I've been playing GT4 for a few days now. It is a good game, maybe a great game, but once again it uses an AI that would have rts gamers laughing.
You will get rear ended if you take a good line and the computer wants it, even if it will mess up their path.
There will be a car, regardless of what it is, that the computer will love. So far it is the opel speedster (as in GT3). Last night I was driving my 350HP NSX with all kinds of added in goodies, and a miata was kicking my butt. A miata.. doing 150. The roof would rip off, it would fly off the road, and the poor poor little thing would go sailing with the least little breeze. I can't imagine it having enough horses to keep ahead of an NSX on a straight. The only way I could catch it was by drafting and then only on the long straights.
On a positive note, the car selection and the rendering of the models is great. The cars handle very realistically, however, I have noticed that sometimes braking is questionable. I had a 76 skyline that would break from 112 like you dropped and anchor, but my NSX with improved breaks and racing tires will float, and skid, and complain if you aren't careful.
The courses are much more detailed, and realistic. When you are hauling near the edge of a road, and your tires get too close to the grass, you will get sucked into the grass, the hungry hungry grass. Sand will really mess with your plans. Running across a sandy stretch to avoid a curve is not a good idea anymore as it has become much more difficult to jump these corners. You can still do this with grass, just don't try to do anything drastic like turn, you will be disappointed.
The main screen layout for the simulation part of the game is better and worse at the same time. The car makers are grouped by region (for example, Japan town) and races are loosely grouped, however the have 3 used car shops and the race locations are spread across the board. It would seem better to have a garage, a car lot with sub car towns, and a race lot, with licensing being a sub menu in your garage.
Parts. ***SIGH*** why can't they get this part right? You are in your garage, you can't switch parts, you can't see what parts you own for a particular vehicle, and you can't switch parts from 2 like vehicles. When you sell a vehicle you get no extra cash for the tens of thousands of dollars worth of parts you have added in. Now there are 2 locations where you can buy parts for your vehicle. At the dealership or at the Tuner village. Tuner village has brand name parts for the same price and same performance.... so um... what's the point? The wings used to control down force all look stupid stpuid sptupid. They make the happy puppy sad.
All in all I'm 5% through the game and still enjoying it. As Kimi told me, those little controllers are strong. George is over there and I hear the poor thing go "ccrreeeeaaakkkk" as he torques it.
Nice review. :)
Posted by: GeorgeB at March 2, 2005 11:02 PM