Gran Turismo 3
I've talked before about how there's always that one game, the game that tips the scales and drives you to the store in a mad dash to finally purchase that console you've been trying to put out of your mind since it's initial release. With the Xbox 360 for me it was Gears of War, for the GameCube it was Extreme G 3, with the Wii-U it was Pikmin 3 and with the PlayStation 2, it was Gran Turismo 3.
I was a huge Gran Turismo fan at the time, but I already owned a Sega Dreamcast and a Nintendo GameCube; so I really was trying to avoid purchasing another console from that generation as much as possible. I had made it about a few years after it was originally released until I happened to come across a huge Futureshop display where they were running the GT3 demo on a big screen TV. I hadn't really seen it in action before and it looked absolutely gorgeous. The demo was running the Deep Forest Raceway circuit which was featured in the first Gran Turismo, one of my favorite tracks. Only now it was rendered with realistic lighting effects as the sun streamed in through the trees and both the road and the cars mimicked their real-life counterparts far better than the PlayStation 1 was ever capable of.
I simply stood and stared, mouth agape at how beautiful the whole package looked. I had been pretty disappointed with Gran Turismo 2; graphically it was a little muddier and all sense of speed felt like it was lost. I don't know what they did but I really didn't enjoy it and instead just stuck with the first game. But Gran Turismo 3 picked up where the first one left off and slapped in the face with it. I may have gotten a lot of use out of my PS2 and it's huge library of amazing games, but had I purchased the system simply for GT3, I would have considered myself having gotten my money's worth.
It felt so much like the first Gran Turismo. So much so I never felt like I was missing out on anything not going back and playing it ever again. It's focus felt the same with the familiar tracks, cars, race types and licencing program. But of course it was graphically more advanced and featured rain, night courses and, if I remember correctly, some rally cars and tracks. Gran Turismo 3 required discipline and driving skill just like the original and simply pushed all the same buttons a car enthusiast enjoys in a game of this sort. Like the first one, it continued to teach me about the working components of various cars and a wide variety of information on the brands and the lists of different kinds of cars out there. I think there's a lot of people out there who really became interested in the whole Japanese car market that we don't really see here because of this game.
Gran Turismo 3 really was a perfect race-simulator title for me. As far as I'm concerned, Polyphony Digital never topped this one. It was defiantly the high point in the series regardless of how immaculately perfect the graphics are in any of the newer titles. In fact, it may very well be one of my all time favorite racers and I have a feeling I'm not the only one. (Though I may be..)
I've talked before about how there's always that one game, the game that tips the scales and drives you to the store in a mad dash to finally purchase that console you've been trying to put out of your mind since it's initial release. With the Xbox 360 for me it was Gears of War, for the GameCube it was Extreme G 3, with the Wii-U it was Pikmin 3 and with the PlayStation 2, it was Gran Turismo 3. I was a huge Gran Turismo fan at the time, but I already owned a Sega Dreamcast and a Nintendo GameCube; so I really was trying to avoid purchasing another console from that generation as much as possible. I had made it about a few years after it was originally released until I happened to come across a huge Futureshop display where they were running the GT3 demo on a big screen TV. I hadn't really seen it in action before and it looked absolutely gorgeous. The demo was running the Deep Forest Raceway circuit which was featured in the first Gran Turismo, one of my favorite tracks. Only now it was rendered with realistic lighting effects as the sun streamed in through the trees and both the road and the cars mimicked their real-life counterparts far better than the PlayStation 1 was ever capable of.
I simply stood and stared, mouth agape at how beautiful the whole package looked. I had been pretty disappointed with Gran Turismo 2; graphically it was a little muddier and all sense of speed felt like it was lost. I don't know what they did but I really didn't enjoy it and instead just stuck with the first game. But Gran Turismo 3 picked up where the first one left off and slapped in the face with it. I may have gotten a lot of use out of my PS2 and it's huge library of amazing games, but had I purchased the system simply for GT3, I would have considered myself having gotten my money's worth. It felt so much like the first Gran Turismo. So much so I never felt like I was missing out on anything not going back and playing it ever again. It's focus felt the same with the familiar tracks, cars, race types and licencing program. But of course it was graphically more advanced and featured rain, night courses and, if I remember correctly, some rally cars and tracks. Gran Turismo 3 required discipline and driving skill just like the original and simply pushed all the same buttons a car enthusiast enjoys in a game of this sort. Like the first one, it continued to teach me about the working components of various cars and a wide variety of information on the brands and the lists of different kinds of cars out there. I think there's a lot of people out there who really became interested in the whole Japanese car market that we don't really see here because of this game. Gran Turismo 3 really was a perfect race-simulator title for me. As far as I'm concerned, Polyphony Digital never topped this one. It was defiantly the high point in the series regardless of how immaculately perfect the graphics are in any of the newer titles. In fact, it may very well be one of my all time favorite racers and I have a feeling I'm not the only one. (Though I may be..)
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