GT must stand for Good Times. And that's what I have been having with this simulation. A Legend? Certainly.
GT Legends probably needs no introduction so I will refrain from being long winded with it. Simply put it’s racing Vintage 60’s and 70’s cars on Authentic Tracks from various locations around the world.
GAMEPLAY: The usual fare for a racing game.
There are Quick Race and Cup Challenge (quazi-career) modes. Quick Race will only let you drive tracks and cars you have earned or unlocked. Some might not like that but personally for me; it gives the game a purpose to keep racing. Cup Challenges are fun and come complete with practice laps, qualifying laps and then of course the actual race. The cars feel, sound and look fantastic. Yes I said Feel. For those lucky enough to own a decent Force Feedback Wheel and Pedals, you know what I am talking about here. The cars can be raced from all kinds of perspectives. Cockpit, Chase, Bumper and so on. Especially cool is being able to quickly adjust your SEAT so that you are closer to the Window and higher up if you want a better view of the track from inside the cockpit. The Cup Challenges require you to place in the top 3 of a given race to advance to the next track set and possible cars. There appear to be a lot of cars and tracks too. Even the starting car, the Austin Mini, is an absolute BLAST to drive and sprint with. For the truly hardcore you can mess with a lot of aspects of the car’s mechanical setups from track to track. Otherwise it works pretty well with the default setups.
GRAPHICS: Great
Not perfect in some places but very SOLID and believable! Closest to Photo-realistic I have ever seen if you can play it with things maxed out or even just at HIGH detail modes. Especially the cars! I play on an ATHLON 64 3200+ with a 7800GT video card and at 1280x960 with 4xAA I float between 50 and 85 fps depending on how many cars are near me. But pretty much always feels silky smooth even with large numbers of cars around.
SOUND: Fantastic
Best in a racing sim yet that I have seen. Even with just regular Stereo Speakers or headphones I am amazed. My favorite part about the sound is that I can dump my favorite MP3’s in the MUSIC folder and it plays them when I drive or watch Replays. Ahh… taking the inside of the turn from some schmuck while listening to some Nickelback or Breakin Benjamin is my idea of a relaxing drive! *Grin*
MISC:
The replays are incredibly well done and the best part is that it always records them for you and stores them for you to view later. But if you are driving and want to watch the last 60 seconds you just hit R. It’s almost as much fun watching your hot laps with your own music as it is to actually play the damn game.
FAULTS: Few if any.
- Somehow they forgot to add sounds from rubbing or touching other cars. While you can sure feel it in the Wheel and see it from the outside with sparks and all that, you do not hear the impact. This takes away from the realism a little. You should hear paint scraping or metal moaning. But this is minor.
- Damage is a little unforgiving. So you don’t drive with as much fear as you should.
- In qualifying I find the other drivers are stupidly fast. Meaning that how they drive in the actual RACE is not how they drove in the qualifier. How is it that out of 24 cars I only place 18th in qualifying (provided I had the best lap of my life) and then I win an 8 lap race with 15 seconds between me and the 2nd place driver? That needs to be changed.
- Does not have rain or other weather effects. But I never really wanted that anyway.
I completely recommend this game. Masterpiece!
C.