You need to play it to belive it.
User Rating: 9.6 | Gran Turismo 4 PS2
Gran Turismo 4 has the same type of game play as previous titles, but, to date, its been perfected. Like all Gran turismo titles, the game starts with a showcase of the game's graphics. This one is not different. Instead of the typical just racing movie, it shows the kind of behind the scenes view of a La Mans type race. With that done you get the first veiw of the game's racing action. The movie is one of the shorter ones from the series but that does'nt mean that its bad. The game's simulation mode menu has been re-designed for this attempt. With 3D icons, it gives the game menu a more spread out feel. The spread out menu makes it a little difficult to find things at first, but after about ten minuets or so you'll be able to find things just as easy as you would before. Along with that, there are a ton of new improvements in the new game. Tons of new courses, like New York for example, give you a lot more to do in arcade mode or in the license tests. New cars and manufacturers make the game a whole lot more in depth than the others. You get cars from the US to the Netherlands. Also, the return of classic cars and muscle cars make it more enjoyable for those oldies enthusiasts. But, you exotic car fans might be disappointed because there is no Ferrari or Lamborghini. The tuning aspects for the cars has been worked on a little bit. It now has the manufacturer tuning, as well as the tuner village. This has all of the tuning companies from Japan like HKS and SPOON. You can either buy parts for your cars or buy complete cars that the company made. The addition of cars from companies like Nike and Jay Leno's Monstro car make it interesting to see what they car companies are going to next. The arcade mode has new features added to it, also. At the menu for arcade mode, you can choose if you would like to play a single race, time trail, two player battle, or the new six player LAN race. It gives you the choice of World Circuits(real life tracks), Original circuits(tracks invented for the game), City courses(Tracks that run through real life cities), and dirt and snow tracks. After you chose which course you would like to go, you are bombarded with an encyclopedic choice of cars. With all the cars from every manufacturer, divided by country, in a list. You can either choose that way or by era. If that is the way you go, you're show a time line of automobiles that goes all the way back to 1886. If you see fit, when you're selecting the car you want to drive, you can choose to set it as a favourite car. If you do this, you just have to go to another section on the top of the screen to select a car from all of your favorites. The racing itself has been changed as well. With the addition of the B-spec racing, it makes it easier for people who don't really know the courses to still have a chance to win the race. The HUD has also been added to. Now it shows a G-force meter and, if you have it, the nitrous meter. The cars have improved AI as well. If you drive an aggressive race, the other cars will take an aggressive racing style against you. Again, this makes for a more realistic feel, like they have emotions. The photo mode is one of my favorite additions to the game. In the photo mode, you go to your choice of thirteen locations. You control everything in this mode. You put the camera where you want to, you put the car where you want to, you even control the camera settings. When you take the picture you can either save it to the memory card, to look at it later or put in a slide show with music, or print it out with your USP cable, if you have one. You can get extremely professional looking photos with this portion of the game, and I find it quite entertaining. With all the improvements in the game, you wouldn't expect less that perfect. This game is genre defining. I have a feeling this will be the new benchmark, even for the new consoles coming out soon. This gaming series was bred to be classic, and its gotten there. And Gran Turismo 4 is the new alpha male. 
