I'm not exactly sure what PD is capable of right now. Yes, they can put an obstacle course on the moon. They can model WW2 utility vehicles with great detail. They can even bring us made up marketing vehicles for various manufacturers, or produce bugged software wildly beyond target release windows. GT6 is good for hot lapping and time trials, but that's about it right now - especially offline.
I'm not sure what that "bugged software wildly beyond target release windows" is. So far, very few release windows have been offered, other than Zahara which really isn't that buggy, at least offline. The cars aren't buggy. I think this is the usual GT Planet drama.
As for being only good for hotlapping and time trials, evidently a whole gob of people online disagree with that statement. Those of us still playing offline disagree, and from the activity in the GT6 section in the various boards, it's looking like more than a handful.
Too many people here impose their views on the universe at large and assume they're right. People quit playing because there's no endurance racing, or because the car sounds make them harf, or because the Standard cars injure their eyes, or because the bots let them win no matter what, or because there's no Course Maker yet or whatever peeve they pet. And of course everyone feels the same way, right? Stands to reason.
Except that apparently the main reasons that people have wandered off from playing GT6 are because it's almost a year old now, and they hunger for a next gen game, or simply a new game. The people who play a game for 11 months are a dedicated few. I'll admit that GT6 is simply too small to have that kind of legs. A good Arcade Mode like GT5 had, with the Course Maker, would be kind of like a baby Event Maker and give us a lot to do. A solid online community, which at this stage is improving some, would too, but I'm just not that into hunting down a good room, so when I race, I gravitate to the same old offline I-A races I've done for months, and there's a nice variety. But I've grown addicted to Deus Ex after seeing my autocrossing relative playing it, so I do that through the week and save GT6 for the weekends when I have more me time. I could play my other racers, but I don't, and I'll get to that in a sec.
Sure, from what I can tell most of us want GT6 to be better. But as for being a bad racer, there's quite a division on how accurate that is.
The PS3 is an aging platform, no doubt, but other games have delivered good graphics and good AI, so why can't PD? Dark cockpits, shadow flickering (Mt Panorama is rediculous), and other bugs and glitches make it feel like amateur hour at times. I will agree that Zahara is crying out for more RAM, but one would think things like this would have been figured out this far into the PS3's life cycle.
I think you're forgetting how games have gone in the optical disc based gaming age, either console or PC. Late in a system's lifecycle without fail, developers will push the hardware as far as it can go, and games will demand more resources than what's available, and there will be horrendous slowdown, extensive textures will rob memory and glitch - and that's what shadows are, and other framing issues. Devil May Cry 3 is a great example of this, where a developer insisted on extra octane everywhere, and certain levels flat out crawled in points. GT5 was a third gen game, what you usually see when a system is in its swansong year. And of course, GT6 is three years older. PD tore open the game engine and rebuilt it, but they evidently couldn't bring themselves to cut back anything, which I agree with the critics they really should have done. Even the resolution is higher! Oh well.
And those "other games" with all their better features, once again there is quite a disagreement on all of that. Other than Forza, every other racer is about one-tenth the game in scope, and the developers of those games focus their resources differently. The A.I. in them is about as criticized by their fans, especially Froza and GRID, which are characterized as a demolition derby by a few on other forums. And GRID only flies off the shelves so workers can dust them. Every other racer has great A.I., except everyone fights over which game that is. Sounds, same deal. Other racers have very few distinct types on track at once, and Forza shortsheets a lot to highlight basically one car, the one the camera is focused on. But nobody wants to hear that.
Hey, there are other great racing games out there. If you guys like them, awesome. If you prefer them, cool. But none of you are any more valid judge of what perfection is than anyone else. Preference is a highly individual thing.
And I know what I'm going to say causes conniptions with some here, but a whole gob of racers around the world prefer Gran Turismo, for whatever reason. Some of them are pretty hardcore racing fans. Some of them are gaming journalists. Some of them are real life racers, and not just the graduates of GT Academy. I'm one of them. I really want in a racer what GT has, and since the closest competitor, Forzxa, doesn't have it, I presently clutch a wheel controller hooked up to GT6. Did some racing yesterday in my hopped up sports cars against actual racing machines, and... mostly lost. But those were fun losses. I have a bunch of racers I could play, but losing in them isn't as fun. Their cars don't feel like my cars because they aren't my cars, except in Forza, and I just don't much care for racing in Forza. Race car creating, sure! But not racing.
I want GT7 to get back to the roots of Gran Turismo too, though I want those roots to sprout another trunk. I want it to use that FIA license to develop into some real world league racing, or real world-ish. I would prefer Kaz and the team focus on the essentials of racing again, more than other weird experiments like lunar time trials, or making singular vehicles like the WWII German war wagons. I'm not too sure we need anymore Vision cars either.
But some of that is what makes Gran Turismo unique, iconic. If we get some of that again, which isn't unlikely, I'll play it. It may be cute, or silly, or dumb, but I'll do it, because it's there, and they took the time to put it there. Just please, no cops n robbers or car soccer!
Lawndart, himself not just a real life racer but game developer, insists that even as frooky as Gran Turismo is, there's something right about the feel and essence of pushing a car around a track, and as vexed as I am of endless replay cams shot from below the waist, I still watch them. Because there's just something cool about reliving that race and its particular moments.
This is why we play Gran Turismo, and prefer Gran Turismo, and is why we can hardly wait for GT7.
. Just support the G27 and I'll buy GT7 (and a PS4) 99%; if not I'll pass.
