Game Review: Gran Turismo (PSP)

Game: Gran Turismo
Console: Sony Playstation Portable
Developer: Polyphony Digital
Release Date: 1st October 2009

Announced at E3 2004, Gran Turismo for the PSP was released after a suitably long Polyphony Digital style delay, in 2009. Designed to give the full Gran Turismo experience on a handheld console, there was a lot of expectation on the game as to how it would play and look. The game features over 800 cars, 100 more than 2005's Gran Turismo 4, and 200 less than Gran Turismo 5 which hadn't yet been released. While this is a good number, the real talking point is that these include Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti cars for the first time.

The overall gameplay transfers well from home consoles to the PSP; the cars handle much like they do in Gran Turismo 4, and the game runs at a consistent 60fps which is pretty rare for PSP titles. Only 4 racers are on track at any one time, down from 6 but this isn't too much of a difference. For players who dislike the PSP's analog stick, the game may be a little difficult to play with the D-pad if they're used to the PS2's analog sticks for racing, but that should only be a small proportion of gamers, and for me it wasn't a problem at all.

My least favourite thing about Gran Turismo for the PSP is a lack of 'Gran Turismo Mode'. Players are instead invited to "rank up" races from D rank to S rank by winning on each track a set number of times, thus earning more credits per rank against more difficult opponents. While this provides a lot of races to complete, it does mean that players have to play each track 8 times to have completed each rank, rising to 16 if it has forward and reverse versions. Given the amount of variety in the competitions of Gran Turismo 4, its disappointing to see that the main mode here seems to only involve racing on each track multiple times.

In addition to the single race mode, there's also drift trials which act as a sort of add on to the main mode, gaining players credits, and a driving challenge mode which seems to have replaced licenses. For these players must complete certain sections of track within a time limit to gain bronze, silver or gold medals which give increasing increments of credits. There's no option to upgrade your cars performance or looks at all, unlike in the main series games.

Players can spend their credits on buying cars from the dealership, which showcases selections from 4 makes of car at a time. This selection changes every 2 days and once 30 or so days have passed, all of the 800 cars from the game will have been available to buy. Unfortunately players cannot sell cars, so anyone wanting to unlock every car in the game (as I usually like to) will have to buy all 800+ cars outright, which works out as far more expensive than it used to in other games.

Even getting each track up to Rank S (which takes a minimum of 8 races per track) doesn't seem as if it'd provide the player with enough credits to buy all of the cars. While Gran Turismo games have always needed a good deal of grinding in races to gain enough credits to purchase all the cars, this takes it to a new level. If you're the sort of player that's happy just to buy your favourite cars and do a few races every now and then, this won't be too much of an issue.

Graphically Gran Turismo for PSP looks good for the console, although every now and then it'll remind players that it's a portable game. The game keeps an impressive 60fps at most times and the only real graphical drawback is that the backgrounds seem rather 2D at times. The soundtrack behind racing is generally unremarkable, though there's the option to use your own music also. The in-game sound effects are generally good and it's obvious that there's been effort put into that area of the title.

Overall while it plays much like console versions of the series, Gran Turismo is lacking in other areas. Without a definitive career mode, car upgrades, a full dealership, damage modelling (not that GT4 or GT5 has that), or high credit races to make grinding a little faster, the game feels lacking and only really good for small bites of GT action rather than any real progression or experience. Fans of the Gran Turismo series are likely to think that it's not quite up to the console versions with regard to options, and non-fans aren't likely to pick up the game, meaning that it's essentially filling a gap that doesn't exist.

Rating: 72/100
Grade: C