Gran Turismo 3: A-spec

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.