A few words from a professional procrastinator

After it was teased to gamers before the PSP came out it finally has. We only had to wait for five years. So when I heard that the game was finally coming out I knew I had to get my hands on it when it came out. So come October 1 I logged in to the PSN and picked up the game.

I always start with the license part in every Gran Turismo game. But this time they call them “Driver Challenges”. It’s practically the same thing as the acquiring the super license. Although it’s not required to finish the challenges in order to race in certain tracks, it is highly recommended to start here to get a feel of the controls of the game. Unlike its console counterpart, completing a section with the gold trophies does not give you a car. Instead it rewards you with credits corresponding to the time you set. You can only earn the credits once. For example, if you come within the silver time, you will earn the credits for both silver and bronze. But if you try the challenge again, you will not earn any more credits unless you get the gold time.

Prolonged playing cramps my right hand. The X and the O button is a bit difficult to grasp for driving. I’m not sure how the playing experience will differ if played on the PSPGo.

Some users who purchased the game on the Playstation Network did not get the 2000 Nissan GT-R Spec V.

Now on to the good and the bad.

Sweet!
– You start with 100,000 credits. It’s a very generous amount compared to the credit situation in GT4 and GT5 Prologue where it seemed forever to earn enough money to buy a decent car let alone earn enough to afford to tune it.
– You can change the in game music with your own collection.
– There’s no damage.
– There’s barely any tune up or parts for you car.
– Buying the UMD format will still allow you to install it in the memory stick but still requires the disc to play (DRM reasons).
– Selection of cars is pretty good. Sure the Toyota GT 2000 is not there. Or I haven’t unlocked it just yet but there’s a good selection. It actually seems like there’s more car manufacturers in this game than in GT4 for the PS2.
– Selection of tracks is amazing. Most of the tracks in GT4 is in this game. I spent a few hours just going through the entire Nurburgring Circuit over and over again.

FAIL!
– The soundtrack. I’m not a fan of the music of the game and you can’t choose what to hear. Unlike the GT3 and GT4 will allow you to pick exactly what music you will hear while racing. Mac users have to use Nullriver’s PSPWare to allow you to sync your music and movies in your iTunes folder to your PSP. Or unless you’re geeky enough to know the file path to just copy the tunes over.
– There’s no damage.
– Not all the car dealerships are available at one time. Only four are available on a given day. You’ll have to check from time to time to see the cars available for purchase on a given day. Take note that one race does not always translate to one day.

Purchased from the Playstation Network using a PS3 and transferred to a PSP-1000 on a 4GB Memory Stick.