gran turismo sport is my intro into a genre i have never touched before, sim racers, sure i've played a lot of arcadey racers, ridge racer type 4 is one of my fav games, tokyo xtreme racer is another fav and i love burnout as well, but i'd never delved into full blown sim racers, games that try and be accurate representations of cars, driving them and of car culture. i figured it was a good time to try this when i saw that this game, which is mostly an online only affair was shutting down this january and so i went and bought a copy to see if this new genre could appeal to me in the same way i had done for call of duty and wrestling games, but i'm sad to report that despite this game having a lot to love in it, i just don't get the appeal of this style of game at all and i don't know if i'll play another game in this genre after this, but i would like to be positive first and talk about all the things here i love.

the games menus first off are just beautiful, it's sleek and stylish and it just feels so money, like, despite being a ps4 game it *feels* like a menu you would see on early ps3, big money with slim fonts and gradiants, it feels classy and rich and they're a lot of fun to explore, there's stuff to do here too even outside racing, you can examine every car in the game, see a full timeline and how it relates to the game and car culture (including some weird events like the launch of windows 97 and skype) buy cars and see posts on the games mini social media feature, you can even go to the games photo mode and take pics of your aquired cars on a ton of real world locations, the sheer love and passion here for cars and the culture around them (driven by director Kazunori Yamauchi who has been with the series from the start and has worked on a lot of other games like tourist trophy, motor toon grand prix and omega boost) is infectious and even if i don't understand it myself, i respect it and its a sight to see this much pure passion on screen, hundreds of cars (most of which can be obtained without MTX but they did put in an option to pay with real world money for every car, which feels gross). there's a ton to do and see without even getting into the races, and i think thats impressive on its own, there's also some really good music here, a lot of good ambiant stuff and even a few callbacks to the older GT games like in the campaign menu which uses a track from GT2, the menu music is the OST highlight and the almost a dozen composers here (such as Daiki Kasho who has worked on many previous games as well as the tokyo xtreme racer series, f-zero gx and alundra 2. Kemmei Adachi of freedom wars, god eater, patapon, ape academy and locoroco. Kouichi Yamazaki also of arc the lad, bemani and even some DDR) all do a good job, though i can't say the same for the actual on track music, there is some good original stuff there but most of the soundtrack is made up of licenced tracks from various styles and eras, it's not bad but it's just not for me, very little really stood out and after the 10th or so hour of racing i found myself just putting my own music on, it became very grating hearing the same few licenced tracks over and over, i wish there was more original stuff thrown in because it's the most interesting stuff to me, i think licenced can work for some games, burnout paradise (which i will cover soonish) works with licenced music because it feels like a time capsule, it feels agressively 2008 and its a treat to hear, but here it doesn't have a vibe to it, it just feels oddly stock for a racing game.

the gameplay is where it really loses me though, i just don't get it, i will admit this is wholley on me and i won't call the game bad at all because of it, but i just didn't find it fun at all. it tries to accuratly simulate how real racing feels and that means its very slow, corners require you to kill any and all speed and tracks are often just, the most boring racetracks you've ever seen in your entire life, by the time you finish the (quite short) mission mode you'll never want to see a generic racetrack map again so long as you live because so much of the games tracks just look like that, a racetrack with crowds, some trees and a lot of ads, sure there's some exceptions, a fantastic tokyo map thats the highlight, a great map on a hill that i only saw once in about 30 hours of gameplay and some very nice looking desert and rally maps, though not a single snow map in sight here and even the weather options are massively lacking, it just feels so sterile and bland and it made actually beating the game super repetitive because of just how much almost every map tended to blend into each other, i could not tell you the difference between the likes of blue moon raceway and dragon speedway, i'm not even sure they *are* different maps, it all combines to make actually playing the game just, a nothing experiance, slow similar races on slow similar maps, sure theres a ton of cars and a lot handle differently but you rarely have any reason to use any beyond just the fastest one, older GT games seemed to use their campaign modes to get you to use whacky out there cars but this game doesn't have one of those, you have a mission mode, a track mode, some arcadey modes and a small campaign style mode with cups that was added with a patch, and this does sometimes have you use more out there cars, but not often enough and there was only really two or three in the beginner cup that really tried this, it didn't feel at all the CARPG the earlier games did and i think why should be fairly apparent once we get into what the game is mainly focused on.

this is primarily an E-sports game, its focus was always on online play and tournaments, you have to take a small ettiqute test here before going into the mode, which i think all games should and it then throws you into it and there is a lot there, but i have to admit i didn't do much here, my few attempts at it had me coming in dead last every single time because i'm new to this and everyone else seemed to have been playing this game for years, so i didn't last long and i think that does speak to a big weakness here in light of the games actual fate, it's shutting down in a month, this mode will be dead and gone and with it most of the game will be dead and gone and without a real campaign structure to make the game endure like the older games, it leaves it a husk, which is a big shame, it leaves it a very pretty, but very basic game with not much to do, since after it all shuts down really all you have is the arcade mode, even the basic campaign won't work offline, i'm not sure if you can even see the detailed car models offline, the amazing VR mode does work though and if you have a PSVR this may be worth picking up for that, though even in that i'd reccomend driveclub VR more. its a shame that it will all be lost, you'll even miss entire mechanics like the endurance races with petrol to worry about and pitstops needed, these races i found very unfun but i liked the idea a lot and the added challanges from that were cool.

i do respect polyphony for what they've achieved though, the game does look very impressive and there's a lot to do here, sure the main campaign from the basegame will only be a few hours, but the added campaigns from the post-launch updates will take dozens of hours if somehow you find enough fun here for that. i'm not sure what to think overall really, i respect the passion and love behind it but i just didn't enjoy playing it at all, usually i can put gameplay i dislike aside if i love a vibe or a style enough but i just didn't here, the menu vibes were amazing but i hated how the game actually looked in races and there was so little of interest to do that it kept me from really having much fun at all, it was missing so much that seemed good from earlier games and it will soon be lost to time to boot, i just don't get it but i will try one of the earlier games in future to see if i can finally make it click, try this if you have any interest in it i guess but don't take too long because in a month this game will be almost entirely gone, its even delisted already. the game was succeeded by GT7 though which is not shutting down anytime soon and does seem to have a bit more of a real campaign with its GT cafe mode, though it's also apparently much shorter than earlier games and seems to double down on the monitization issues presant here as well as being wholley online only, sadly so it too will one day be lost to time, the teams earlir games will always be available though, all the old GT's, even the ones with online features like 5 and 6 work fine today and their other games like omega boost and the amazingly fun (and better than this) motor toon grand prix games are all well worth a try too, something that you won't be able to say for GT7 in the long run.