GTPlanet Member of the Week

Gran Turismo 6 has been on store shelves and in many of our homes for the past three weeks now, and it has evolved quite a bit since its vanilla release. We’ve gone from version 1.00 to 1.01 on release day, the inclusion of the BMW M4 Coupé, and most recently update 1.02 which brought together a slew of improvements and refinements to the game’s character, as well as Mario Andretti’s 1948 Hudson, a car Mario was reunited with courtesy of the “First Love” campaign.

Gran Turismo 6 is finally here and the one thing that needs to be pointed out right away is the fact that GT6 is the first full-length entry in the franchise to be released on time without any form of delay or setback. Could this be a sign of things to come? We can only hope!

Seven days are all that stand between us and Gran Turismo 6; seven days until we’re all fitted into racing attire eager to experience the improvements and masterful execution GT6 brings to the table; seven days until the final Gran Turismo scheduled for release on the PlayStation 3 alerts us all to the fact that despite the next generation of possibilities already becoming more and more prevalent with every passing second, the previous generation will not subside without a last hurrah  – Gran Turismo 6 will be that hurrah.

We’re two weeks away from experiencing Gran Turismo 6 and the timing is impeccable; with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One out and about, the established platforms — the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 — are slowly going to regress into anonymity. Of course the platforms will continue to be showered in exclusive releases, but it won’t be much longer until the lion’s share of the focus is aimed toward the future.

The PlayStation 4 is here! If you were one of hundreds (thousands?) of people waiting patiently in line to get your hands on the PS4 at the stroke of midnight, there’s no doubt you were excited to get back and play whatever selection of titles that interested you most. Now that the PS4 is here, there is one thing we all should be aware of: where one countdown ends, another begins – Gran Turismo 7 is imminent.

Instead of waiting until the very end of this article to find the members responsible for this week’s featured images tucked away in the footnotes, I’ll save you the trouble of doing so, especially due to there being two individual images used for this auspicious occasion. The image of the 670-4 SV that greets you is another fantastic panorama put together by HaerBev, and the stellar image of the majestic Ferrari F40 belongs to The R!CE Guy.

Happy Halloween! I know this will be published on the first Friday of November but I’m writing this on Halloween so there’s a technicality there that only I can attest to, so once again, Happy Halloween!

I assure you I’ve had this particular image earmarked since last week, the fact that there just happened to be a “Lamborghini Exclusive” Seasonal Event this past Wednesday was a pure coincidence. A coincidence that almost swayed me from using this, but aren’t you glad that I decided to use it anyway?

What you’re looking at is the championship-winning Ferrari 312T driven by Niki Lauda, and the game is yet another gem – Assetto Corsa. AC is another game in the long list of simulation racing games that expands their scope beyond what most of us are really accustomed to, and while the game has yet to officially release you can check out the tech demo and judge the game for yourselves, and I have to say that you’re in for quite the surprise.

Last week saw a modest evolution in the Weekly Rewind, mentioning over a dozen racing games, fully acknowledging that while those of us who enjoy the thrill of going fast may be but a niche crowd, with so many options readily available the scene for racing games isn’t as much of an empty void as some would be lead to believe. In the grand scheme of things Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are the centers of our world; a world where they are but a grand representation in the racing ecosystem; a world that expands far beyond their perspectives.

With so many great options for us to choose from I sometimes wonder how we haven’t gone mad, and by that I mean we have Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, the upcoming Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Raceroom Racing Experience (R3E), rFactor 2, Project CARS, and Codemasters’ F1 series of racing games. With so many options to choose from there’s literally something for everyone and it’s because of this wealth of choice that the gaming scene for racing simulators isn’t as much of an empty void as some would believe.

Coming off the high of last week’s Jalopnik Film Festival is no easy feat and I was aware of this challenge the entirety of last week, but the problem now is whether or not I actually want to come off of such a high, and the answer is relatively simple. No.

Gran Turismo 6 has yet to make it’s way into our homes and there’s already talk of it’s successor, Gran Turismo 7. It would appear, at least at the moment, that the simplified system architecture used in the PlayStation 4 will allow Polyphony Digital, as well as any other developer, to drastically shorten the amount of development time required; more to the point, it will allow PD to return to their usual release schedule which ranged anywhere from 2-4 years.

It’s been much quieter this week thanks in part to the Tokyo Game Show being right around the corner, however, while there hasn’t been any newsworthy tidbits regarding the upcoming Gran Turismo 6 as a game, there is the upcoming Jalopnik Film Festival, presented by Gran Turismo 6.

If this looks familiar you’re not just imagining things, Pagani’s Huayra is once again gracing the Weekly Rewind. However, the image you’re looking at isn’t from Gran Turismo 6 or any Gran Turismo title for that matter, no, what you’re looking at is a brilliant shoot done by one of our very own in Forza Motorsport 4.

Gran Turismo fans definitely had some unexpected news this week, with the announcement that a Gran Turismo movie is in the works. How the producers will develop a plot around Gran Turismo will be very interesting to see. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of interesting (and hilarious) ideas being shared in our forums!

Aside from the recent 2.14 update for Gran Turismo 5 and the GT Academy demo raking in over 1 million downloads, nothing of any real interest has happened this week, at least as far as I’m concerned. That could all change at the drop of a hat though so don’t bury your head in your pillow just yet. Who knows what’s going to happen this weekend. 

Gran Turismo 6 is steadily becoming a more attractive product as the days progress and with the recent reveal of the Goodwood Hillclimb making it’s debut in the upcoming game, that attraction has nearly doubled since the GT Academy demo was released last week.

What a great week it’s been thus far, the 2013 GT Academy demo was released this past Tuesday and has left many of us wanting so much more. Whether or not we’ll get more remains to be seen but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high because we all know something has to be maintained for when Gran Turismo 6 sees itself onto store shelves later this year.

After a short hiatus the Rewind has returned in all its splendor and things have calmed down over the last two weeks or so, only to pick right back up with the events concerning the Xbox One and Microsoft’s steadfast DRM policies, all of which are no longer going to be implemented. What does this mean you ask; the same kind of freedom you currently have with the Xbox 360 are the same freedoms you’ll be able to enjoy with the upcoming One. This means no used games policies, no trading policies, no always online connection. All of it, gone.