A Rant About Gran Turismo Games (Post No. 29)

     So, you probably were expecting another "Quest For The Packard Bell Post" now. Nope. I literally don't have anything else to talk about relating to that at the moment. Instead, I will be addressing something else which has been around almost as long as those computers from the 90s. The Gran Turismo games franchise. 

    Thus the title of today's blog - "A Rant About Gran Turismo Games." 

 

Part I: Introduction to Gran Turismo (as a Franchise)

  The year was 1997-1998. Young Nathan back then didn't know as much as he did now. He probably may have been somewhat more proud of his country as opposed to view it as intellectually challenged. He was introduced to the Sony PlayStation 1, and the concept of Demo Discs. Some of his favorite demos to play were Ridge Racer Type 4, Tomba!, Hot Shots Golf, and Gran Turismo. Sometimes he still plays those very demos today on PlayStation 3 and sometimes using emulation - which means at first, ePSXe, and then when his PC called the "Claymore" by him as a network name became old news, he turfed it in favor of RetroBat.

 

   But back to the 90s, where computers probably weren't all that powerful anyway. And maybe if emulation was a thing on them, they could maybe emulate games from the Atari 2600 generation - Super Nintendo Generation (probably need working example of vintage hardware from that era to test that theory.) But enough about emulation for a moment, and back to Gran Turismo. 

 

   Now since Young Nathan didn't live in Japan, the speeds on the speedometer were in mph as opposed to km/h, and the music was actually by some bands that he probably would never really listen to the music until he got older. He never won a race, probably just generally being an idiot on the track, and most of the cars he used for first car most of the time would've been the 1993 Honda Prelude, which although is an OK choice for a first car, isn't exactly a screamer, since it would later be replaced as a first car choice by Adolescent Nathan's revisiting Gran Turismo 1 using the MA70 Toyota Supra and probably for the foreseeable future and the entirety of the rest of his adulthood, MA70 Supra being the car of his initial choice. Being replaced only by the Supra (Turbo) '93 in Gran Turismo 2, which is the exact same car.

 

   Of course there were some mysteries in the Gran Turismo 1 game that Nathan would also never really fully uncover until adulthood if maybe ever. Is the NTSC U/C where the Gran Turismo hologram label only black the only one that Sony Computer Entertainment America sold? What would the Japanese and PAL versions be like? (Even though it would be redundant to be playing the exact same game, but probably released for the Japanese and European markets?) And, most importantly- What's the deal with the 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427 Coupe (C2) being as one of the selectable cars in Arcade Mode in Gran Turismo 1, but boot up the game in Simulation or Gran Turismo mode, it's essentially nonexistent? 

 

   Well, I guess I can discuss some more about Gran Turismo - I mean, I can't say much about Gran Turismo 1 anymore, since, I've played this game and replayed it so many times already, that I can't say anything else here that I'll probably reveal later in the rant part of this blog. Time to move on to Gran Turismo 2.

 

    My first experience playing Gran Turismo 2 wasn't with the full version, but again, with the demo. I used to think that the car had "760" as a default on the speedo or tachometer, but really, I didn't know any better as the speedometer was digital, just like back in Gran Turismo 1. Also, the turbocharged cars the game demo let me pick sounded like squealing swines. The year was circa 1998-1999. I however would be playing the full game later, and little did I know it would be blowing me away compared to Gran Turismo 1. Of course, it was considerably more limited than when I had played Gran Turismo 1 at first. Only through a later playthrough I realized that in order to unlock literally anything on Disc 1, you needed to first beat the game on Disc 2. 

 

    Of course, this generation of Gran Turismo would be the last where I play pre-release (or, alpha, beta, whatever) if you will demos. We're moving onto the generation of Gran Turismo games where my first experience with them wasn't me buying a disc that contained the game demo - but one where I jumped in almost immediately to the real game. 

 

Part II: The No-Demo Era

   The year was circa 2005-2006. Maybe 2007, I don't remember. I somehow for the first time had amassed $150 of my own money and I went to the then Future Shop in Halifax and purchased a Sony PlayStation 2, (Slim model) and a copy of Gran Turismo 4, the entire game. The graphics were better - only thing wrong however is that I couldn't save the damn game because I forgot to buy a memory card for my then-new Slim PS2. 

 

   At around the same time I had played Xbox in Saint John, in my sister's basement, primarily playing Project Gotham Racing and the demo version of Fuzion Frenzy. Probably a few years after the fact of me buying a PS2 I would be buying my XBOX, although it would be modded to play NES and Famicom games, and Sega Genesis and Megadrive Games. (Actually, Megadrive is what Japan and Europe called the "Sega Genesis" here, so it's literally the same - as what Super Famicom in Japan would be to North America and Europe's Super Nintendo.) 

 

    Gran Turismo 4 (once I finally did manage to get a memory card) proved to be a game which blew away 1 and 2. True, some tracks from 1 & 2 would be forever gone, like Special Stage R11 or Red Rock Valley for instance, And of course there were some cars in the game which couldn't enter races (These cars also can't participate in 2-Player games either, which tbh is kind of lame) But, despite the game's flaws in my opinion & experience, the redeeming qualities were the fact there were a set of 4 secret black cars that I could have up for grabs should I amass 8 1/2 million credits - (but they only appeared every 100 days - which is something Older Adolescent Nathan to Young Adult Nathan didn't really know very much about. It was only after getting the Hewlett-Packard laptop with Windows Vista he really discovered all those things.) 

  But, in Nathan's opinion, in agreement with some of the leading game journalists' at the time opinions --- Gran Turismo 4 would be the absolute peak of the series of Gran Turismo games. The question is, what would the next generation after this be like? Would it improve? Go downhill? I guess all I could say apart from this is - the only other game I would have gotten of the PS2 era, Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec which had some changes over 2 (Like the removal of High Speed Ring, fuck you Homestar Runner) kind of just was the afterthought. 

Part III: The Beginning of The End

   And speaking of a previously-asked question, I thought that as soon as I snapped up my PS3 in 2009 from the now-defunct department store in my local neck of the woods Zellers, I assumed that one of the very first games I could snap up with my then "shiny-new" PS3 console would be Gran Turismo 5. It wasn't. It was only a short while later I could find the game Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, which kind of felt more like a downgrade vs. Gran Turismo 4 and a potential call-back all the way to Gran Turismo 1.

   I mean, I was a little disappointed at first that this game wasn't some massive improvement over 4, and I was willing to Kijiji my PS3 (almost) at the time and go all the way back to 2 and only keep it around to probably play the games from GT1-GT 4 until I guess the PS3 ultimately ended up having operational failure. However, this didn't happen. Why? Because in time, the "real" Gran Turismo 5 came to the Sony PlayStation 3, and it really blew me away again... Just like Gran Turismo 1 did to Younger Nathan all those years ago - when the TV standard was Standard Definition, and the only time anyone watched anything on a big screen, was when they went to the local cinema to see the newest Hollywood blockbuster. 

 

   So, we might as well just rip the band-aid off, and address that "final" elephant in the room, Gran Turismo 5 - Release version, since there obviously is no "Prologue" in the title. 

 
   Ah, yes... Gran Turismo 5. I was going to eventually address this game at some point. I mean, I know that it seems like I'm probably being unfair to later & later & later games in the Gran Turismo franchise by then just deciding to become an older gentleman just yelling my head off at the clouds and then probably willing to just be stuck in the past enough, to basically shun all modern life. Like I know I've made a meme about shunning modernity and embracing tradition, or perhaps I've used the meme about rejecting modernity and embracing tradition, but I feel, when it comes to Gran Turismo - I'm all about rejecting that Modernity and respecting that Tradition. 

    Driving a Porsche on Super Speedway of some kind in Gran Turismo? Well, I don't think I would, because that would just be driving a Porsche on an oval. I mean, a road course would work - although I don't think I'm terribly interested in trying, since I have a low hope of getting hold of a PS5 and a copy of Gran Turismo 7, and actually putting the playtime in to get the Porsche in the game. Of course, I only was playing the PlayStation consoles until I left the console war battlefield for the PC Master Race. 

    The PC Master Race at first with the Katana and Windows 7 Ultimate in 2015, The Claymore and Windows 10 Home (without my knowledge or approval upgraded itself to Windows 11 Home Insider Preview) as well as Ubuntu-Linux (latest LTS version)  from 2020 - Spring 2022, a few brief months with the MaximusII from 2021 - sometime in 2022 when the scrap PSU just drew power but the computer wouldn't come on. And as of present the Acer Nitro 5 which I call the "RedEye" and Windows 11 Home. (Although I really wish I had reverted it to 10, or at least changed the license to Pro on this PC.) 

Conclusion: Emulated Releases I have actually tried out - And A Thought on a Topic Which I should probably end up saving for another rainy day

   Well, I have tried Emulated releases of the Gran Turismo Games, particularly 1, 2, and 4. Similar to the play order of the real games. I mean, in the U/C region, I would probably have played both 1 & 2, as well as the respective PAL releases. As for 4, just like before - however I didn't do much with PAL as apparently the South Korean release with the Hyundai Click Racecar which literally took all 10,000 of my credits to buy exists and took my interest. (Spoiler alert: It's not worth it. You'll never make your money back from buying the Hyundai Click unless you have a ton of patience and are willing to grind last-place finishes driving the stupid thing until you START-SELECT out of Retrobat and not like pressing START to pause a game in Super Mario World, and then SELECT to exit back to the map after having completed a previously beaten level, but Start+Select pressed at the same time as in the manner of exiting Demo Discs for the Sony PlayStation 1, particularly some demos that do not exit you back out to the demo menu after a certain condition has been met - like in the case of the Demo for the Next Tetris, having completed three games in a row, or for after playing for five minutes.) 

    This now brings me to the last thought I will be writing in the journal known as a "blog" which will for the present time be up and may be taken off and archived at some point which is getting closer each day, and archived in records, in the future. Why I said I would want to leave the Windows world and switch to Linux for at the bare minimum things that would be useful in a world where meetings aren't necessarily conducted with every attendee being in person - but Zoom videoconferencing be used somewhere as part of the equation.