Gran Turismo 3 had to be one of the most hyped PlayStation 2-exclusive releases in its early days. I never got into it at first, until I bought the game for $20, which is usually a harmless buy, as even a mediocre game justifies the purchase. It is a racing game, and it is supposed to be one of the most realistic racing games ever. Is it really? Yes and no. Read on to find out why.
Surprise, surprise, this is another Review on that 0-4 star scale, which, amazingly, is still intact for two years of my Reviews. 0 is very poor, 2 is mediocre, 4 is excellent... you know it by now.
Graphics: ****
Gran Turismo 3 may very well have the best graphics of any game I've ever played, and yes, I have played the Xbox's Halo. Shadows cast on the ground by trees are extremely realistic, and the sun might be the most amazing of all in this game. The sun's reflections are so real, this game will seriously look like you're actually there, not just playing a game. The cars look as real as ever, and certainly all the surroundings look fine (not like in other racing games, where the cars and road look great, but the surroundings look horrible). This is clearly one of the best-looking games ever, and you can fight it out between this game, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Halo, and the EA Sports football games all you want for which one looks the best.
Sound: 1/2
The soundtrack to this game isn't mediocre. It's just plain awful. I can't stand the music in it. The only good sounds are probably the menu music and the sound effects of the cars, but they are hardly enough to make up for the terrible music you'll hear during races. (I can't remember whether it can be turned off or not... but if not, mute your television, or turn the volume down to nothing.)
Difficulty: ***1/2
So many games have ended up falling in this category. Not many can actually end up with an adequate difficulty level that will let it be enjoyable, and this one falls apart right here. Reminiscent of both NASCAR Thunder 2003 and Ridge Racer 64, GT3 makes the computer cars very fast on hard tracks, and it also makes them conquer turns perfectly so they don't crash (while if you crash once, say goodbye to first place). True, on ovals you should cream the computer. The bad thing? There aren't too many ovals in this game, maybe only one or two. The mountainous tracks with lots of curves may look really good, but once the computers pass you, there's no passing them again. At least in NASCAR, you could slam into one and knock them back in the pack while you go by. Not in this game, where crashing into a computer will not slow them down much. That's the one way of getting around one, and while you may pass that one, you'll get passed at the same time.
There is a way of beating your opponents,
in reality, but it's very reminiscent of the Pokémon games (and
I'm talking about the slow parts of the Pokémon games, not the good
parts). At the beginning of the game, you
have to buy a car, but it has to be
a cheap one which is usually pathetic and can't win many races. You can
win easy races, or come in second or
third in others, in order to earn credits to buy more cars, but you won't
win many credits. It's almost like trying to level up a Pokémon
to Level 50 while you're battling only Level 2 Pokémon. I'd have
to spend a week (a real week, not seven "days" in this game) just beating
the same easy race over and over again so I can get a slightly better car,
but even then I'll have to then do the same process over and over again.
It's not really worth it.
How about a game that starts out easy, then gets slowly harder? Why have a game that has one easy race and the rest of them hard? That would make GT3 potentially a very good game, but this is not the case, so unless you want to spend tons of time beating early races over and over again, this game isn't for you.
Controls: **
The controls are simple for the most part, with something I do like... the harder you press down the X button, the faster you go. It gives you the feeling of slamming on the gas pedal. This may be fun on straightaways (though it sure hurts your thumb), but it doesn't exactly help when turning, where this game has some trouble with the controls. If you even touch the left analog stick, your car will turn, and it's extremely hard to figure out exactly how much to push the stick to make the turn correctly. Maybe this would be better if I had a steering wheel, would maybe would also help in NASCAR, but I never thought a steering wheel was necessary in F-Zero X or Mario Kart 64 (two of my favorite games ever).
Turning: no stars
Turning in this game is just plain awful. It's very hard to control your car around turns, as I just mentioned. What's worse is that the computer cars make turns perfectly, and while I try to follow their "footsteps", I can't, because the car won't turn the same way theirs' do. You'll usually end up crashing into the wall, or slowly crawling around the turn by pounding on the brake. Unfortunately, in order to offset these problems you'll need to get a new car (which, as I mentioned above, would take an extremely long time. Since you have to win races in order to get new cars, but you can't win the races because the turning is so bad, you end up with a vicious circle of losing. That's quite annoying.
Realism: *
There is a difference between realistic-looking graphics and actual realism. This game may have a lot of realistic images, like the sunlight and the shadows. However, these cars will crash into walls at speeds of over 100 mph, and they don't even get a scratch? Surely if NASCAR could handle crashes, this much better-looking game could as well. It is a shame the crashes were not real, because it could make this game the most realistic racing game ever. Instead, the lack of real crashes makes this game not as real as I thought it would be.
Tracks: **
The tracks in this game are not bad. In fact, most are not boring, but due to the hard turning it is hard to win on the more exciting tracks. Unfortunately, the game is basically ruined by the turning or these tracks, which even include mountainous climbs, would be really great to race on. Instead, they turn out just to be pretty pictures while going through the mess that is this game's turning.
Simulation Mode: *
Simulation Mode is the heart and soul
of this game, and unfortunately that means that this game turns out not
that good. Simulation Mode requires you to buy a car with the precious
few credits you have (it's not one that is very good at racing, as I ended
up with a PT Cruiser), then race through tracks and try to earn credits
by finishing 3rd or higher. Unfortunately, only the first track is easy.
After that, even the second track of the
game is the beginning of this game's
difficulty, and by the fourth track, I couldn't even finish in 5th out
of 6, as I was relegated to a last-place finish. You don't earn many credits
in the early races, but the later races are too hard to win with a pathetic
car. What then can you do? Either spend tons of time beating the first
race over and over again, or spend tons of time on the fourth and following
tracks losing over and over again. Even once you get a better car, it's
probably still not going to be one of the Class S cars that can breeze
through these tracks. You'll probably still be nailing walls on turns,
then watching your computer opponents breeze by you as you try to get back
into the race after a crash. It's a pain, and this game needed to
take after Super Mario 64 and use progressively harder difficulty, where
the game starts out easy but the more you learn the harder it gets. This
mode could have been superb and been one of the best ever, but the difficulty
level and the turning ruined it. It's a shame. I'm not trying to bash this
mode, only to lament what could have been.
Arcade Mode: ***
Arcade Mode is a lot better than Simulation
Mode for one big reason: you can choose from tons of cars,
instead of being limited to one pathetic
car. Arcade Mode lets you go through one-player races or two-player races.
The two-player races are probably the most fun, and I have to say that
even with the hard turning, the faster cars and the fact that you're not
up against computers makes these races a lot more fun. Arcade Mode is what
I expected from GT3, and if Simulation Mode was more like this, I would
have enjoyed it. Arcade Mode still doesn't take away the awful turning,
however, but at least you'll have better cars to use in your races.
Replayability: *
This game is worth playing again perhaps
only for the two-player races, which are pretty fun (though nothing
compared to a three- or four-player
race in F-Zero X or Mario Kart 64). I really don't feel like playing
Simulation Mode anymore, as all I would
do is beat that first race over and over again in order to gain
credits. That's pretty boring, in my
mind, and not worth playing over again.
Fun Factor!: *
I can't exactly say this game is fun in anything except two-player races. Even then, this game lacks the excitement of most fun racing games, and it doesn't have any type of alternative way of having fun like NASCAR did (turning the race into a demolition derby). Unfortunately, I'd have to say this game's pretty boring.
OVERALL: *
It's a shame that the turning couldn't
have been improved in this game, or the computers made a little
easier to beat. If so, this game could
have been really great. However, I feel that this game did not live up
to all the hype that was given to it by all the Sony fans (sounds very
similar to stuff I've heard from Nintendo fans on some other games), and
it turns out to be a less-than-average racer with extraordinary graphics.
Since I've never been one to give a game good ratings because of good graphics,
I can't say much good about this game's actual gameplay, and I can't recommend
it. For $20, it wasn't that bad of a buy, but I feel it's more of renting
quality, even at a low price.
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