We all remember Gran Turismo on the Playstation 1 with its multi disk package and countless hours of fun. Fast forward to 2009 and Gran Turismo PSP is making its debut on the portable platform. This game was roughly 5 years in development and I could have waited another 6 months for it.
Well GTPSP must surely be one of the best graphical looking games running at 60 frames per second on the PSP it makes me think it’s a tech demo to show other developers what can be done on the PSP. The soundtrack is solid and quite enjoyable throughout the experience. The only let down would be the cock pit view it’s not as detailed and polished as I would have liked.
As soon as you fire up the game you’ll be glad to see the familiar user interface we’ve all came to know and love. GT has 800 cars and 35 tracks that include over 70 different variations of tracks to play. Tracks in the game include original courses, famous world circuits, city courses ,Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca, Nurburgring Nordschleife, Tokyo Route 246, a Seattle city course and a Grand Canyon rally track. One of the annoying parts of having 800 cars is that car manufactures only sell their cars on certain days of the week meaning you need to fire up the game every day to buy that car you need. Also the cars for sale are randomized as well as I got giddy when it was Mitsubishi day to sell cars but Eclipses weren’t for sale on that day.
There are time trials, drift and something called a career mode as well as over 100 challenges to test your driving skills. Let’s start with the career mode or the lack there of one. There is not structured career mode, all you need to is select a car, track and you’re off to the races. I would have preferred that the driving challenges played some role in the career mode. Like if you beat the first 5 challenges it opens up the first set of races and in order to progress you need to beat more challenges. The lack of career mode is really the downfall for this game. The driving challenges are so deep, rich and fun I spent the most time beating all the challenges. Drift mode is your standard drift mode It doesn’t appeal to me. Time trials are always fun. There are online capabilities using Ad Hoc which always you to pick a car, track and challenge up to 4 friends to a race.
It looks great, plays like a sim racer but the lack of structure in the career mode really disappoints me. One of the main reasons I kept going back and playing it was challenges. I had a blast and I wish we could get more via downloadable content. If you love the Gran Turismo franchise and need a really good racing game to play, than this is it. Oh I forgot to mention buy all the cars you can and get a head start on the competition when Gran Turismo 5 is released on the PS3
by 
