Wife: "Honey, you were supposed to wake me up at 11:00! We were supposed to get stuff done today! Don't tell me you've been playing that game ALL NIGHT."

Me: "I was going to wake you up at 11:00, Gorgeous. It's only, like, a quarter after ten."

Wife: "It's *THREE P.M.*"

Above is an accurate, true-to-life rendition of a conversation that took place in my very home two days ago.

Okay, so I realize writing ANOTHER review for Gran Turismo is pretty much wasted effort. To the person reading this --
quite reading the reviews and just buy the durn game.

WAIT!!

Maybe not.

Yeah, you read this before, but it bears saying again...and again...and again...and again. Gran Turismo is NOT your average driving game. If the "Cruisin'" series and other Arcade-racer games are your style, just RENT this game and play the Arcade mode.

Is Gran Turismo hard? Yeah. Heck yeah. I'll even go out on a limb here and say: Hell yeah. I'm a fan of arcade-racers myself, and let me tell you this -- in Gran Turismo, you can't navigate a 65 degree turn at 135 mph and expect to come out the other side doing 130, after careening off three walls and doing a complete 360 tail spin. Wont happen. In Gran Turismo, you'll be lucky to come out the other side doing 80 miles an hour, unless you're skilled enough with your controller to, in the span of two seconds, apply 75% brake pressure as you're entering the corner, chirp the rear tires to get a bit of sideways drift, and then employ opposite-lock steering while easing off the brake, pass through the apex of the turn sliding nearly sideways, and then straightening out your front wheels while gently putting the pressure back on the gas and accelerating on a parabolic arch cleanly from the apex to the outermost edge of the track.

You're saying, "It can't be that complicated." I'm saying, "You'll have better luck if you've got soft-composite racing slicks on the rear end and your brake balance controller adjusted to favor your rear brakes."

It really is that complicated. Unlike so many other arcade racers out there, GT doesn't employ bungee seatbelts and magnetically-charged tires. If you're in a front-wheel drive vehicle, you'd better get on the brake late and really lay into it, so your back tires break loose. If you're in a rear-wheel drive, you'd better brake in a straight line, counter-steer through the turn and only get on the gas once the suspension has evened out and you're traveling in a straight line.

You'd also better lock up any guns, knives, or other weapons of mass destruction you own before you start taking the licensing tests. Praise be to the Goddess I don't have any shells for my shotgun, or I GUARANTEE my television would, at this very moment, be a busted, pock-marked mass of silicone, plastic and wood. Those of you who have played know all too well what I'm talking about -- you're chuckling to yourself right now and remembering, with absolute clarity, the numbers 0:38:011.

So what's bad about Gran Turismo? In my opinion -- which is what this is all about, right? -- only the licensing tests detract from the enjoyment of this game. Now, granted, I understand the concept. You have GOT to have the skills to compete in the high-end tracks. But then again, that's JUST my point -- the sheer difficulty of the game is going to limit the players without the tests. Take some arcade-racer veteran running with hard-composite tires in the stock, used Toyota Supra he bought at the outset of the game, and throw him in Deep Forest with five other tuned A-class vehicles, he's gonna know RIGHT AWAY he's not qualified to race that track.

So yeah, if you ask me, the licensing tests are completely useless to the plot of the game. Trust me, after racing my completely race-tuned Mistubishi Lancer Evolution IV in the U.S. vs Japan race, against of a bunch of high-powered, rear-wheel drive horsepower orgasms, I knew right away I was in the wrong car and didn't have the skills yet to drive the right one. I didn't need to waste four hours of my life passing the A-Class test to find that out.

And that relates to my only complaint about the game -- it has forced me to abandon my gaming morals. Because when I get home tonight, I'm going to pull the GameShark out of the cabinet -- where it has been since I bought the PSX from my buddy -- dust that thing off and ace the A - International tests with it. Then I'm going to sell the car I get for it, and spend all the cash washing my three cars a few hundred times each. Then I'm going to enter my newly-washed, race-tuned Subaru Impreza WRX STi II in the first Endurance race, get my head handed to me, and admit I can't compete at that level yet. All without wasting X number of hours yanking my hair out trying to pass those tests.

So yeah, the only thing bad about this game is the licensing tests. Everything else is absolutely superb -- well, okay, with the exception of the sound track. My advice, turn that junk off. You need to pay close attention to your tires and engine revs anyway.

The cars are beautifully rendered, but there has been some complaint regarding the complete lack of damage models. This is easily explained -- all the cars you're racing are licensed by the manufacturer, meaning the various automobile companies have granted Sony the right to feature their cars, with their exact names and exact specs, to be rendered in this highly-immersive race simulator. The tires, on the other hand, are not licensed by any dealer and bare no brand names. The tires wear, the cars don't. Figure it out. You want nice damage modeling, check out Burnout for the PS2.

The tracks are beautiful, at least, that part of the track you should be focusing on -- specifically, the immediate four-hundred or so meters directly in front of your bumper. I'd like to offer an opinion on the background graphics, but when your car is sliding sideways around a hairpin turn at 95 miles an hour, you really don't get a chance to look at them. There might be backgrounds in the game, I'm not sure. This I can tell you -- the walls and dirt wells are nicely rendered, and you'll get more than a few chances to admire them in detail. I'm sure there's some pop-up in the backgrounds, but once again, not where it matters. Draw-in is cut to a minimum, only really manifesting when you're approaching the crest of a hill or coming up on a really tight bend. The replays are absolutely stunning, but more for their anatomical (analytical?) detail in the nuaces of tire spin, suspension wobble, and body lean. Rather than pulling up replays to admire your driving talent, you'll find yourself watching the replays to figure out exactly WHAT HAPPENED to leave you facing oncoming traffic halfway through that third turn on Trial Mountain.

Okay, so, what it boils down to is this: if you're looking for hammer-down, heart-pounding, tire-skreeching, wicked-turn-takin', high-flying adrenalin-rushin' crashin' bashin' racin' action, pass this game up. It's got an arcade mode, but that's a weak-sister compared to the complete simulation. If you're looking for a racing game unlike anything you've ever played, with blinding speeds, break-neck turns, more horsepower than you could beat with a (insert large, heavy, somewhat cylindrical object here), a ton of customizable options and settings and enough completely individual, unique cars to start a dealership of your own, buy this game.

Recommended: Yes