Almost immediately after finishing Gran Turismo 5, I dove straight into Gran Turismo 6 to keep the racing simulation momentum going. Lots of racing being done lately….
This release was oddly quiet and snuck up on a lot of people which would explain it’s poor sales compared to it’s predecessor. Many would have expected this game to go to PlayStation 4 rather than PlayStation 3 because of it’s release so close to the arrival of the next-gen consoles. But the developers of the series maintained that so far, they have done 2 main Gran Turismo games on each console and so wanted to stick to that formula. Meaning that sometime in the next 3-5 years we should get Gran Turismo 7 on PlayStation 4.
Because I played this and Gran Turismo 5 so close together, there felt like there was a great deal of overlap and similarity. And there was. But there were also some large noticeable differences. Some good and some bad.
The enormous load times from the game before it seemed to be even worse than before. While the menus had been improved and sped up greatly, the loading of the actual races seemed to suffer and sometimes it could take upwards of two minutes to load a race. Thankfully though, the stupid level system of the previous game had gone and you had more freedom in picking your way through events. But still not as much as you did in previous games because events were still divided up into license classes and you had to get to and complete the final event in each class before moving on to the next.
One other negative thing that was very noticeable was the very low number of prize cars given compared to previous games. With this game, I again decided just to hit the end credits and call it a win as I did with Gran Turismo 5. But in doing that in the previous game, inhad at least a dozen cars in my garage. Only a couple of them having been bought and most being awarded. This time I had 3 cars in my garage. 2 of which I had bought myself. As a result of this, I had to stretch the first good car I won (a Renault Clio this time) even further. Pitting it against proper performance cars and scraping wins by the skin of my teeth. And instead of winning a car capable of winning the last few events, I had to save up and buy a monstrous racing Nissan Skyline. This felt a bit disconcerting because it's Gran Turismo tradition to win most of the cars you need and usually only to have to buy cars for specific model events. After finishing it and consulting some prize car lists it seems that most of the prize cars came from getting all golds or all available points in a division. Quite a departure from the procedures of the previous games again resulting in reduced freedom to move through the career. I think more prize cars will be given out over time for free in the Gran Turismo showcase and Vision Gran Turismo events, but I was playing this too soon to avail of those sadly.
Left: The Renault Clio Sport that got way too big for it's britches taking me through the majority of the career
Right: The Nissan GT-R touring car that took me to the finale
There are a number of very interesting side missions to do while you make your way through the career like visiting the Goodwood Festival of Speed, doing driving missions where you have to knock down cones, one make races and even lunar missions where you get to drive the actual lunar rover around the same routes the Apollo 11 team took. Those missions are an interesting novelty, but not terribly exciting seeing as the rover tops out at 15 Mph and topples over if you hit a pebble the wrong way.
But these are all minor quibbles and few things can take away from the pure joy that is Gran Turismo driving. Making your way through the career and gawping at cars that you want on the way and then eventually unlocking or buying them and loving every minute of it. Like Gran Turismo 5, this is another game I will return to at a later date to play more of because I very very much enjoyed what I did to get to the finale.
I just wish they had given me some more prize cars along the way....
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