Gran Turismo 5 - PS3

Gran Turismo 5 brings together some of the biggest names in the auto industry and places them at your fingertips. The game brings some of the best graphics onto the screen and includes 3D viewing and online play. Some of the sleekest cars on some of the world's premiere courses are included in this huge game. I've been playing it since November, purchased it on Black Friday, and haven't scratched the surface.

I've been a fan of Gran Turismo and played the first two in with great enthusiasm. The first one definitely blew my mind, with all the cars and all the ways to tune them. The second one had even more, and then the licenses and endurance races. But as you go to three and four, you start to wonder if the game was more for playing or just for watching. Even in Gran Turismo 5 you're tasked with completing just as many races in A-spec mode than on B-spec. The new element in B-spec is that you now get the option of entering in more than one racer. I haven't got to that point yet. I do have three racers now, all above level 10. It feels more and more like a RPG.

As for the rest of the game, not much has changed. The races are broken into five modes on A-Spec, and the first three (beginner, amateur, professional) are relatively easy. You're going to have to get back into the groove of racing since GT4 was five years ago. The licenses are hard and easy. Hard if you want to get Gold and Silver, but relative simple. Just concentrate a bit more than usual and you'll get the bronze. Some of the newer tracks takes time to get used, but nothing is too confusing.

The special events have been amp'ed up. There are now go-karts, the Top Gear track, and even a selection of Nascar races. I went through a lot of them, but still haven't got the trophies yet. The Go-Kart races and the WRC stuff seem the most fun so far. I didn't like the Nascar trials, and I think it's going to be a grueling time finishing it.

I've yet to finish one game online, but my connection is slow and the races online didn't interest me. Most people don't mind running into you at full speed or being ran into for that matter. I just hope that more interesting DLC's will come along. As for now, I'm sticking with single player mode. Until then, keep racing.

Gran Turismo - PSX

As the release day for Gran Turismo 5 looms over us, I want to take a look back at the first Gran Turismo that started it all in 1998, twelve years ago. It's hard to believe how few racing games there were before that.

What drove me to play the game was that it almost worked like an RPG to me. Instead of gaining levels, you gained licenses. Instead of upgrading weapons, you upgraded your vehicles. Instead of fighting monsters, you raced cars. It was a numbers game to me, and I liked it. I remember the first license that you have to do is the start and stop. All you had to do was stop the car within a certain distance and do it within a certain time frame, it was like 30 seconds or something, but it was something that I couldn't do in the first try. I couldn't do it in the first five tries to be honest. The game was hard, but it was fun to play. You start buying cars and you start learning a thing or two about automobile distributors from all over the world. It was car porn and young men loved it. It sold 10.85 million copies world wide, making it one of the greatest selling titles for Sony Playstation (wikipedia).

With great music and simple menus, the game really lived up to its name as the "real driving simulator". The game was intuitive in a sense that sooner or later you learned how to slow down at S-curves and attack hair-pin turns; because if you didn't, you probably would end up losing. Sure you can use a stronger vehicle, but a lot of races limited you into using only a specific type of car. I remember the "Normal Vehicle" race, where you can only pick from vehicles with their stock options with no upgrades. I'd always use the Dodge Viper. Because it started with 400 HP and it handled awesome. My next favorite car was the Hond Del Sol, modified by Mugen. It was small and nimble so it could get through all the tight spaces easily.

And I did so to get myself to first place. I completed almost all the races and collected all of the unlockable cars. I sometimes wish I can play this on a handheld, but I didn't buy a PSP. Either way, great memories with this game.

• Game Time: 100 Hours
• Completed game in all it's difficulties