- Work your way up the ladder as you acquire driving licenses, racing to earn money.
- Buy and sell cars, upgrade parts and compete in various championships.
- New technology blends real-time action with a photo-fixed background immerses players in New York City, the Grand Canyon and other environments.
- Robust online racing mode with up to 6 other players -- interact and chat with other players in the community.
- Get access to more than 500 authentic automobiles from across the world, from vintage to modern vehicles.
Product Description
-------------------
Gran Turismo 4 features authentic racing gameplay with
new fully-enhanced features that focus on more cars, courses and
race modes. Developed by Polyphony Digital Inc., Gran Turismo 4
uses an all-new physics engine coupled with revolutionary
technology to deliver enhanced, if not perfected, game physics
and graphics providing a near-realistic automotive racing
simulation.
.com
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Are you searching for a driving game that offers more
than just breakneck speed? Look no further than Gran Turismo 4.
The most recent installment in this amazingly popular racing game
brings realistic driving to a whole new level. With loads of new
cars and a vastly improved physics engine, you'll be ready to
tackle the roads in your favorite cars from the last century.
The Cars
Automotive history is at your fingertips with Gran Turismo 4.
You can select from over 700 cars, dating back nearly a century
to the 1915 Ford Model T Tourer. From the United Kingdom's AC to
Sweden's Volvo, you'll can choose from practically every car
manufactured since 1915.
Beyond the list of cars, GT4 sports a new and vastly improved
physics engine. Offering even greater realism than its
predecessors, the GT4 engine has been meticulously designed to
cover every inch and turn of your driving experience. Using
physics to calculate weight, speed, friction, and a host of other
nuances, every car delivers performance with its own unique,
precise handling and feel.
This game isn't just about the cars, though -- it's also about
the competition. The advanced, lifelike drivers compete with
fervor unmatched even by some of your video game buddies. Fueled
by the latest advances in artificial intelligence, your digital
rivals will react to your every move with behavior modeled after
actual professional racers.
It may take you weeks to test drive all 700 available cars, but
with Gran 4 you'll never truly run out of "new" vehicles. This
game is equipped with a multitude of options to customize your
favorite cars. Brakes, shocks, and engine components can all be
upgraded. You can stylize your car with wings, rims, and color,
and you can even change your oil. In short, you can do whatever
needs to be done to keep your car tuned and looking hot for the
next big race.
The Human Element
Gran Turismo 4 brings something completely new to your gaming
experience. In the stands you'll find spectators who comes to
life in 3D before your very eyes. They react with genuine human
emotions to your every move, cheering as you pass, and snapping
photographs as you cross the finish line. Your next pit stop will
take place as if you were really there. You'll watch the process
unfold in real-time as your crew rushes to change your tires and
refuel your tank. But that's not all. With the new addition of
convertibles, you are truly in the drivers seat. Your drivers
will react with precise and fluid motions, and turn just as you
would if you were behind the wheel. Gran Turismo has never looked
so unbelievably real.
The Courses
Not only does GT4 bring you the rare rtunity to drive
hundreds of cars, it also offers you a vast collection of actual
racing locations. Rip through the exotic Costa di Malfi in Capri,
burn rubber through the urban jungle of Hong Kong, or throw up
some serious dust at the Grand Canyon -- no matter where you
decide to race, you'll love driving any of the game's fourteen
tracks. Feeling nostalgic? With Gran 4, you can even race on some
of your old, favorite tracks from previous editions.
LAN Play
Compete against your buddies with the LAN play functionality of
GT4. Connect up to three PlayStation 2 consoles and bring
together up to six players in a racing frenzy that pits you
against your friends. Each console will need a copy of Gran
Turismo 4, the proper connecting cables, and all the standard
gaming equipment. Once connected, you'll be ready for a life-like
battle of driving abilities and mental toughness. With LAN play,
the action has never been more intense or more realistic!
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From the Manufacturer
---------------------
In Gran Turismo 4, the characteristics of the cars are
realistically designed and calculated so that they handle to the
"real-life" physics of that particular vehicle, taking into
account weight, speed, friction, wind, and more. To further
enhance the realism of the driving experience, new technology
blends real-time action with a photo-fixed background to immerse
the player in real-life environments such as New York City, the
Grand Canyon, and others. Highly detailed vehicles and
environment ping create broadcast-quality graphics, from
competitor car reflections on the players automobile to leaves
on a tree shaking in the wind.
The online mode features a robust system for players to race
with up to six other players and interact and chat with others to
form an automotive community.
In offline gameplay, players will have the rtunity to race
in an enhanced arcade and simulation mode based upon similar game
mechanics from Gran Turismo 3 A-spec. In both modes, players will
have access to experience more than 500 authentic automobiles
encompassing manufacturers from around the world, with a range
from vintage to modern vehicles. Courses include existing closed
racing circuits to specially designed city courses, reaching a
total count of up to 100 tracks.
The arcade mode allows players to compete against each other or
the artificial intelligence on select courses. The simulation
mode allows players to start from the bottom and earn their way
up the ladder as they acquire driving licenses, race to earn
money, unlock cars and courses, buy and sell cars, upgrade parts,
and compete in various championships. Playable from both first-
and third-person perspectives, Gran Turismo 4 offers advanced
nent behavior to capture real-life racing and
unpredictability of finishes.
Review
------
Here's the simplest, most accurate statement ever made: In Gran
Turismo 4, you race cars. That's it – find cars, buy cars, try
out cars, and drive them around predetermined tracks. In the real
world, people gladly hemorrhage money to buy a new car or race on
a famous course. Why would we, stranger still, even want to do
the same things in a virtual, digital world? The answer to both
is the same: People love their cars.
Polyphony's opus, Gran Turismo 4, is nothing more than a
beautifully composed love letter to the automobile. Take that as
you will, because for car dorks like myself, it means that GT 4
is one of the most addictive and rewarding time sucks in recent
memory. The car list, to understate radically, is immense. Sure,
there are a handful of rides that any one of us could name that
aren't included, but to be nitpicky is to miss the greater point
of this collection. That is, there is more variety in every
possible descriptor of the word "automobile" here than one person
can reasonably hope to experience in months of rabid playtime.
For that, I'm immensely thankful.
And yet, when considering my score, I didn't come up with a
perfect 10. What could sully the simulation goodness that this
long-awaited title dishes out liberally? I don't mean this with
any negative connotation – GT 4 is a highly polished and nicely
expanded version of GT 3. Building off of such legendary source
material is certainly a good idea, and a lucky rtunity, for
any game. Still, it means that GT 4 doesn't get any bonus points
for innovation.
The new B-Spec and Photo modes are interesting ideas. Although in
practice, these are such minor additions from a reward and
gameplay-time point of view that, in the face of literally
hundreds of hours of play, most will only venture to these
features in times of idle curiosity. And then they'll leave them.
B-Spec has players essentially coaching their on-track driver
through a race, dictating things like level of aggression and
when to make pit stops. Photo Mode sure is pretty, but the s
can only be printed on a Picturemate Epson printer, and even
without this limitation, the idea is just sort of gimmicky and
not really part of "the game."
In the standard circuit, the improvements (besides the car list)
are universally welcome and ably done. nent AI is tweaked to
both be more realistic and match the relative skill level of the
player. The intermediate section of the game is balanced much
better than the previous title – you'll have plenty of cash and
some nice, new, and fast options for earning a quick buck for
upgrades.
The moral of the story here, kids, is that Gran Turismo 4 is a
fabulously executed game that remains a consistent joy to play
for many, many moons. But it lacks innovation and, in the time
since GT 3 came out four years ago, there are certain things that
we expect from racing games that aren't here. Gran Turismo needs
to innovate, but not compromise its core ideals, to make racing
perfection.
Concept:
Primp and polish the nearly-perfect GT 3 with few major
alterations
Graphics:
Enough to make God weep at the beauty of humanity's creative
ability – these cars look shiny and sexy to a degree that we've
never seen
Sound:
Visual cues are augmented greatly by sound design that highlights
the differences in rides, as well as critical information in
races
Playability:
An easier progression in the early levels is really nice and
makes the game more accessible with less backtracking
Entertainment:
Unquestionably the most accurate racing game ever, car dorks
should swoon on
Replay:
High
Rated: 9.25 out of 10
Editor: Lisa Mason
Issue: March 2005
2nd Opinion:
GT 4 is the best sim-racer out there, but it's afraid to expand
its horizons. It looks better and there are more cars, but I
wanted it to do more than meet my minimum expectations. The
progression curve is easier, but I found B-Spec mode and the
photo taker useless. The new bad-driving penalties are contrived
and only apply to rally races. The perfect symbol for the
impotence of the new features is the A- and B-Spec points. They
don't buy anything! What's fun about GT 4? It makes you fall in
love with cars because you start to become more and more
interested in what all those numbers on the spec sheet mean as
you race them. GT 4's got its core racing down. Now Polyphony
Digital needs to start innovating, not simply re-making the same
game every four years.
Rated: 8.5 out of 10
Editor: Matthew Kato
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