During the month of December, the Top Gear website counted down its own version of the top 50 driving games ever made. The range of games included in its list was varied with realistic sims like GTR2 being placed alongside all-out fantasy games like Super Mario Kart. With so many different driving games included, the number one spot would have to be something truly special, and what better winner than the original timeless Gran Turismo on PlayStation—the game that redefined the genre.
Beating out the cult-classic SEGA Rally Championship for the title, Top Gear sums up Gran Turismo as the game that made everything before it look like “complete nonsense.” It also credits GT for mainstreaming the simulation genre at the time, and giving players a challenge like they hadn’t faced before. That’s the reason Polyphony Digital’s original entry takes the win in this countdown: its groundbreaking nature sets it apart from the five mainline titles that would follow it.
Gran Turismo is definitely a worthy winner of this award when we’re considering just how far the racing genre has come, especially in the simulation space. Without Gran Turismo where would the genre be today? It really did set the standard for titles like Forza Motorsport to follow, with a gameplay format that was equally as fun to play at the time.
The Gran Turismo series was further represented with Gran Turismo 6 placing 13th in the list, a respectable place for the PlayStation 3’s swan song GT entry.
Although not the most thorough list of driving games to be ranked from 50-1, Top Gear’s list highlights the cultural impact Gran Turismo had when it launched in 1998 for Europe and the US (1997 for our Japanese readers), as it’s still considered the best of it’s kind by many.
There are plenty of iconic and modern racing masterpieces on the list. If you don’t agree with Top Gear’s choice, what title would you choose and why?
If you fancy more reading about the older GT titles, our man Adam recently had a look back at the original soundtracks.
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