Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec

When I revisited Gran Turismo 3 a couple months ago, I was worried that it would disappoint. The game was a big part of my childhood, but I had conflicting memories of it. On one hand, I was mesmerized by the aesthetics and sound design, but on the other, I remembered getting stuck on Sunday Cup and not being able to progress through GT Mode. Thankfully though, the game exceeded my expectations, thanks partially due to tricks that Polyphony probably didn't intend to be in the game.

I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is GT Mode and the early game. The basic route is: buy a car with 18,000 credits, enter events, buy upgrades and work towards a big payoff or prize car. I consider this game's GT Mode to be the most difficult in the series, and while I'm mature enough now to appreciate the challenge, I and many others struggled to escape the early game.

Some starter cars are vastly better than others, and the issue most people run into is that they buy a weak FF car with the expectation of upgrading it, only to run into a difficulty spike outside of the first event, Sunday Cup. There's no hand-holding, and the game does expect you to figure various things out by yourself. Some people, like 5 year old me, convince themselves that the only solution is to grind that one event over and over.

I think something that very often gets overlooked is that, even if you buy 'the wrong car', the game gives you the Trueno AE86 in Sunday Cup, which is the second-best starting car. The second event, Clubman Cup, gives the '93 Miata, the best starting car. So, unless you're deeply invested in your first car and refuse to switch, the game does try to point you in the right direction.

As a kid, I was too attached to my purple PT Cruiser, which was my own personal downfall. I wasn't mature enough to understand which upgrades to buy either, which didn't help matters. I'm willing to take responsibility rather than blaming the game for being too free-form though.

Speaking of upgrades, Polyphony really tried to undo many of the mistakes they made in 2. Previously, super soft racing tyres were the number one upgrade, since tyre wear was non-existent. In this game, any race with 5 or more laps has tyre wear enabled, plus super soft tyres are now double the price and become worn after just one lap.

However, they ended up making a completely different mistake that makes upgrades 'free' if you have two memory cards: the trade trick. Buy a car, upgrade it, save to slot 2, load slot 1, trade from slot 2's garage and you can buy the upgraded car for the same cost as its dealership price. Considering how tight money can be in this game, I welcome it.

Another attempted mistake correction was the prize car system. In GT2, almost every special event race awarded a prize car, and it was ridiculously easy to grind for money once you had the IA licence. In this game, you now need to complete a full event or series to win one, and they're either once-off or randomly selected from a roulette wheel.

Again though, there's a trick to save the day that allows you to select which car in the roulette wheel you get: save before the last race of a series, skip the last race and reset until you get the prize car you want.

There's a few other broken things in this game that end up making the game more enjoyable: reverse shifting, where pressing the reverse button makes the car gear up and accelerate faster than normal, and wheelies, where a car can gain speed exponentially on Test Track (potentially up to 2000km/h if you use the GT-One Race Car).

You can also straight-up skip three out of five races in a series and still win the series and get a prize car, if you set it up correctly. These can really speed up the game progression, especially in later events where there's 10 races with 10-20 laps per race.

Tuning feels a lot more purposeful in this game compared to GT2, where suspension settings were kind of broken. Since you have to run harder tyres, you need to be much more conscious of your car's spring rates and damper settings. Again, the game does very little hand-holding, but with some practice you can figure out the fundamentals. The tuning mechanics here carry over to later games, so you can re-use your expertise across the series.

If you want to beat the game, your primary objective should be to win every event in the Amateur league. By doing so, you'll unlock the game's full ending and obtain the Viper GTS-R Team Oreca.

The game gets accused of being too padded-out due to the Professional league and its 15-20 lap races, and while this is slightly justified, I consider it a bonus to the game's core content. For a casual playthrough, you shouldn't need to concern yourself with completing all the Professional league events.

Of course, it would be a disservice to not mention the game's aesthetics, which feel like a full-on evolution of GT2. Menus still carry the same vibe as 2 but with much more detail and intricacy, and the music feels appropriately hi-fi. Each track has its own identity, and the sunset tracks are particular highlights (Smokey Mountain, Grand Valley II, Laguna Seca).

I call this the 'last classic Gran Turismo' because, while GT4 revived many game mechanics from 2, there is a very stark change in aesthetics. This game feels like a tech demo, and style is often prioritized over real-life accuracy. Compare GT3's Laguna Seca to GT4's, and while the latter may be more true-to-life, it lacks a certain soul and atmosphere. If only this game had its own rendition of the Nürburgring.

So, it's a little difficult to rate this game 'as Polyphony intended', but I guess these ratings are all about personal interpretation at the end of the day. All the aforementioned glitches and tricks helped my experience, rather than hindered it, and the core gameplay and atmosphere is some of the best the series has seen to date.

gran turismo 3 was the first gran turismo game to be released for the nearly-brand-new-at-the-time ps2, and was considered sort of a paradigm shift for the series and for the racing genre as a whole. when it came out, it was widely praised for its ambition and depth, as it was truly groundbreaking at the time - enough that the numerous faults of the game could be ignored. now, the elements that were groundbreaking at the time have long been matched or surpassed by other games, and while it is still a well-made game, the flaws now stand out more than ever. a lot of people tend to still rate this game very highly, maybe even considering it the greatest racing game of all time, but imo this is heavily nostalgia-blinded. sadly, this game really isn't all that fun to play now.

but first, let's talk about the good parts. visually, the graphics turned many heads back in its day, and having the amount of cars that this game does, modeled with this much attention to detail, was practically unheard of. sure, there's under 200 cars in this game - a steep decline from gt2's 600+ - but it's understandable considering the graphical leap forced them to basically start from scratch. the tracks, although few, look pretty gorgeous as well, with a good amount of roadside detail. though admittedly a lot of them are set in green fields. there's no denying it still looks like a game of its time, but it's aged fairly well and isn't bad at all to look at even now.

although better pure simulators existed at the time, the physics in this game struck a good balance between detailed and accessible that still plays quite well today. there is a certain lack of excitement and sense of speed in the driving, making for a very "gamey" feeling, but it controls perfectly fine. i did experience some issues with steering/throttle sensitivity but that was likely due to the quirks of mapping a ps2 controller to an xbox pad via emulation, with the analog throttle/brake calibrated for pressure-sensitive buttons rather than triggers. the amount of tuning is also pretty great, between the various purchasable upgrades and the fine-tuning that can be done before a race. thus on a baseline level, the game still feels good and fun to play, and for a casual play session you'll probably get a good deal of enjoyment.

another large area of praise went to the amount of content and depth in the game's career mode, and indeed the amount of events all suited for different car types could occupy the player for many hours - but herein lies the problem. once you play this game for a while you soon realize how limited the variety in the career mode actually is, and then you realize you're still only like 15% done with the game. from that point on it basically becomes a slog, as this game is padded out to absolute hell.

as nice-looking as the tracks are, there are only 14 of them in the career (excluding rally), two of which are ovals, and nearly all of them are updated versions of gt1/2 tracks. the only thing that really changes between events is the car you're using, but even that is limited because when you're playing the game "properly" you'll be reusing cars as much as possible to save credits. it gets more and more tiring the longer you play, up to the point where the last few professional league events are practically the same 10 tracks with more and more laps. they're not really more difficult, they're just... more time-consuming. like, look polyphony - endurance races are cool, but was it really necessary to make EVERY race in the professional league 10 laps at a minimum? it's not very fun.

to further illustrate this point, let's compare this game to its predecessor in terms of miles driven (seriously i did the math) - the 2nd least used circuit in this game is driven for more miles in the career mode than the most used track from gt2. if you exclude gt2's endurance races, you drive more miles on test course, r246, grand valley, and rome EACH INDIVIDUALLY in this game than you do in the ENTIRETY of gran turismo 2. gt2 is by no means a short game. this game is almost 5x longer in terms of miles driven across every event. and yet even if it were the same length, the content would be stretched thinner in gt3 since there are less tracks and cars. this game took me roughly 145 hours to 100%, and there's not nearly enough content to make that time feel truly worthwhile.

there's also a lack of shorter, twistier tracks or even short layouts of tracks like in gt2, which makes the races in more underpowered cars more tedious than they need to be. the epitome of this issue is the 10 lap test course race in the toyota vitz event, which is just half an hour of holding right trigger and driving in a circle at 130mph. i don't know who thought this was a good idea. like seriously, why. why? this has to have been done intentionally as a troll, because if so they sure got me! why the fuck would anyone in their right mind play this and think this is fun?

the rally races are at first a nice change of pace, but then you realize that each "event" of 3 races is just the same track with more laps each time, half of the events are just reverse versions of the others, and one of the "rally" tracks is just a normal track. the rally physics are a liiittle weird too - the dirt physics feel fun but oddly feel more responsive than tarmac, and make the transition between the two jarring in tracks with mixed surfaces.

there are also a lot of balancing issues with the career mode. for starters, there are no horsepower restrictions for any race, and nowhere is it displayed how much power the ai drivers in any race have. this makes the chances of having an even, exciting race pretty slim - either you use what you have and end up underpowered, or you just tune as much as possible and hope for the best and then usually end up being super overpowered and with no challenge. since you don't know how much power to aim for, it would be a lot of trial and error to "balance" yourself with the ai. and even still its not even consistent how fast the ai are in the same car!

another common criticism throughout all the gran turismo games is the ai, which in this game is still practically braindead. they are programmed to do one thing - strictly follow a racing line. occasionally they will manage to pull off a scripted overtake, but most of the time they drive like you or the other ai cars aren't there and will just crash into anything that gets in their line. i once witnessed an ai on test course gradually approach a slower car we were lapping and slam directly into its rear without even ATTEMPTING to avoid it.

they are also programmed to make pit stops in longer races - obviously, since it would be very unfair otherwise. but it's still unfair because they dont actually seem to experience tire wear - they simply drive like normal until their "pit timer" runs out. that means they will be able to go much longer without pitting and still drive like their tires are fresh. they also don't THINK about their pit stops at all, and will pull moves like pitting right before the last lap and handing off the victory. to the games credit, there's no strong rubberbanding. they do "catch up" with the pack if they fall very far behind (often after a pit stop), but you can still easily put multiple laps on them.

as another aside, license tests are still Not Fun. i do not give a shit if people call me a noob or whatever bc of this, i'm still standing by it. i can put in what feels like the most perfect run i can possibly manage and still get a bronze and it's just not enjoyable because i don't know how far i can push the limits of the game's physics. at first i tried to get golds, but i simply don't have the patience to run every test over and over, shaving milliseconds each time until i can just squeeze out a gold, especially when it's not needed for 100% in this game and there are no unique rewards, so i just ended up banging out first-run bronzes for every test after the b license. it'd be significantly more bearable if the medal times had a ghost run so you could more easily see where you could be improving and what you're aiming for, but i guess they didn't think to do this.

there's a few other smaller bad design quirks as well. for one, the oil change system is neat, but you can't change your oil during championships, many of which last many more miles than it takes for your oil light to come on, and so you end up with nerfed hp by the halfway point while the ai doesn't have to deal with this. also, the whole "certain cars are only available from winning certain events and there's a random % chance of getting what you want and in order to get all the prize cars you have to do the entire event multiple times and you might still get a duplicate or something worthless" thing still blows. why are there only two cameras? why are the volume settings only on/off? questions that will remain a mystery for all time.

a few more small things to mention here: gran turismo has been known for its unique and stylish but also often obtuse ui design, but this game's ui maintains that style while also being one of the most streamlined and functional in the series, so props for that. the sound design is fine i guess, nothing stands out greatly but the engine tones aren't that vacuum-cleanerish and are satisfying enough. licensed soundtrack is adequate but with some odd choices, but there's simply not enough songs for the time you will likely spend in this game, so i muted it pretty early. the snoop dogg track is fucking incredible though. also the originally composed music is great as always.

finally, there's a big thing i need to talk about. something that affects every gran turismo game to some extent, but is by far the most egregious here. it may be a bit of a controversial statement.

gran turismo 3 has an inherently flawed progression system. a lot of people romanticize the idea of starting off with a shitty beater and gradually building and tuning it up and then buying better cars and facing more challenging opponents as you spend more time in the game. and its true! this system often feels very compelling and rewarding and a lot of "classic" fan-favorite racing games, including other gran turismo games, are built on it.

however in order for it to work, it needs to be PACED well so that this advancement will naturally come along as the player progresses through the game's content. this is where gt3 falters. you get your first car, maybe fix it up a bit, win the first event, and then what do you do? the first event again. and again. and again and again and again and again, winning a paltry amount of money each time until you can upgrade a bit more and compete in the next event and grind the hell out of that one. but then many of the other events require you use a specific car or type, and chances are your car will not be eligible for all of them, so you need to grind even more so you can buy another car. sure, you can game the prize cars you earn to minimize the amount of buying you have to do, but it feels kind of lame to be hamstrung along with the cars you're given for free instead of picking out the cars you like the most within the eligibility requirements of each event.

it gets a bit better later on, since events award more money and also award prize cars that you can sell repeatedly for even more cash, but the core problem still stands - it's a grind. grind is bad. there's no new or unique content to be experienced in doing this. there's no challenge or difficulty in it. there's no fun, and games like this should be fun. there is absolutely nothing worthwhile to be gained from doing it, besides earning virtual money that allows me to enjoy the rest of the game.

for comparison, gran turismo 2 has a more forgiving economy and more frequent prizes, and also gives you the option of manufacturer races that give a random track each time. gran turismo 4 gives you much more variety across the board in the things you can do when you're just starting out. but gt3 on the other hand just gets the worst of every world. steady progression is good but not when that amounts to "steadily" watching the money number creep up as you do Super Speedway - Mid-Field Raceway - Trial Mountain over and over until oh wow now i have a fast enough car to do Rome - SSR5 - Deep Forest repeatedly instead!

so what did i do? simple - i cheated for cash! purists will whine that i'm "not playing the game right" but i simply Do Not Care because the reality is that i'm having more fun this way, i'm getting to experience more of the games content (as in, getting to drive more of the games cars), and i'm not really bypassing anything besides hours of my time wasted. because frankly, it's the same end result as grinding the european championship for countless hours and selling the gillet vertigo over and over, except minus the time spent doing menial bullshit and not having fun playing the game.

i believe gran turismo 3 is a game best left in good memories or played in small doses. that's how it feels like it was designed - to play bit by bit over the course of a long period of time, maybe doing a few races each day, slowly working away at the game's many offerings so you always have something "new" to do. when played as i did, from the perspective of wanting to experience all the game's content, complete it and then move on to something else, it tends to become massively fatiguing and a chore to finish. yet even then, i still cant help but admire the ways the game still succeeds, the way it blew minds back in 2001, and the way it still maintains some of its charm. so in the end, ill still call it a "Good Game," but one that's seriously marred by tedious progression and repetition and strange, un-fun design decisions.