Been a Day1 player from all the way back when I got GT1 along with a PSX way back. Have owned every GT since then, not all at release date, but the journey has been worthwhile. The series has seen three platforms equally at this point, and there have been more than a few impressive feats accomplished on all of them. As a player however, I feel that the series has lost a lot of flair as of late, starting with GT4.
The vision of GT has been more vehicles and locations with a higher standard, but in an ironic twist, the actual gameplay content has taken a backseat since GT3 (my favorite entry in the series). Ever since, we've seen more and more cars and tracks, but the career mode has become less involving. GT3 had a total of 75 different events, wherein each was composed of multiple races that each took progressively longer. Even though we had less than 200 cars in that entry, a lot of them were actually used at one point or another. This made the experience a lot more fulfilling since vehicles that have a use in career mode don't seem like they're just fillers.
That is not to say that I don't appreciate the amount of cars that are now in a GT6 title, or the amount of tracks. I just feel like there is no purpose to them when you consider that career mode takes less time than GT3. This is where I get the topic title from - GT6, as a concept is a great achievement (even with "standard" cars. The scope is far bigger than most other racing titles ever dream about. As a player however, I feel short-changed. Truth is, after I finish career mode, I'll probably dabble online for a short bit and then shelve it without ever experiencing 90% of the cars in the game. That's a real shame, because the tracks are there, as are the cars, but the career mode completely ignores the combination of those two aspects.
Mission races are very fun. One-Make races aren't bad either, but there's no justification in having over 1200 cars and only ~15 of those events. Rain races are another great concept, but not used enough. Rally races have been nearly taken out entirely, despite once again, having a car line-up that could easily justify its own entire game. Coffee Breaks are fun, but I'd give them up in a heartbeat to get more actual races in career since I don't start up GT6 looking for mini-games.
However, by far the two worst things to "grace" the sixth rendition of GT is the disappearance of endurances races and the rubber-banding. Endurance races have been becoming increasingly over time, as they kept getting longer rather than adding more ~2hour races on different tracks. GT5 fixed that with the save feature during a race. Then GT6 proceeds to get rid of endurance races entirely? Doesn't seem to add up in my opinion. Also, the aforementioned rubber-banding is a huge taboo for a "simulator". Its punishing good driving for the sake of creating artificial tension. Starting at IA events, it becomes quite infuriating and obvious. Setting identical laptimes throughout the race, you'll see that in the first few laps, the leader will generally pull away at a decent pace, while the last couple of laps you'll catch up more than 10 seconds a lap to win anyway. Letting someone else play, the same pattern emerges, despite that person being way slower than me - in some cases, he'd even win a race against the same lineup driving up to 8 seconds slower a lap, whereas I'd have my ass handed to me.
All in all, GT6 is fun to play now that I have it, but I'll definitely be doing my research next time around. Just the occlusion of endurance races itself would have made me skip GT6 without thought. The career-mode is a disaster when you consider the assets Polyphony put into the game and didn't utilize. I congratulate the technical achievement of GT6, but I'll stand firm with my opinion when it comes to gameplay - the larger the amount of cars and tracks we have available, the seemingly smaller and shorter the gameplay experience becomes. That's a terrible trade-off in my opinion. I'd give up half the car-park just to double the length of the game instead. Even the F1 games have a more appealing career mode, and they only have a quarter of the tracks and essentially one type of car. The difference is that CM knows how to put it on a plate for hungry players.
The vision of GT has been more vehicles and locations with a higher standard, but in an ironic twist, the actual gameplay content has taken a backseat since GT3 (my favorite entry in the series). Ever since, we've seen more and more cars and tracks, but the career mode has become less involving. GT3 had a total of 75 different events, wherein each was composed of multiple races that each took progressively longer. Even though we had less than 200 cars in that entry, a lot of them were actually used at one point or another. This made the experience a lot more fulfilling since vehicles that have a use in career mode don't seem like they're just fillers.
That is not to say that I don't appreciate the amount of cars that are now in a GT6 title, or the amount of tracks. I just feel like there is no purpose to them when you consider that career mode takes less time than GT3. This is where I get the topic title from - GT6, as a concept is a great achievement (even with "standard" cars. The scope is far bigger than most other racing titles ever dream about. As a player however, I feel short-changed. Truth is, after I finish career mode, I'll probably dabble online for a short bit and then shelve it without ever experiencing 90% of the cars in the game. That's a real shame, because the tracks are there, as are the cars, but the career mode completely ignores the combination of those two aspects.
Mission races are very fun. One-Make races aren't bad either, but there's no justification in having over 1200 cars and only ~15 of those events. Rain races are another great concept, but not used enough. Rally races have been nearly taken out entirely, despite once again, having a car line-up that could easily justify its own entire game. Coffee Breaks are fun, but I'd give them up in a heartbeat to get more actual races in career since I don't start up GT6 looking for mini-games.
However, by far the two worst things to "grace" the sixth rendition of GT is the disappearance of endurances races and the rubber-banding. Endurance races have been becoming increasingly over time, as they kept getting longer rather than adding more ~2hour races on different tracks. GT5 fixed that with the save feature during a race. Then GT6 proceeds to get rid of endurance races entirely? Doesn't seem to add up in my opinion. Also, the aforementioned rubber-banding is a huge taboo for a "simulator". Its punishing good driving for the sake of creating artificial tension. Starting at IA events, it becomes quite infuriating and obvious. Setting identical laptimes throughout the race, you'll see that in the first few laps, the leader will generally pull away at a decent pace, while the last couple of laps you'll catch up more than 10 seconds a lap to win anyway. Letting someone else play, the same pattern emerges, despite that person being way slower than me - in some cases, he'd even win a race against the same lineup driving up to 8 seconds slower a lap, whereas I'd have my ass handed to me.
All in all, GT6 is fun to play now that I have it, but I'll definitely be doing my research next time around. Just the occlusion of endurance races itself would have made me skip GT6 without thought. The career-mode is a disaster when you consider the assets Polyphony put into the game and didn't utilize. I congratulate the technical achievement of GT6, but I'll stand firm with my opinion when it comes to gameplay - the larger the amount of cars and tracks we have available, the seemingly smaller and shorter the gameplay experience becomes. That's a terrible trade-off in my opinion. I'd give up half the car-park just to double the length of the game instead. Even the F1 games have a more appealing career mode, and they only have a quarter of the tracks and essentially one type of car. The difference is that CM knows how to put it on a plate for hungry players.
