Poliphony Digital really knows how to make games to feel realistic out of the box, thats what they proved with the Gran Turismo series and a few of their other series that were strangely forgotten (maybe one day i would talk more about them), and, despite not convincing me, I recognize that they were the pinnacle of the fifth and sixth generation in many things... including the graphics. One of the most detailed video games on the PS1 and PS2, and in this case, the PS1 was already saying goodbye and giving way to the next generation. How Gran Turismo could be improved on the next gen? Well, i wouldnt repeat what i always repeat with the series because it would be redundant. Poliphony Digital arguably was the only company that could rival Naughty Dog. In the past it really was one of the companies that pushed the hardware to its absolute limits and made PC gaming cry to shame. But, thats not enough to make a game good.
The Gran Turismo series up to this point wanted to impress more than give the player fun, and while at least in GT1, 2 and 4 i could appreciate various innovations to the racing genre, those were pretty much non existent in 3. Is clearly that GT3, being released early in the PS2 lifespan and developers having problems with the hardware, ended up being pretty much inspired in GT2, but i didnt expected for the most part to be a carbon copy, even the UI looks the same which is very lazy, and a lot of things that made GT2 a more "memorable" experience in the genre here were gone, the insane amount of cars, the racing modifications or the variety of events (for some reason all of the different tiers have almost the same race events just harder).
For a moment i though that reducing heavily the amount of cars like GT1 would make the experience more focuses and feel each car awarded satisfying like the first game, but GT3 reminded to me that the series at this point was more like a car museum and not a classic career experience. Having only 100-200 cars and still somehow recieving the amount of cars per race like GT2 makes the money pretty much useless in this game, no car feels like my cars, it all feels like rental cars. I barely bought 10 cars and recieved more than half of the list.
And well... i guess i shouldnt mention all of the criticism of previous and newer games, because increasing the power of the hardware wouldnt automatically fix anything without work. AI is still trash, crashes at high speed still arent penalized, is only realistic on a surface level when it wants to be. It wouldnt be that bad for other racing games, but for one that wants to take itself so seriously? It is a shame because the "slogan" shows that the devs really wanted to make you feel inmersed in this beautiful car simulator, but things like this only go on the opposite direction.
GT3 is kind of dissappointing, and this comes from someone who isnt a fan of the series. The other games like GT1, 2 and 4 werent perfect games either, but i can admit they had a sense of innovation and a great core that... unfortunately GT3 lost. If you played GT2 then you played most of GT3. It could had pass as a remake of the second game honestly (which to be fair, it was the thing they show on the PS2 tech demos of the late 90s). Despite having its own improvements over GT2 like the handling and looking great, and not being terrible (of course), honestly GT3 wasnt even worth my time.
The Gran Turismo series up to this point wanted to impress more than give the player fun, and while at least in GT1, 2 and 4 i could appreciate various innovations to the racing genre, those were pretty much non existent in 3. Is clearly that GT3, being released early in the PS2 lifespan and developers having problems with the hardware, ended up being pretty much inspired in GT2, but i didnt expected for the most part to be a carbon copy, even the UI looks the same which is very lazy, and a lot of things that made GT2 a more "memorable" experience in the genre here were gone, the insane amount of cars, the racing modifications or the variety of events (for some reason all of the different tiers have almost the same race events just harder).
For a moment i though that reducing heavily the amount of cars like GT1 would make the experience more focuses and feel each car awarded satisfying like the first game, but GT3 reminded to me that the series at this point was more like a car museum and not a classic career experience. Having only 100-200 cars and still somehow recieving the amount of cars per race like GT2 makes the money pretty much useless in this game, no car feels like my cars, it all feels like rental cars. I barely bought 10 cars and recieved more than half of the list.
And well... i guess i shouldnt mention all of the criticism of previous and newer games, because increasing the power of the hardware wouldnt automatically fix anything without work. AI is still trash, crashes at high speed still arent penalized, is only realistic on a surface level when it wants to be. It wouldnt be that bad for other racing games, but for one that wants to take itself so seriously? It is a shame because the "slogan" shows that the devs really wanted to make you feel inmersed in this beautiful car simulator, but things like this only go on the opposite direction.
GT3 is kind of dissappointing, and this comes from someone who isnt a fan of the series. The other games like GT1, 2 and 4 werent perfect games either, but i can admit they had a sense of innovation and a great core that... unfortunately GT3 lost. If you played GT2 then you played most of GT3. It could had pass as a remake of the second game honestly (which to be fair, it was the thing they show on the PS2 tech demos of the late 90s). Despite having its own improvements over GT2 like the handling and looking great, and not being terrible (of course), honestly GT3 wasnt even worth my time.