Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo was released mid 1998 for the Playstation and changed the world of racing video games forever! While franchises such as Need for Speed and Test Drive both thrived on the Playstation console, Gran Turismo took racing in a completely new direction boasting 140 cars (although I believe it was closer to 180), 11 different tracks and simulation beyond our wildest imagination! Before Gran Turismo, racing games offered only a handful of cars, most being licensed exotics or generic unlicensed cars, and set you off on a high speed and often times short race to beat the competition around a handful of tracks. Gran Turismo changed things up by giving the player more control and simulating a racing career more than short lived racing fantasies.
Gran Turismo offered two playing modes, Arcade and Simulation. Within Arcade you choose your vehicle and raced to unlock various other cars and tracks. The arcade mode also offered the 1967 Chevy Corvette which did not appear in the simulation mode, much to the chagrin of most players. However, with a Gameshark you can move the 67 Vette into Simulation mode but I believe there are no upgrades offered for it. Simulation mode spotted players 10,000 points to purchase a small vehicle and start out on a racing career. With your car you could race in small, individual races pitting you against some weaker AI so you could earn some extra money (or credits as the game calls it) to purchase upgrades or even more cars.
After the first couple of races you will notice that to further your career, you need to take license tests. License tests will test your racing ability with each license class (B, A and International). You are graded with trophies of either Bronze, Silver or Gold, pending you do well enough to earn them, otherwise you have to do the test all over again. If you manage to complete a license with all Gold trophies you will earn a special car that is unavailable in the show room. Some tests may take a little time to get the hang of but once you have earned all 3 licenses, you can race in anything you want.
Much like the license tests, races grade you with trophies as well, so finishing position isn’t a game over as with many other racing games, here you simply earn less credits and try again. Races will gradually become longer and harder throughout the course of your career, you could spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours on any given track, depending on the length of the series or if it is an endurance race. Prizes will become better as well, in some races, along with the standard amount of credits, you will unlock a special vehicle that you may or may not be able to purchase at the dealer. Some cars are quite useful and others are more useful as the credits they give you for selling them back to the dealer.
I think the most unique feature of Gran Turismo is that not only can you purchase new cars, but you can also select from an ever-changing list of used cars as well, from some dealers. Each dealer has it’s own speed shop that sells you the standard upgrades such as: turbos, shocks, weight reduction, transmission parts, aerodynamic kits and much more, to help boost your speed and keep your car on the track, instead of in the grass or the wall. Once you don’t need the car anymore, you can always take it back to the dealer to sell it if credits get tight, but be warned that if your car has been decked out with upgrades, you’re going to lose a substantial amount of money spent on those part.
I can remember spending countless hours making adjustments in Gran Turismo, the amount of adjusting and different reactions they give seems endless. One good thing is the fact the cars come pretty well adjusted after you upgrade them, so for someone who might not understand what each adjustment does can easily sit behind the wheel and race without too much difficulty. The graphics aren’t bad and the racing is fluid, but one minor drawback is the lack of crashing, if you hit anything you merely bounce off and right back on track without any damage. The difficulty is pretty good and it never feels over complicated, except in the licenses where it might get frustrating due to rules that you don’t need to abide by on the actual racing track. Overall Gran Turismo set forth a brand new era in racing and while some games have taken the template forward and built upon it, Gran Turismo still has it’s own unique aura that you just can’t quite duplicate.
Sam’s Scores: Box Score!
Welcome to a special edition of Sam’s Scores! This edition is going to be a little different, so let me jump right into the details and explain….
Back in January, I was on my normal thrift store hunt when I came across a box with quite a few items inside that peaked my interest. None of the items had price tags, so I decided to ask a store employee about them. The employee looked in the box and asked me if I wanted everything, short of some stray hangers and a few cassette tapes, the answer was yes! The employee looked at the box and shot me a price that I couldn’t turn down!
On the very top sat a Nintendo 64 and a Sony PSOne with it’s power supply. Inside the N64 was Mario Kart 64 and within the PSOne was Test Drive Off-road 3. Deeper in the box there were 3 more games for the N64 (Turok 2, Madden ’99 and San Francisco Rush), two different RF adapters (one for the N64 and a multiple adapter for Nintendo, Sony and Xbox), the power supply for the N64 and a PC controller. Sadly there were no controllers or other accessories for the systems within the box.
Everything inside the box needed cleaned but that doesn’t scare me as most thrift store finds do and I clean them all anyway. After some testing, the N64 works but the PSOne refuses to read discs. The PSOne might be an easy fix or maybe not, I will check further into it and possibly write an article about the fix. Even if the PSOne doesn’t work, I’m still happy to have gotten such a great score!
The Italian Job
The Italian Job, based on the 1969 film of the same name, was released in 2002 for the Playstation, nearly 2 years after the launch of it’s big brother the PS2. Playstation games by this point were often sold at bargain prices just to make room for the successor’s software. Many titles, such as this one, were released and received no promotional backing but were still remarkable titles. The game was published (in-part) by Rockstar Games, so you would expect great things and while some parts shine, other aspects fall flat on their face.
The Italian Job is a driving-based mission game much like the Driver series. In the game there are a number of different modes to play through, such as; timed races, destruction races, obstacle races and a free ride mode, but the story mode is where you might be spending most of your time. In the game you take on the role of Charlie Croker, a conman who was just released from prison but isn’t quite finished with his life of crime. He devises one final plan to steal $4 million in gold in Turin Italy and escape the wrath of the Italian Mob and police.
The story missions follow the movie quite well and for the most part it is very respectful in it’s recreation. Some parts are changed around a bit for challenge purposes and others possibly due to programming reasons, but all-in-all whether you’ve played the game or watched the movie first, you won’t have a hard time adapting to the other. Even though this was a late released for the system the graphics aren’t changed much, although they are a bit smoother than other Playstation games. Sometimes during gameplay the frame rate can get quite sluggish and due to that fact you will end up crashing into things. While each of the cars have different acceleration, handling is always pretty frustrating. Turning is highly based on your speed, the slower you’re going the harder it is to turn and if you hit something, your car will bounce around in an almost comical fashion. What turns this into frustration is the fact you’re almost always under pressure from the time limit.
In the free ride mode you get a chance to drive around in either London or Turin, in one of a few different vehicles which are unlocked during the story mode. The cities are quite expansive and there are many things to see and do within free ride, but watch out for the polizia! In both cities the police are present and will chase you down if you are caught speeding, which seems to be the only crime they don’t tolerate. The police will read your license plate, which will appear on the lower left of the screen, and once they know it completely it’s game over. You can however evade them and continue on your way, which will slowly take letters away and the police will give up.
With the story mode being cut up into 24 missions, The Italian Job will keep you busy for quite some time. Even after completing the story mode there is still so much left to complete with the other challenges and free ride mode, you may not put this game down for a while! I often find myself replaying certain story missions over and over because they were so much fun the first time around. For a game that was released well beyond the normal life span of it’s system, The Italian Job is a very underrated game in most respects. Exceptionally long load times and handling issues aside, The Italian Job was worth far more than it’s bargain price! Prior to picking up this game I knew nothing of the movie, I know own and enjoy them both!
