[American Oyaji]

My question is...

Does the game look that good while it's being played??

WOW.

[Caustic Saint]

My question is...

Does the game look that good while it's being played??

Not on this generation of hardware. Ultra's original post in this topic has real screenshots.

I've always been more of a Need for Speed fan, personally. GT is cool and all, but it's not as fun to me. I like racing games more then driving sims. I'm spending a lot of time with NFS:Rice (oh, Underground) on my Xbox right now. Fun stuff.

[Caustic Saint]

I've always been more of a Need for Speed fan, personally.

Thems fightin' words!

Bah.

Need for Speed is just pick up the controller and take off racing fun. I don't care for the whole "earn your license" and other sim aspects of the GT series. I want arcade racing with good audio, flashy visuals and lots of tracks and stuff to unlock.

(SF Rush 2049 and Hyrdo Thunder on the DC are two of my other favorite racers. Why, WHY?!? has Midway not done another Hydro Thunder? )

[American Oyaji]

TOCA Race Driver 2 is a great game. I see Japanese on there frequently.

[Caustic Saint]

I have a new favorite racing game. No, it's not GT.

It's Burnout 3.

If you've got an Xbox or PS2, you owe it to yourself to check this out. (Unless you hate arcade racers, in which case you should give it a pass.) Kick-ass racing game and an unparalleled orgy of destruction. I'd thought Burnout 2 set the standard for crash effects, but 3 blows it away - particles, car parts, explosions and physics that make everything just that much sweeter. The videos over at gametrailers.com are great, but can't really do it justice, since it's 10 times cooler when you're driving through (or causing) the carnage.

[American Oyaji]

I'll definitely be getting Burnout 3.

[Faded]

Me too, Burn out 3 looks to finally get it all right. Was a big fan of the early "destruction derby" games, but they kind of went south after the first 2.
Burnout 2 was good (nothing like doing 150 going the opposite direction of traffic), but still needed a little something (the lack kof explosions in crash mode for one constantly bugged me)

Oh yeah, if your wondering Test Drives Eve of Destrution isn't worth it. Dirt tracks that are too short stop you from ever getting any decent speed and the crashes aren't all that great, plus there aren't all that many noticeable differences from any of the cars, they all end up seeming the same (except the bus)

As far as the straight racers go, never were all that much fun for me, just got a little boring after awhile. Though, after playing destruction derby, kept getting tempted to ram people when I drove to work...

[Caustic Saint]

Sony drops online from Gran Turismo 4

Polyphony Digital's long-awaited PS2 racing title Gran Turismo 4 is on track to meet worldwide release dates in early December - but at the cost of online play, which has been removed from the game.

At a press conference at the Tokyo Game Show today, Sony representatives confirmed that the game will launch in Japan on December 3rd, followed by a launch in the USA and Europe around December 14th (which probably means Friday December 17th in Europe).

However, the title will now be an offline game only, in a surprising move for the company - which had previously vaunted online play as being one of the key selling points for the new game.

The plan is now to launch Gran Turismo 4 with offline play this year, while a new Gran Turismo game with online play is provisionally scheduled for 2005 at some point.

When's the last time Sony released a product that had shipped with all the features initially announced for it?

[Caustic Saint]

Tomorrow's the day....

Did you GT fans remember to preorder?

[Caustic Saint]

It's official - I have more money than I know what to do with:



Like I needed another system? I don't know where it's going to go, or if I even have a place to plug it in, but the in-store demos of GT4 were so damned pretty.

Must go play now....

[Caustic Saint]

And the official motto for GT4?

Pretty, but dumb.

Seriously, the game is flat-out gorgeous but the AI is dumb. I mean, really, really dumb. Fall behind the pack and you can watch all the cars drive single file along the exact same route. None of them will try and pass the leader and they all stay in exactly the same position they started in. That's not a race - that's a parade.

And they don't react to your car at all. Get in their way and they bump you. They won't try to go around you. They'll only pass you if you're going slower than their pre-set speed and if you're off their pre-set path. Lame.

With all the years and money that went into making this, couldn't they have spent at least a couple of bucks on a little AI code?

[Kuang_Grade]

And the official motto for GT4?

With all the years and money that went into making this, couldn't they have spent at least a couple of bucks on a little AI code?

Hopefully this is one of the things they'll be working before the US release date (still officially a vague March 2005)....Given the nature of the game, I can't see why it should take months for "localization" issues.

But there are enough GT freaks here in the US that you could still do OK by flipping it on Ebay (although probably not as good those PSPs you did).

[Caustic Saint]

But there are enough GT freaks here in the US that you could still do OK by flipping it on Ebay (although probably not as good those PSPs you did).

I checked - not much market for it on Ebay. I'll trade it in at Sofmap. It's new and hot enough that I won't lose much on it, plus they give 10% extra if you've got their card, so that'll soften the blow even more.