I purposely waited until I was over 50% complete in the game to write my review of it. Please check other reviews for rants and/or raves regarding graphics, sound accuracy, the terrible autosave "feature", etc - I just want to review the GT4 as a racing game. How much you enjoy this game is directly related to how much time you want to put into it, just like anything you chose to specialize in. Similiar to the SATs or a MCSE exam, you have to be intimately familiar with the course material and THEN be able to accurately apply it to the ever-changing variable that is the exam itself. Eventually, you will come to realize that you will not be racing against the CPU in this game. They're merely obstacles and moving variables in your memorization of how to drive any given track. The game will do it's best to scale your vehicle with competing vehicles in any given race, so you must memorize your vehicle's capabilities and tweak it accordingly to in turn reduce that CPU driver variable. Sure, you can ram into the other cars to gain a quick lead, or use an overpowered and highly tuned car to demolish the competition, but unless you carefully study the racing and physic-based fundamentals in the game you will be unable to complete more than half of the races. Regardless of the game's attention to real life accuracy (which is strong regardless), this is still a video game. You might have driven a 2005 Ford GT in real life, and GT4 will try its best to simulate those driving characteristics, but the bottom line is that you have to adapt to what GT4 offers you, for better or worse. The first half of the game is a great pick and up and play racing game. You'll be running tons of races in the A and B license categories, accumulating cash, sometimes doing tedious legwork to gain more cash to get that extra set of tires to ensure victory in the next race, and always on the lookout for rare cars in the used lots. But after that, you'll find all the remaining races that you haven't scored Gold in to be a serious challenge of your ability to both tune and drive the vehicle. Half of the game is really just a warm up to the stupendously difficult second 50% that GT4 has to offer. The second half of the game involves a tedious - and ultimately rewarding - memorization of every turn of every track, and knowing the full capabilities of your vehicle when you drive that track. This game has depth, and although the depth might limit the target audience - especially those who discard the difficulty and end up switching to another competing game. After you get past 50% in GT4, you just can't buy a car, tune it to max HP, and toss it in the next race, regardless if you've spent the time getting the high end Licenses. You have to literally first run the car through the single upcoming course many, many times, adjusting and perfecting each of probably 20 variables in the tuning process, such as spring rate, initial torque, camber angle... for both the front and rear of the car. Only then will you have a chance to defeat the course, let alone that added variable of CPU drivers which run the perfect racing line throughout the course in order to prevent you from always hitting first place. The usual GT4 complaints told elsewhere are also shared by myself. No online play is really a black eye, because after you memorize each turn you'll know exactly how the CPU is going to act, regardless of the race. Car physics can be quirky, and some of the cars just don't perform anywhere near what you'd expect them to. Ditto with some cars with certain tuning abilities - you'll do your best to decrease understeer in some cars and even with ridiculous amounts of tuning in extreme opposite directions there's little to no effect. Interface leave something to be desired, especially the awful auto-save. Every time you purchase a new car, it will autosave, and it cannot be shut off. The game is notorious for not providing you enough information about a race or the car itself, so often you'll find yourself wondering if the car you want to buy is even able to enter a given race. Then, you'll purchase it blindly because the game doesn't tell you what cars are considered "Spiders" or "Boxers". Or, you'll purchase a car far too weak or far too powerful for a race and due to the auto-save, simply be out the purchase price because you cannot recover the game unless you do some fancy 2 memory card backup and reset your PS2. Finally, some bugs abound, such as the Camaro LM Race Car being able to enter (and trounce) the Japanese Championship. "B-spec" mode is a way to eliminate the auto-save problem. Once you figure out the right combinations of cars to buy and races to run to maximize your profits without actually racing the course yourself, B-spec mode - and cash - becomes a non-issue (except for the extreme 12 hour plus endurance races). Having B-spec mode is simply a tedious way to gain unlimited funds, 10 minutes at a time, so you can purchase and tune whatever car you want for whatever race you want to actually play. While purists might complain about B-spec mode, it is a need to an end.
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