A collective holy sh*t has probably
dropped from every last one of you guys reading this. Or maybe not. Yes,
you're looking at a Gran Turismo review that has scored, for the first
time ever, nowhere near the practically perfect grades we've graced this
franchise with since day one. Okay, maybe some of you have read some of
the other reviews out there and are aware that something has gone
really wrong. Well, first off, allow me to preface the remainder of this
review by stating that Gran Turismo for the PSP has, allegedly, been in
development for five years. I say allegedly, because I'm certain that
the development cycle for the game had been temporarily sidelined
numerous times in between all of the work Polyphony had to do for the
PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. Gran Turismo's development was most
certainly not a continuous effort of five years...and unfortunately, it
shows.
Now,
after re-reading this review, it definitely comes off harsh, but with
good reason. Gran Turismo PSP is a flawed game. But, on the other hand, I
still had a lot of fun with it, as at its core, GT PSP is still very
enjoyable, accessible, and fun game. I put in tons and tons of hours
into the game just making money and collecting cars, which is one of the
purposes of GT PSP. Many of these cars are transferable, allowing you
to sync GT PSP to GT5 and transfer cars you've bought or won into your
PS3 game. Again, GT PSP is a very fun game. But a "fully specced Gran
Turismo", Kazunori Yamauchi said, this is not.
The
first major disappointment came when I realized the tiny little size of
the game file Sony had forwarded me. 937MB? Gran Turismo 2 was a
PlayStation 1 game and it boasted two separate discs, essentially making
it a game worth 1.2GB. Okay, so I held out hope. So the game boots up,
and immediately I run to the dealership to look through the list of
amazing cars, only to realize I can only choose between Bugatti,
Bentley, Chevy, and Polyphony. "Oh," I said, "Sony must've sent me a
demo file accidentally. Oh, those crazy guys, I'll just contact them
agai...what? This is normal?" You see, as the days cycle in-game, the
dealerships you can browse through change, as do the cars you can buy.
Allow
me to explain in a bit more detail. When you boot up the game, you'll
have four dealers to access and 100,000 credits to spend on a car, which
is a gracious sum. Once you buy a car, you can participate in a few
events. As the days roll on in the game, a new set of four dealerships
will be made available to you. But, just because you can access a Nissan
dealer, doesn't mean you can have the ability to buy any of their cars.
No, no. If you don't see a GT-R or a 300ZX TT, you have to wait until
the next time Nissan becomes one of the four dealers you can shop at and
see if the assortment of cars features the ones you want. Yes, it's
that complicated, confusing, and stupid.
Some
of you may say, "but Arnold, why didn't you mention this in your GT PSP
hands-on preview? Why is this such a shock to you?" Because when I
played Gran Turismo PSP a few months ago at a New York City event, I
recall being able to sort through a complete listing of every car in the
game, through every single make; none of this four dealers only
bullcrap. So to see this absolute lunacy on my PSP, in a game I had so
long waited for made me livid, quite frankly, as I'm sure you can tell
by the tone of this diatribe.
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