When I bought this game I was so interested and fascinated that I played it for 2 weeks continuously. Now, a year later with about 1000 driving hours I´m still playing it. I´ve never before played a game with such motivation in the single and multiplayer mode. It´s simply brilliant and the makers of this masterpiece know how to utilize the PSX and what game design really means.
Recently I saw a demonstration of Gran Turismo for PSX 2 which is able to represent 66 million polygons per second. Although it was calculated in realtime it looked like the intro of the old Gran Turismo, almost real. I hardly wait to play it.
I´ll try to enumerate the positive aspects of Gran Turismo
The realtime graphics and the intrographics are very good, especially the graphics of the cars. You can even see the springs of the cars and rotation of the wheels. I suppose it isn´t possible to create a better graphic representation on this console. The graphics of Ridge Racer 4 is a little bit better but the physical driving capacities are not so accurate and you can see only one car at a time. I personally prefer the game design of Gran Turismo because interesting game capacities are more important than a small improvement in the graphics.
The physical driving conditions are calculated with absolut accuracy. Even if you have a lot of driving experience you have to learn to drive at least 10 hours before you are be able to so well. Perhaps it is a little bit laborious but you´ll have motivation for months and the driving experience is very dynamic and interesting.
The idea of finishing 3 different driving tests is absolutely brilliant. It is very important to pass these tests because you learn step by step to improve your driving competence and you are allowed to play tournaments on a higher level. This is absolutely necessary if you want to have any chance to win.
The idea of buying new cars and improving them is brilliant as well. There´s a lot of motivation because you are only able to win in higher tournaments when you own a fast car and because you have to learn the different driving capacities of cars ranging from a little 100 HP family car to a 600 HP racing machine.
After a race, you can watch it again in different video positions. It´s interesting and important to realize your driving faults or to see unfair driving maneuvers from your opponents (or from you).
Evaluation 10/10