT who cares, GT PSP lets us play music during the Race and Replay off the Memory Stick so you can listen to whatever mp3 you want (It only plays mp3's) The Menu music is disco style musac, but that don't really matter.
Jay Lenno
Some people have said the guy talking to you giving the driving tips/explaining the challenges sounded like Some Brit from Top Gear. Funny because it does sound that way, but actually its Jay Lenno's voice. Polyphony Digital asked Jay to sound bite some of his cars (Hes got the Absolute best car collection on the PLANET, A life version of everybody's Gran Turismo garages.) While there they asked him to do the Voice over for the game, Jay Lenno Loves the GT series and lent his voice. I could be wrong, but I think he did it free of charge.
Conclusion, & My Opinion on the Gran Turismo PSP as a Whole
Well, It's my opinion they Did one HELL of a great Job on this Game, could there of been more? Maybe, could there be more New and updated tracks? Yeah, More into Power Tuning the Cars? Yes! but then how long would the game of been pushed back then... I feel we need to be grateful for what we have, the GT PSP Game could of been scratched along time ago, but they went ahead and gave us what we have asked for, Lets enjoy it.
There are no Bells or whistles, only raw Gran Turismo. Here are some screenshot, Like I said they don't do the games beauty justice, but they do give an idea of the Quality.
Hello GTP Forum, I'm SiNiST3R on this Board, I am NOT a "Gran Turismo or nothing" type game racer, I actually play pretty much every Racing game that comes out, currently on my PS3 I'm enjoying Shift, & GT5P waiting for the release of GT5. We thankfully have something that will bridge the gap while waiting for the up coming GT5. The 2 games will expand the enjoyment of each other when coupled together.
As a whole I think Gran Turismo PSP is getting dogged and poor reviews from clueless people. I intend to change that, Ill give you the real deal on why this is such a great PSP Title, an absolute must have for any racer with a PSP.
I will give you some info, & details on the game mixed with my impressions and opinions. Keep in mind these are my opinions, I have no connection with Polyphony Digital or Sony.
The Review
The Grafix
The Grafix are incredible. The "In-Car-View" is great with all mirrors working. The cars have plenty of detail and replays are enjoyable to watch, looking like videos of GT4 converted to run on a PSP.
There are quite a few screenshots out from GT PSP NONE of them do justice to the games grafix's quality for a good reason. 60FPS with no slow down EVER! This makes for incredible visuals while in motion, but tend to show up pixilated when you freeze the frame. It's like looking at a comic book picture. If you look at the image at a short distance, the image lines and colors look solid and crisper, then if you put your face up to the page and analyze it from close up. With it close up you notice allot of the colors are only dots with large gaps around them, only looking like a solid color from a distance. This is the same with GT running at 60fps While the Cars are moving there are 60 images per second being flashed at us, making it impossible to relay image quality to a single frozen screenshot. What you can get from the screenshots is an idea of the quality of the Grafix.
They have also brought The "In-Car-View" to PSP (I cant say ****pit, on this forum, even though its not a bad word) They use the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) moto here, where they lose the wheel and animations, but leave you with a satisfying "In-Car-View" I use it all the time... Keep in mind all mirrors work, Sweet!
Ive been surprised over and over with the clarity and detail on the cars I acquire over and over again, blown away that this is a PSP game.
800+ Cars & 30+ Tracks/Track configurations
WOW, thats quite a bit for ANY console, let alone the PSP. Lets look into this a bit.GT PSP is using GT4 as its base. The track, car models, are ripped from GT4 with the few added exceptions. There is a New Track, and a Few cars not in GT4 (GTR R35 & THe ZR1 to name 2) The cars Details have nicely been brought to the PSP with a lot less detail loss then I expected (I figured this was how they would build the game 5 years ago) Dont expect to find every current car, but rather expect all the cars you fell in love with in GT4, with a few new ones to fall in love with. The same goes for the tracks, all the loved ones are back with a new track to get into. The tracks like I said before have been ripped from the GT4 game, so they are in the state when the Track was mapped for GT4. This has the backgrounds look like they did years ago, and not reflecting the current state, but the Track is spot on.
Buying Cars
You can only choose between 4 Dealerships on any given *Day* (*Day count in the game) In those dealership is a limited number of available cars from that Dealership. Don't worry, they cycle with the days. This will have people upset, but if you think about it it makes sense. If you could buy any car, all your focus would be on obtaining them, but once obtained the game would dry-out. Also making the obtaining of cars for GT5 Prologue too easy through the PSP system. Like this the cars you want are valuable and Rare. you have to keep looking and Racing to progress the Day count, buying cars to better suit higher competitions and win large cash amounts. heavens forbid you dont have enough to buy the car you want on its first time buy. Getting the car you want becomes rewarding like this. Again this only adds to the longevity of the game.
Driving Dynamics (How do the cars handle)
The Polyphony Digital Team did a remarkable job, insuring the Driving feels right out of the Gran Turismo series, even though the PSP lacks analogue buttons the control of the cars is smooth and precise with both the D-Pad & Analogue Stick.
Tuning
Gran Turismo PSP DOES have car tuning. Just not FULLY. Take the "Quick Tune" out of GT5 Prologue simplify it, and you have GT PSP. Just like GT5P you dont buy parts, but can adjust setting. There are not as many tuning options, but enough to get a great suspension set up. There is Power & Weight adjustments (Increase or decease by percentages) This is only available for Drift Trials, and not Single Player Races or Time Trials.
You can adjust the following for all cars out of the Box (No purchasing of any parts) Ride Height, Spring Rate, Damper, Toe, & Camber Angle. Some cars you can also adjust the Aerodynamics Down force. Drift Trial will add the ability to increase the cars Horse Power up to 20%, & reduce the weight by up to 20%.
No Power or Weight adjusting for Single Player Races or Time Trials, is the only thing I personally find upsetting, but I have taken a look at it from a objective perspective and it makes seance as to why they did it. They want to add longevity to the game, Ill explain more in the section about Single Player Mode.
Single Player Mode, Status Report & Driving Challenges
Single Player Mode
Gran Turismo PSP has a lack of Career Mode. Or does it? Single Player mode IS GT PSP's "Career Mode". In Single Player Mode, you have access to All the tracks in the game BUT not at all difficulty levels. You will need to race each track, at each difficulty level progressively. Starting with D-class moving up to A-class & S-class. The lack of increasing the Hp, and reducing weight of the cars makes every race with any car a fun competitive race (relatively) That makes it EASY to pic up the game after not playing for a while and grabbing any car, jumping into any track, and having a good race. This is done to make the game more suited to the PSP platform, & work with the up coming Gran Turismo 5 release. The PSP is a handheld, and they realize this will be put down when the PS3 is fired up and GT5 is played. They want the games to work together, allowing you to transfer cars from the PSP GT to the PS3 GT5. Clean STOCK cars will be transferred up.
Status Report
Your Single Player Mode & all Stats are tracked in your Status Report. This kinda makes the "Single Player Mode" A type of "Career" Mode. It gives the Progression of the Driving class, or how they refer to it in this menu AI Driver Level, as essentially the different Classes are better cars mixed with better AI drivers. How many online/offline wins are tracked, as well as Driving Distance, Amount of Cars in your collection, your completed driving challenges Vs remaining, & Your trophy count. There is enough stuff to keep you occupied.
Driving Challenges
To make the game more interesting they also have a Driving Challenges Mode, that resembles the License test we are all used to from the series. Only they have quite a few "Test" the good side to this is that passing the test get you cash, big money for Gold. Some of these test are very challenging and I only have a few golds, but plenty of bronze trophies.
Multiplayer Mode
The Multiplayer mode is incredible if you have some friends with PSP's and copies of Gran Turismo. You can race each other, and include some AI cars to spice up the race with some traffic. Best of all is if you keep racing with each other the game will adjust head starts and change cars to keep the race competitive, if you select the option. The only problem is finding friends to race with...
There is no online play, a drawback, however, they are putting allot of work into the PS3 Online System already evident with GT5 Prologue. Its unfortunate they don't have it, but I personally wasn't expecting it to have it. The GT4 game took a tad longer to bring over to the PSP. Especially with the development they are putting into GT5. TO futher complicate things with online mode would of only pushed the game further back.
Lets show them how successful this tittle can be, so they can have it develop on its own. This game was pretty much a gift from Polyphony Digital, as I don't see them racking in the cash with it.
Menu Navigation
The menues a Big clear, and easy to use, cant say too much, about them as I spend more time in a Race, but for the brief time Im in them, they work fine and are easy to go through.
Music & Sounds
The cars sound good. Basically just like they did in GT4, but earphones will be needed to get the best experience. the Music in the game is okay, BUT who cares, GT PSP lets us play music during the Race and Replay off the Memory Stick so you can listen to whatever mp3 you want (It only plays mp3's) The Menu music is disco style musac, but that don't really matter.
Jay Lenno
Some people have said the guy talking to you giving the driving tips/explaining the challenges sounded like Some Brit from Top Gear. Funny because it does sound that way, but actually its Jay Lenno's voice. Polyphony Digital asked Jay to sound bite some of his cars (Hes got the Absolute best car collection on the PLANET, A life version of everybody's Gran Turismo garages.) While there they asked him to do the Voice over for the game, Jay Lenno Loves the GT series and lent his voice. I could be wrong, but I think he did it free of charge.
Conclusion, & My Opinion on the Gran Turismo PSP as a Whole
Well, It's my opinion they Did one HELL of a great Job on this Game, could there of been more? Maybe, could there be more New and updated tracks? Yeah, More into Power Tuning the Cars? Yes! but then how long would the game of been pushed back then... I feel we need to be grateful for what we have, the GT PSP Game could of been scratched along time ago, but they went ahead and gave us what we have asked for, Lets enjoy it.
There are no Bells or whistles, only raw Gran Turismo. Here are some screenshot, Like I said they don't do the games beauty justice, but they do give an idea of the Quality.
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