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Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec,
as it is officially called
by officials, was the
first Gran Turismo to
appear on Sony's beautiful
black box (the PS2 i mean,
they don't make attractive
black boxes for things
like planes). It was first
shown to the public with
very, very early screenshots
(better than late ones
generally) way back when
the PS2 had yet to be
released. It went by a
different name back then,
Gran Turismo 2000. Then
they realised that they
had only just made Gran
Turismo 2, not Gran Turismo
1,999 - so had to revise
the name.
Having a name like
that you could easily guess that it was meant
to be released in the new millenium year, 2000.
That didn't eventuate and they ended up still
working on the game in the year 2001 (which comes
after the year 2000) and it finally got released
a few months into the new year. But it had a different
name, the one it sports now, and a whole lot more
cars, tracks, even races and muchly improved graphics.
They must have done something right, to date (of
writing this blurb at the time, numerous years
ago) GT3 is by far the biggest selling GT game,
with over 14.5 million copies sold around the
world. Which is round, not square.
Aaaannnnnyyyyywhhhhhooooo,
GT 2000 was never meant to be a proper sequel,
it was supposed to be a 'mini-game' like Gran
Turismo Concept. It was definitely worth the extra
development time though because it had made one
of the best driving simulators out there at the
time and in terms of graphics GT3 still looks
pretty good to this day!
It also set a new
personal record for me (and i'm sure many others)
which is the fact that i had been playing it since
the day it came out (not *every* single day though,
just every second day ;) ) and boredom never struck
me. I only stopped playing it in late June 2004,
and that was only because GT4 Prologue came out
and was better in every way. Then i stopped playing
Prologue because GT4 had been released! Then i
had to stop playing that to start on GT HD. Which
was so short i went back to GT4. Until GT5: Prologue
came out, then yet again i had to stop playing
because of GT5 - PD aren't giving me enough time
to play before releasing a new game!
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RACES |
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GT3 has more races
than you have hands on your fingers (i hope you
don't have more than one hand attached to your
fingers, if you do then contact Ripleys). Although
it has less races than the previous title, most
of them are quite challenging and can encourage
you to keep racing them with different cars to
see how developed your car handling and tuning
skills are. Mine were the best.
The races are split
up into five categories this time and unlike GT2
they differ in terms of difficulty instead of
types of race series' (if you've played GT2 then
you'll know what i mean - hopefully). They are
Beginners League, Amateur League, Professional
League, Rally Events and Endurance Races. Pro
Drifter wasn't a mode in this game, so i shouldn't
have mentioned it in this sentence.
In Beginners the
AI are going at about 1/2 of their total ability
and if you drop behind after a spin or something
then they slow down even more so that you can
catch up and still have a chance of winning the
race - in otherwords, they are friendly and supportive.
Amateurs League AI race at about 3/4 of their
available race pace and also slow down a little
if you spin but they are not as forgiving as Beginners
League opponents - in otherwords, they want you
to catch up so they can try beat you again. In
Professional League the AI are using 100% of their
ability (and more sometimes...) so you really
have to be a good driver when entering races here
because you will never stand on the podium if
you're not - in otherwords, if you don't have
27 extra gears like in the Fast & The Furious
movies you may as well stay at home and play with
your GI JOE's.
The other two modes
are pretty self explanatory, a variety of rally
races and some endurance races which can eat up
(oh great, i'm hungry now) plenty of your time.
It takes nearly three hours for the longest endurance
race. But that's nothing, in Professional League
there is a series of ten races called the Polyphony
Digital Cup (which has by far
some of the *best* racing in the whole
GT series to date, GT5 inclusive) and that can
take even the most experienced driver over six
hours to complete! Thats like, quarter of a whole
day! Wow!
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CARS |
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Roughly 184 cars
reside in the GT3 DVD (i counted each one when
using my microscope to view the disk (oh wow,
i have a microscope?)) and thanks to a garage
which can hold exactly 200 cars, you can have
one of every single car in your possession at
the same time. Or be like me and have over 35
Nissan Skylines all of differing colours, years
models and modifications. I'm a Skyline-o-holic.
I admit it. But they're so beautiful!! *kissing
and smooching sounds* <<< That was the
cat, not me and Skylines. Uh, and i wasn't doing
the kissing... Yeah. Wasn't.
*Ahem*. Anywho, most
people may notice a distinct lack of classic American
Muscle cars but there are a couple such as the
Ford GT40 and Shelby Cobra plus newer ones liked
the awesome Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R, Chevrolet
Camaro SS, Dodge Viper GTS and more. Unfortunately
race body modifications do not feature in GT3
which is probably only due to time constraints
(<< so i thought when i was young and naive
when i typed that sentence all those decades ago).
There is a good
enough selection of race cars and modified cars
like the famous Pennzoil Nismo GT-R JGTC, Dodge
Viper GTS-R, Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, Mercedes-Benz
CLK DTM (also hidden in the GT2 disk, nothing
a GameShark can't eat fix though), and
modified cars like the Mugen Honda S2000, Spoon
Honda Civic Type R, Mine's Nissan Skyline GT-R
N1 V-Spec (R34), Toyota Celica TRD Sports M and
more.
There are 25 of them
below but if you want to check out the whole lot
then click here. Not here, because you've already gone past the
link.
- Acura CL 3.2 Type-S
- Alfa Romeo 156 2.5 V6 24V
- Chevrolet Camaro Z28
- Chrysler PT Cruiser
- Ford Escort Rally Car [race car]
- Gillet Vertigo Race Car [race car]
- Honda Castrol Mugen NSX JGTC [race car]
- Jaguar XJ220 Road Car
- Lotus Elise 190
- Mazda RX-8 Concept
- Mazda RX-7 Type RZ
- Mercedes-Benz CL600
- Mini Cooper 1.3i
- Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI RS
- Nissan Skyline GTS-t Type M (R32)
- Nissan C-West Silvia JGTC [race car]
- Pagani Zonda C12S
- RUF 3400S
- Spoon S2000 Race Car [race car]
- Subaru Impreza Sports Wagon STi
- Subaru Legacy B4 Blitzen
- Tommy Kaira ZZ-S
- Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex (AE86 Type I)
- TVR Griffith 500
- Volkswagen New Beetle 2.0
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TRACKS |
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There are about 36
tracks in GT3 and nearly all of them can be raced
in reverse too (not the gear, the track... well,
you can race in reverse but its unlikely you'll
win even last place).
It has a combination
of real-life circuits; Laguna Seca, Cote D Azur
(Monaco GP Circuit), real locations but fake tracks;
Seattle Circuit, Rome Circuit, Tokyo Circuit,
and made up tracks some of which have been brought
over from GT2; Deep Forest Raceway, Grand Valley
Speedway, Complex String (a complex 'string' of
chicanes, long turns, long straights, zig-zaggy
sections and more, hence the name - its basically
a big test track (with no string in site, so you'll
have to break the news to your cat)), Trial Mountain
Circuit, Special Stage Route 11 and more.
For more information
on the tracks please click here. Please? Thanks. 8-)
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