First time amazon has ever delivered a game early for me but it didn't seem to matter, servers are not online and you can't really do much offline, there is an arcade mode, not what I've ever come to this series for.

-11gb day one patch, which downloaded surprisingly fast.

-The opening video was not up to the standards of past games, I've played them all except 6 and the opening movies were all great and got me pumped to play the game, this one is a bit of a snooze.

Man I remember that GT4 opening movie with that car factory...

I preordered it digitally and the PSN download right now is slower than I’ve ever experienced before. Compared to my steam download of Shadow of War last week, it’s night and day. It took about five hours, meanwhile my PS4 has been downloading for a couple of days now, and I’m at 30 gb now.

Also, I don’t typically care for the themes on PS4. Most of them just make the text more difficult to read, but what’s with the theme only unlocking after the game is released?

Well I played the closed and open beta/demo so these are sort of initial thoughts. I've been playing the final game for about 3 hours. I'm level 13 with 38% "campaign" completion.

It's marginally disappointing, which I expected ever since they basically announced it as an E-sports platform. If you're familiar with the idea of iRacing as a platform and service, then that seems to be what they are going for here with GT Sport.

• A tiny vehicle roster, compared to previous GT games, with emphasis on purpose built race cars, plus the weird Vision GT and other concepts. And even with it being almost all model year 2011+ stuff, they are still missing a lot of currently-on-sale cars, something I would think manufacturers would be trying to shove down our throats.
• A somewhat small track roster. A bunch of notable omissions from previous games.
• Lack of "Classic" GT campaign/career/single player mode. Whatever you want to call it. My favorite type of races were the events where they had some sort of restriction on vehicle type, class, size, drivetrain layout, normally aspirated or turbo, certain time periods, manufacturers etc etc. It encouraged you to step out of your comfort zone, dig through your big toy box of cars, and try other things.

That being said, I did compare this to iRacing and would describe it as a service so I would not be surprised if we see a decent amount of DLC.

It's obviously not all bad.

Outstanding visuals (PS4 Pro w/ 4K OLED HDR TV here), a definite improvement in sound over previous games but still not quite as detailed and impactful as stuff like Project Cars 2, Assetto Corsa, iRacing, etc. Unique and varied soundtrack, just the way GT always delivers it. The "Home" screen makes for an amazing TV screensaver. Control and handling feels pretty good to me using a Logitech G29 but there is no clutch pedal support? Not sure if that is correct yet. Finally having a livery editor is nice as I dabbled with it a little in older Forza games. Driver AI has had a pretty significant improvement I'd say as they don't seem to just drive on rails now and in some of the special races I did in the demo (30-lap endurance), I was battling against the computer pretty cleanly. Of course, if you yourself drive like an idiot, then the AI doesn't know how to cope with that. Drive like it was real life, as clean as possible before attempting the best position, and things should go smoothly.

On top of all this, probably the most important factor for GT Sport, is that it seems like the online racing is actually pretty good in terms of latency and such. I did one race and it was near wheel-to-wheel between the top 4 of us (with lowest multiplayer driver ratings even), and the only clear mistake I saw was me braking late and taping the guy in front, causing me to lose 2nd place. So if you're one of those people who only cares about close, adrenaline fueled, online racing with other people than this is probably the Gran Turismo for you.

So, in summary, GT Sport is probably going to be amazing for a certain demographic of sim-ish racers. I, on the other hand, am sorely missing the massive and primarily classic car assortment that made GT famous to begin with.

Edit: Oh yea and the intro video was kinda okay. But no Moon Over the Castle so.. I don't wtf they are smoking.

I feel like this game is going to be a massive disappointment to a lot of people just because it feels like the messaging about what it is has failed to penetrate to the mainstream audience that GT has typically appealed to. I've enjoyed the 2 or so hours I've put into it so far but I play a lot of racing sims on the consoles and am perfectly happy running quick races against the AI which won't appeal to everyone.

I actually appreciate what they've done with a variety of new fantasy tracks as it's a nice departure from what is available elsewhere. Again as someone who plays all of the driving sims I can get my fix of the real world tracks in Project Cars 2 or Assetto Corsa but that won't appeal to the masses.

Just got the game, put it in my ps4, am staring at the download right now aaaaaaaaaand....46 hours left..... pfffff jesus christ.

Funny how hearing the description for GT:S makes me want to spring for Forza 7 now.

@ripelivejam: That seems more fair than funny to me. :p

I understand forza 7 has lootboxes, but GT:S seems much more barebones overall.

I knew it leaned heavily into the FIA stuff but didn't quite expect something to this degree. It really is an FIA product with Gran Turismo branding. It would be nice to see it catch on as a service but it's not a very solid start.

After a few more hours, I'm really disappointed with this game.

It honestly feels like half the game is just missing, and it's mostly the stuff I liked, car upgrades and tuning, you can still collect some cars, but I can't figure out what this point of it is if you can't race them.

What is the point of your garage?

The license tests are not nearly as useful or indepth as in past games, and holy cow the load times, 30+ second wait between 15 second tests.

The only thing this game has is online racing and I it seems like you need a racing wheel to be competitive and that's not something I'm interested in.

The livery editor is not to the standard of Forza, anyone know if you can mirror your design from one side of the car to the other?

My only solace is that GT5 wasn't very good when it came out but they kept working on it and it was pretty great after a year.

Feels like they should've allowed you to push up against the sportsmanship elements in driving lessons. At least to surface the limits of it. Also, you can't let the AI enforce that. It's why most serious e-sports racing leagues have physical people act as race directors to review incidents.

Ugh. This game seems be exactly as lackluster as it looked like it was shaping up to be. GT: Sport was originally intended to be a demo for GT7 in the vein of the "Prologue" crap they did for some of the others. Except the development took so long that they just decided to claim it's a full game and price it as such, and the content that's there seems to unsurprisingly be not much beyond a demo or side modes in an actual game. The random Encarta shit, brand bombardment, et al. might be oddly endearing if it were a quirky part of a full-fledged game, but instead it just feels like off-putting fluff. Sorry you can't race right now, but here's the equivalent of a wiki/Special:Random page instead!

The design choices here are mind-boggling. Races only available at predetermined times? A nanny that decides the results based on if your racing adhered to their "sportsmanship" standards using arbitrary, flawed, and obfuscated criteria? Upcoming event two weeks away instead of at launch? What of this sounds remotely fun or engaging? It's like you have to really love license tests and obsess about shaving .008 off of your best time on this one curve to even have enough game to fill the downtime. Although, I suppose you could get way into 'scapes, bro. Except even that feels half-assed. I typically love photo modes, but for the reason of capturing some mid-race moment or to drive out to your favorite part of the environment, whereas 'scapes here is basically putting a sticker of a car on top of a stock photo. Yee.

That "We thank you for your understanding" message is unintentionally perfect. An apology to the fans of this once-great series is warranted. I like sim racing. Hell, I like actual racing. This, though...it's so goddamned rigid, detached, and robotic. YOU WILL RACE THIS CAR ON THIS SECTION OF THIS TRACK IN THIS WAY AT THIS TIME ON THIS DATE; COMMENCE FUN. What kind of shit is that? What are the sheer fucking odds of all of that fitting what a bunch of unique players actually want to do? Maybe there's one dude out there going, "Fuck yeah, how did they know I wanted to try to optimize the way I take Turn 2 of Suzuka down to the thousandths of a second in a Viper at precisely 7:30 CST tomorrow? Awesome!" The rest of us would probably appreciate a bit more player agency.

It's like the whole game is a training mode for a different game that doesn't exist. The racing isn't even racing. I can appreciate what they're trying to do with the "sportsmanship" stuff to keep it from being the typical bumper car anarchy of online racing, but it sure as hell doesn't look like they hit the mark there. With how batshit crazy seriously it seems like they expect people to take this game, they probably would have been better served just making everyone permanently ghosts and have the whole game just be a time trial. Instead, it seems like the sportsmanship nanny is your actual opponent as you have to constantly guess at what will displease it the least among a sea of wildly unpredictable random drivers online who unpredictably phase in and out of existence and can ruin your race at any given moment no matter how perfectly you drive.

Deriving fun from this game seems like an utterly daunting task. I'm genuinely trying to appreciate it on a surface level in a "how the hell is this a thing" sort of way, but find myself struggling to accomplish even that. The actual driving seems 100% fine and the cars look nice, so it's not like there's nothing here. It's just delivered in bite-sized chunks while you're left wanting a meal, and your only other option to not be starved of fun is apparently to show up at the trough at feeding time and hope no one bumps you out the way, which may well be deemed your fault. This is an insane product that feels dropped out of some dystopian future where you race to impress the sportsmanship overlords in events held at a time, place, and in a manner of their choosing.

This post sponsored by Tag Heuer. Also, Australian recording artist Jack Vidgen released his second studio album, Inspire, on April 27, 2012.

Let me start by saying I haven’t played a GT since 3. I really didn’t know much about this installment, but I thought it might be a good time to revisit given some of the positive reviews it’s been getting.

I was wrong.

First, the good. It’s a nice clean presentation. The cars look really good and the environments look alright. The racing feels pretty solid. It has an aesthetic simplicity that I kinda admire. The UI is alright, BUUUUUT...

The UX is straight garbage. Everything is buried in very separate menus/systems. The entire product is so granular and disjointed. Even the main menu is a disaster. I like the idea of the driving school, until you realize the campaign is basically bland time trials. Modding is non existent and it feels like they forgot about letting you paint cars until the final hour of production. Don’t even get me started on “Scapes.” Someone should get fired for wasting money on its development.

It’s so devoid of life and personality, I’m really surprised certain reviewers only real gripe is that they want even more of what little the game offers.

Luckily I didn’t pay anywhere near full price for the product.

should have been delayed

@adamfedoruk: Wait, wasn't that GT5? I still remember it fondly and I'm certain its GT5 and got GT4, which had a more "cars racing at good looking place" kind of opening. GT5 had the weird piano intro where the car gets made and assembled however.

Might be time for a follow up post. Feel like I have a lot to say about this game.. but I'm spewing it into the aether lol Though I was seeing some good discussion in the QL comments.

Progress update: 77% campaign completion, Level 22, 425 miles driven.

Hmm. It's hard for me to nail down exactly how I feel about GT Sport. I find myself bouncing back and forth between two perspectives:

1. Comparing it to racing games in general. I'm the old school GT player. I've played them all from the beginning. I prefer single-player experiences.

From this end of the spectrum, it falls short. A lot of this I already mentioned in my previous post. The car and track selection is thin. The campaign isn't laid out quite the way I like. Obviously, it still isn't a full-on racing sim like the stuff you can get on PC, but at the same time I don't know if that is what I want from Gran Turismo. But there is still the whole.. ambiance of GT that I love. Others call it pretentious I guess lol The style of GT is a whole other discussion. You either like it or you don't it seems. I've had the game running every day, all day since it's release just for the music and images while I do whatever I'm doing on the PC.

2. Comparing it to iRacing. This is its target market. They pitched this as an E-Sports platform from the beginning. GT Sport was built for the organized, online racing community. Not to mention, everything is sadly moving to a "service", post-purchase transaction design.

Looking at it from this end, I think they've done a pretty good job and it has a ton of potential if they offer a lot of DLC. The only thing iRacing has over this, IMO, is the track count. iRacing has a huge course list and I believe they are all real. Not only is iRacing better than GT Sport in this category, it's better than any racing game ever probably. They even have my local race track, New Jersey Motorsports Park, which I have raced a number of times in real life over the last decade. There are so many great race tracks out there but most racing games don't touch them. The other department is car selection and that could go either way depending on what you're into. iRacing has a good variety of cars but it's all race cars and it feels sort of dull. I mentioned it before but the interface is another example where GT Sport absolutely crushes iRacing, where you might as well be firing up some old Microsoft Office program to get some work done. It's all business, it's ugly, and it's lifeless. iRacing is also crazy expensive if you want to fill out your content selection. You can easily spends hundreds (if not thousands at this point?) of dollars buying cars and tracks. If GT Sport can start offering content at a more cost effective level, this will be another huge selling point. Graphically, iRacing is definitely dated at this point. Even at its' initial release it wasn't on the level of the latest GT game.

So that's the general gist of it. If you're someone who enjoys competitive online racing, then you don't have many solid options out there and GT Sport offers it at a much more streamlined, mainstream level with AAA production values. Of course we have yet to see if the actual big official international events go smoothly and make sense.

To bring this back down to a more personal, more subjective discussion, I already mentioned my current progress above. I got all Golds in the Driving Lessons and Circuit Experiences. For the most part they were all pretty easy and boring. I chalked this up to it all being solo stuff so whatever. I started dipping into the Mission Challenges and having to repeat some stuff I already did in the open beta/demo. This is where they do indeed introduce a little but of the single player race structure I enjoyed from the previous games. Also some mini-game-esque stuff. After a small amount of this and getting bored I decided to switch it up..

I took the dip into Sport Mode. I only did one race in the demo as I'm not much for online stuff. So I've done a few races over the past day and, in general, I'm still impressed. My first run I didn't have enough time to squeeze in a qualifying lap so it tossed me in 16th place. I figured it was going to be a destruction derby but luckily, the ghosting stuff did it's job and all the other people who were screwing up were kept out of my way. It was interesting seeing what looked like the driver/connection quality increase as I progressed through the grid. By the time I was in 5th, the driver in front wasn't all over the place and was just a little slower. I was patient, waited for him to make a mistake, and made a clean pass. I finished up in 4th (the top 3 were half a track length away) and I had fun. Even got the Clean Racing bonus. The rest of my races were less eventful. I had set a qualifying time and that was putting me in pole position. I just had to focus on driving smooth and cleanly which got me 1st on both of those. Was still a good experience. Keep in mind, my driver/safety rating is still at rock bottom for now so I need to keep racing to bump me up to more evenly matched players.

Another layer of this is the Livery Editor. So I won a couple races and I really like the pre-race grid cam. I figured I want my car to look cool and unique so it seemed worth my time to try and make my own paint job. I'm no art editing expert, I know nothing, but I have spent a little in some of the older Forza games and was even contacted via Xbox Live by one of the real race drivers for a replica paint job I did saying how impressed they were. Regardless, I spent maybe 4-6 hours working on this livery for the Group 4 (the category I most/only enjoy) Mustang. Also color coordinated my driver/pit crew suit/helmet to match. While it is nice to have a livery editor after so many entries in the series, unlike Forza which has had many iterations to improve their editor, GT Sport's is still at it's baby stage. There are some missing features that are just baffling, such as layer grouping/merging. It makes it a pain in the ass to do anything more complex and anyone who uses this editor would know that if they had used it for 10 mins, which makes it a mystery that someone in the art department of Polyphony didn't point this out. There is clearly room for improvement and hopefully we'll see it through patches. I have not experimented with the decal import/.svg system yet but I don't think it is active yet as they are trying to lighten server loads and roll stuff out gradually.

Now, having said all that, I then go for another Sport Mode Group 4 race and.. I can't pick my livery? Um.. okay. I'm not 100% clear on whether or not this can be done yet. I've sought answers elsewhere on the internet though and received partial answers. I'll tell you what though; if you can't use custom liveries in the big main mode of this game.. the one where you're showing off and competing against other people and want to take pride in that, and in one way use a unique paint job to distinguish yourself from the herd.. Then Polyphony is smoking some damn good crack. Maybe it's only for these more meaningless races? I don't know. I'm going to assume there is some obvious piece I'm missing here.

That's where I'm at. I fell off the Mission Challenges part somewhere quickly. I keep forgetting about it. This game is about online racing and I feel myself focusing more on that because of it? Like it's making me care more about online racing? Maybe because I've won the few races I've done and that feels good.. Compared to when I play other online genres and I just die instantly and it's no fun. I don't know, but I don't think I'll be absorbed into GT Sport over some prolonged period of time. Games like that only come along like once every 5 years for me. But I am intrigued enough that I might at least try to raise my rank a level and see if the racing noticeably improves or try out that first official race series. Who knows.

Edit: An Addendum

I'm sure you can't get enough of this great wall of text. So I've got more!

I did another race after typing this up and noticed it had bumped me up from "E" to "D" driver rank. First thing I saw was the qualifying times of my fellow drivers: Top 10 all within a couple seconds of each other. I also wasn't in pole position again. This immediately told me these people were comparable to my skill level.

The Giant Bomb guys (and various other viewers around the site) talk about this competitive racing like it's some ephemeral thing reserved for the elite. I wanted to clip this video to show as an example of a regular online race. This is the sort of close driving that is very difficult for online services to handle. I can only assume it requires some pretty high end server structure or net code or whatever. I've wondered if the staggered online race times, shuffling one group of (thousands, 10s of thousands, who knows) on and off the server, as a way of letting them run some solid server hardware but still keep costs down.

Another feature on display here is the ghosting system. I felt like this was a pretty good example of how the system is intended to function, and how it seems to work when you are in a proper race, and not a demolition derby of people running all over the place in the lower brackets. For the most part it prevented the stragglers from interfering, intentionally or unintentionally, in the rest of the race. Which brings up another thought I had: Are devious or spiteful racers going to try and hang back on the grid so they let the leaders catch up and then mess up their race? Perhaps two friends could secretly work together.. although, admittedly, I'm not sure there is an easy way to get friends together into a single GT Sport race/lobby.

Finally, a small feature that they need to have (or maybe it's already in) is a Blue Flag. For those unfamiliar with racing or other track events, the Blue (yellow stripe) Flag is usually waved at racers when there are faster or lead cars approaching from the rear. This is to signal to you to move out of their way as soon as is safely possible. You can see from the result of this race the sort of impact lap traffic can have on races. What happened there is not uncommon in real racing. I kinda felt bad as it seemed a little unfair. Still, I noticed post race that the 2nd/3rd place Mercedes was actually pretty close behind and ready to pounce. Had it been a lap longer, I might have lost the lead.

@seikenfreak: Great race. That person that finished in second must've been livid that the backmarkers gave you the opening for that last chance pass.