It goes without saying (but i'll say it anyway) that this is the one of the best Gran Turismo games out there - over 711 cars, more than 50 tracks, very realistic looking replays, great graphics, slightly improved car sounds and handling from other GT games - even the details in the cars has increased since Gran Turismo 3. Reflections on the cars are also improved which now seemingly reflecting the stuff they go past. Like bullets.

There are 80 licence tests to pass which vary in difficulty and type. New to GT are 'missions' (which are not 'impossible' ... ). Such as passing a select amount of cars in one lap or passing a car after only one corner, or delivering a package within the time limit. Oh, wrong game for that last one.

Also new to Gran Turismo is B-spec mode. Basically this is where you take the role of race director (sort of, you only control the driver in your car). No driving is required by you, instead you tell your 'driver' what to do (within reason - while he will rob a bank if you ask him to, he won't necessarily give any of that money to you). You can increase his (or her - gotta be 'PC' here) pace so he catches up/gets away from other cars, you can make him pass the car ahead when he gets close enough or even to make a pit stop if fuel or tires are needed. His skills and abilities will continue to increase also. As will his/her/it's races, as you progressively get lazier and lazier and get them to do all the races for you.

Speaking of pitstops you now have the option to refuel, change tyre type (i.e. from super-slicks to medium slicks, round tyres to square and so on) and change back and forth from B-spec mode to A-spec mode (which is a good idea if your B-spec driver is rapidly falling behind the other cars - you jump in the seat to show them how its done, then when you swap seats next the cheeky bugger decides to ignore all your advice).

You can now place huge rear wings (as big as those on a 747-400 jumbo jet) on the back of most cars but unlike Need For Speed Underground they aren't just for show, they help create downforce. Which means you can finally get rid of those bricks out of the boot, used to try get the rear of the car to hold the road better.

Used wheels is another new thing and you'll find that every wheel in the available selection is off another car in the game. So you can have Skyline wheels on your BMW, or BMW wheels on your Skyline. You can even put Skyline wheels on another Skyline, and BMW wheels on another BMW. And vice versa. You can't put Ferrari wheels on your Porsche though - cos neither marque is in this game silly!

RACES

Yup. There's plenty of races here.

...

Oh. Uh, some of the ones from GT3 return, which is good. You can also remove all your trophies in a race series/event if you want to win the car (which you win for completing the series/event with all wins) again, but like previous titles there are some cars that can only be won once (well, you can only drive one car at a time though, unless you've got four hands - and gloves don't count).
Manufacturer races are back and a bit of an incentive to actually do them (to those who never did in GT2) is the fact that you win a car for each 'series' of races completed! And a decent amount of money in championship events. If you win them naturally - if you lose then you won't win.

There are three (real time) twenty-four hour races; one at the old, 6 km long back straight version of Le Mans. One at the current version of Le Mans (silly chicanes cutting up the back straight) and one for touring cars at Nurburgring Nordschliefe! If you don't want to do them yourself, you can get your B-spec driver to do them, and speed it up so it only takes about eight hours instead of twenty four. But honestly, where's the fun in that? Oh right, watching the race in double time is kinda fun - Formula 1 cars eat your heart out!

I am disappointed with the races in GT4 though. Polyphony have unfortunately listened to the people who complained about all the series's being too long/too many laps and have drastically reduced the amount of laps - thus ruining a few of the championships which were fun in GT3. Don't listen to people PD, they don't know anything! Especially me! Nevertheless they are still fun to participate in and some REALLY close races can be had, just like GT2.

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VIEWS

There are three car views to choose from in GT4. The first is the drivers view which is where you don't see any of the car just the track (which means the game could be tricking you and making you drive another car, since you can't see what you're in). This view also 'moves' like it would if you were really driving it. i.e. when braking the camera goes down, when turning left the camera leans left etc and when you hit a wall really hard the camera shakes badly which is quite realistic. If you like getting motion sickness then this is a great way to get it!

The second, my favourite, is the roof view (i should clarify that the camera isn't pointed at the roof, its mounted on the roof facing towards the road in front of the car - stop taking things i say for how they sound - most of the time its not how it is meant to be portrayed. Geez Louise!). The camera stays 100% solid all the time and only moves when the car does. This makes it the bestest/easiest view (for me anyway) as you can see exactly where your car is without a moving camera. Because its not moving as opposed to it moving if it wasn't not moving.

Finally we have the normal behind car view which seems to have been tightened up a little since GT3 in terms of the camera 'swaying' left and right etc when turning.

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CARS

There is an awful lot of cars in this game (but still not enough, as neither of my real cars are in the game!!). Over 711 of them are in GT4, which when compared to the 184 or so in GT3 and 594 (or thereabouts) in GT2, is slightly more than in those games. gives you the impression that you'll never drive every single vehicle. It is probably true too. You can fit an incredible ONE THOUSAND cars in your garage (surely it should be renamed to warehouse since it would have to be a pretty massive garage to house all them?) which is every single car plus some! I only have about 500 cars in the game and an awful lot of them are of the same make/model of car. *cough* Not Nissan Skylines either. *cough*

There are 20 cars below but if you want to check out the whole lot then you really need to click here, or somewhere else that has a link to that page on this site.
- BMW M3 CSL
- Holden Monaro CV8
- Toyota 7 Race Car [race car]
- Nissan Skyline GT-R M-Spec NuR (R34)
- Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (C5)
- FPV F6 Typhoon
- Mercedes-Benz SL500
- Jaguar S-Type R
- Audi RS-6 Avant
- TVR Tuscan Speed 6
- BP Falken RX-7 (D1GP)
- Fiat 500L
- Jay Leno Tank Car
- Suzuki GSX-R/4
- BMW M5
- Cadillac Cien
- Jenson Interceptor Mk.III
- DMC Delorean S2
- Audi ABT Sportsline TT-R DTM [race car]
- Mercury Cougar XR-7

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TRACKS

Plenty of tracks in this game and even more if you count the reverse versions. That's kinda cheating really, but who's complaining? Have you tried going around the Nurburgring Nordschliefe the wrong way? You won't get arrested for it but you will lose ten cookies to Cookie Monster.
You've got circuits from all over the globe from France, Switzerland, China, Germany, U.S.A. and even Korea. Plus the usual Japanese tracks and made up ones. And music tracks too, but you can't drive on them just yet.

They are all sorts of lengths and altitudes; Laguna Seca at 3.60 km's long, Circuit de la Sarthe (a.k.a. Le Mans) at 13.65 km's long, High-Speed Ring at exactly four kilometers and even the awesome 20.83 km long Nurburgring Nordschleife, every beginners favourite track!

For more information on all the tracks please click here, right now. Since there's nothing else to look at on this page now that you've read it all.