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Playing Gran Turismo 7 on a stock (non-Pro, non-HD-upgraded) PS4, while it is still downloading--so you're stuck playing this beat attack "Music Rally" minigame thingy with three tracks in which to run a little music race with time+ checkpoints.
The first of the Music Rally tracks, "Hooked on Classics 1&2," hit a copyright claim on YouTube, so I had to mute it. (Probably for the best, actually; that track is just terrible. ; P I tried YouTube's "beta" muting of just the music, but it had eh mixed success you could say.) Amateur stuff there, Digital Polyphony! Come on!
Ah-yep I'm the dope who didn't realize "2K" meant 1080p. : P Also I somehow didn't quite figure out that the minigame timer was the length of the music track itself, you know, that big red meter filling up at the top of the screen. = P
44:08 - I know Idris Elba has an English accent, I thought at first this singing voice had an almost South African accent or something though, I dunno, I'm an uncultured idiot
According to Wikipedia, the song for the third track, "SURV1V3," is from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue; composed by Japanese video game--mostly GT series it looks like, back to GT3--composer Daiki Kasho, with "vocals by Jonathan Underdown from fade, lyrics by ayesha cole."
That second song, "VROOM," with Idris Elba singing was made for Gran Turismo 7; the official video on PlayStation's account is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quMjSrxpgQY , where you can see the magnificent Elba lounging it up on the hood of a muscle car thing pumping out colorful smoke. Idris isn't that bad for the environ-ment?? Anyway that song was nice and chill to race to, a real break from the audio horrors of the other two tracks, sheesh!
Oh right, 5 Prologue was the cut-down preview version of GT 5--December 2007, and 5 full didn't appear until Nov 2010!
That free download game on PS3 was Gran Turismo HD Concept (Dec 2006); GTHD full was canceled and became Prologue instead.
The second track, the Tokyo Expressway one, looks a lot nicer in 7 vs GT Sport--so much more detail in the lighting alone! Load times seem slightly faster than Sport, at least here in this weird minigame, which is all I've been able to play so far because my internet is slow. ":P From this little glimpse it seems basically like a nicely overhauled upgrade of Sport, which isn't a terrible thing.
And they fixed Sport's dropout-plagued rear-view mirrors!
The driving--I use motion control here, like I did in Sport--is at least as smooth as in Sport, maybe felt a hair sharper, too. I looked up reviews on GTPlanet and they had a similar and of course much more detailed impression--they said handling of oversteer, understeer, and traction control saw some improvement, primarily, whatever that all means.
Hm flipping through the video, the color also looks sharper in 7.
My driving was heinous but it isn't the motion control's fault! |
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| | | Bad first impressions and I have a bit of a meltdown over not being able to skip the long, self-indulgent opening credits--and various other aged choices:
By the end of all this hoop-jumping, quasi-RPGing, and UI long-roading, I finally had one car that almost felt like it was racing once in a while. But I'm gonna have to keep trudging through the unlocking of stuff for quite some time here, aren't I?
I could still swear Sport made me wade through less of all this; I suppose the mantra for 7 was more more more...and anyway some of that would also be rose-tinted glasses, I'm sure--did that five years ago, now.
Good thing I ended up turning off all the music because even some of the options menu music spawned a copyright claim. Lame job there, Digital Polyphony. Real lame. |
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| | | Played Gran Turismo 7 on PS4: the two dirt races of Menu Book 37, "World Rally Challenge," Menu Book 38, "Ferrari Circuit Challenge," and Menu Book 39, "World GT Series Championship," the final five-race marathon you have to do in a single sitting--like all the multi-race "Championship" events--because why change things when they've been working since the PS1 era or whenever, no matter how needlessly inconvenient they are.
Racing on easy handling and AI settings because I got sick of them bumping me into spins while they never spin out (they're on easy handling settings themselves, in effect) when I was on Expert handling settings, and I really just want to get through this required unlocking nonsense so I can run the races I want to race!!
I HAD TO CUT 3 MINUTES @ 59:26 'cause the game played copyright-claimed song "Baby It's You" by London Grammar despite the new-post-launch Sound Volume: Broadcast Mode option being set to the supposedly streamer-safe "On" setting! ARGHHHHHHHH GUESS I'LL JUST TURN ALL THE MUSIC OFF AGAIN, THANKS KAZUNORI.
0:00 - Ford Focus Gr.B Rally Car
1:40 - World Rally Challenge - Fishermans Ranch
10:57 - World Rally Challenge - Sardegna - Windmills
26:58 - Ferrari 458 Italia '09
34:12 - Ferrari Circuit Challenge - Lago Maggiore - Full Course
1:00:20 - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 '13
1:03:50 - World GT Series Race 1 - Deep Forest
1:16:46 - World GT Series Race 2 - Spa
1:31:02 - World GT Series Race 3 - Sarthe
1:45:45 - World GT Series Race 4 - Mt. Panorama
1:59:45 - World GT Series Race 5 - Nürburgring 24h
2:18:51 - prizes, credits, congrats, etc
2:27:25 - Legend Cars - Nissan GT-R GT500 '99
2:37:01 - R32 GT-R Time Trial @ Dragon Trail - Seaside
2:50:51 - wrap-up & what's next!
So now I can finally play the game I wanted, cool cars on cool tracks, chilling running time trials. Finally. And with the dumb AI out of the way I can put handling back on expert settings and remove the HUD and just drive.
There was some weird fog at Spa around 1:25:06!
Other nice stuff:
- The Ferrari 458 Italia '09 is so smooth! Like, godlike smooth! And all I did was put racing soft tires on it; there's still all the upgrading to do! Will be interesting to see how the fully upgraded street version compares with the Gr.3 version, the GT3 '13.
- At least they didn't really make it rain in the last races. There was like a minute of rain in one of them.
- With an actual rally car I guess, and, well, on baby handling settings, the dirt track races weren't AWFUL. I mean it's this weird weightless skating over clouds feeling, but once you get past the AI you can almost kind of bliss out on it a little. Strange.
On the other hand, problems:
- May still be hosed by music copyright claims on YouTube even with the setting they added that's supposed to protect you from that. URGH. You guys already went through this in Sport and you have now somehow repeatedly screwed it up in the sequel, how can you possibly be this bad at it??? So no menu music for me. Of course, a lot of it was really bad, anyway.
- Was surprised you can't just set any time of day settings (time, speed) you want in Time Trial. I mean, why not? Sheesh.
- Still no Time Trial leaderboards. Pretty sure they had these in Sport, at least for friends. I think they said they had plans to add them at some point... Sheesh.
- Can't sell cars. YOU CAN'T SELL CARS. You could fill your inventory up with a billion cheap used cars and be unable to unload them because they apparently didn't think it would be a feature anyone would ever need this time. So I'm stuck with a stupid duplicate car I accidentally bought until they feel like putting in this basic function.. They even said they would in the past month or so. Well that would sure be nice.
- In a single-player multi-race "Championship" event, there's no saving between races--you have to play through them all in a single sitting (or just leave your game suspended, I suppose...). This is just plain stupid, unnecessary, and inconsiderate. It's 2022, get a clue hosers.
I mean I don't want to be rude, but really.
Anyway the game actually drives pretty nice, so when you've got all the needlessly complicated, poorly information presenting UI out of the way, and aren't having to "play" through some sort of horrid arbitrary bumper cars with the AI in the rain or something, it can be fun. They just make you suffer through however many hours of horror quests from the cafe before they'll let you do that. Because they hate us. |
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| | | | (Thanks Sakurina for pointing this out!) If you go to Change Car or whatever, then on the car list press Triangle on a car that is NOT YOUR CURRENTLY SELECTED CAR (urgh), the little menu that comes up has a "Dispose" option, and when you select that there's a confirmation menu that says something like "Are you sure you want to dispose of this car?" I don't intend to grind (in 7 at least you get a uh lottery ticket or whatever they're called from just driving the 27 miles or whatever in a day which means you can actually earn money--just extremely slowly--by doing nothing but Time Trials, which is what I want to do; couldn't get any money from them in Sport!) so I'll need all the $ I can get so I guess I'll try holding out to see if a Sell option comes along for this one accidental duplicate car I have so far. Good to know that's there though, at least! |
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| | | | ^ That's in the "Garage." |
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| | | | (The other option on that pop-up Triangle menu is “Favorite” which is good to know is there was well, I was afraid I’d have to go back to my dumb Sport method–that game probably had Favorite too and I missed it there as well? ‘p’–of painting the cars I didn’t like a dark grey to blend in with the menu background. ; }) |
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| | | | Checked and Sport does NOT have Favorite capability, wow; yeah, that sucked, I guess GT7 rules. |
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| | | | I've found that all I really want is to drive around city tracks at night; R4 (see entry 1452) has more of that, great music (meanwhile my existing videos of GT7 continue to accumulate copyright strikes for their menu music etc), a greater sense of speed, and AI that's actually a bit fun to race against. |
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Back to check on Gran Turismo 7 on PS4 after almost a year away, mostly to see if there's any new cool city track or something. Not that I could see. I tried a number of tracks on which I didn't have a cup--definitely that coastal one was new to me, not so sure about the others, dunno how many I'm confusing with their incarnations in earlier GT games.
Selling, buying... Got a Gr.1 but still can't find any tracks I want to drive repeatedly. |
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Maybe finally found my groove in Gran Turismo 7: Time Trial runs pitting the Porsche 919 Hybrid (Gr.1 car) vs the Dallara SF19 ("Super Formula," Japan's take on F1*, but where the cars are all made from the same parts--so for instance all teams used the Dallara SF19 chassis until the series switched to the Dallara SF23 in 2023); I'd thought the SF car would take it easily but the 919 pushes it pretty hard! And they're both real fun to drive. : )
Also tried the BAC Mono and Ferrari FXX K '14 in there at first and they're both real fast--especially the FXX--but their handling isn't in the same league, and I couldn't keep them competitive. (And the Mono's cockpit puts a pulsing red RPM bar right in the center of my view, gahh. (Forza Horizon 4 (see entry 1608) version of the Mono doesn't have that (and also drives ridiculously well HM).))
With the 919 vs the SF19 though I'm having a ball driving on tracks I thought I had no interest in, this is great! = D
I thought I was done with GT7, having failed to find a way to enjoy it running time trials as I'd intended, but the loosey goosiness of Forza Horizon 4 made yearn for GT7's smooth minimalistic precision--and I thought hey wait, I never did try an F1 in GT7... Well, GT7 doesn't have an F1 exactly (it's got a fantasy 80s F1 homage in a Gran Turismo brand concept car), but it does have the Super Formula cars. They're only $1M each--which is relatively inexpensive for super high performance cars in the game; there's also I think it's a Honda race "menu" that gifts you the Honda, I think, but I'm a Toyota loyalist for some silly reason (I had a 2008 Camry ; D that I drove until I could no longer afford to maintain it and donated when I moved in 2018 =p), so I paid for the Toyota-engine version (the series' engines, either Toyota or Honda, are regulated to an identical 543 HP).
I've gone back to face buttons for gas and brake, this time following the TrackMania Nations Forever arrangement of [] for gas and X for brake--and shifting up/down with L2/R2. I'm now steering with the left analog instead of motion controls both because it's more standardized across the other racing games I'm playing (currently Trackmania, TMNF, and FH4), and it just felt easier to get to grips with when I came back to the game.
Since a magical all-nighter with Metropolis Street Racer (see entry 770) back in the day on Dreamcast I've thought that getting into the zone with a game's Time Trial mode would be the way for me to get into racing games; since that long-ago time I've never quite been able to recapture that feeling; I tried a few other Gran Turismo games too over the years but just didn't find a way to click with them after finishing the initial grind--but now with the SF19 and 919, I'm having a blast in Gran Turismo! = D
(* On Super Formula vs F1 etc, https://us.motorsport.com/general/news/how-fast-is-an-f1-car-compared-to-indycar-wec-super-formula-and-more/9599541/ has a massively in-depth comparison boiled down between a heck-ton of racing series, boiled down to a ranked table of comparative track speeds plus a single sentence explanation.
According to https://traxion.gg/gran-turismo-7-car-groups-explained/ , GT7's Group 1 ("Gr.1") is "modern-day LMP1 cars, Group C monsters and futuristic Vision prototypes." LMP1 was the top class of "Le Mans Prototype," the car type used in "24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mans_Prototype ). "The LMP1 category was retired at the end of the 2020 season, replaced by a new top class of the endurance racing: Hypercar" for which see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mans_Hypercar .)
(I checked F1 games and they're an EA annual franchise.) |
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| | | | The fully shopped SF19 might stand to benefit from tightening of its gear ratios: on the long straights and easy turns of Blue Moon Bay - Full Course, I was faster sticking at gear 5 than going up to 6 (top). |
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