Pit Stop – The GT Compendium

While things have been a bit tight over Christmas, I was lucky enough to get the latest Gran Turismo 6 from the girlfriend (thanks!). I haven’t spent too long with the game just yet, but I have struggled to put it down the past few weeks while I’ve been getting back into the swing of life after Christmas.

The first time you start up the game, you’re thrown straight into a race, which is great, after that you spend your time creating your profile and then you’re at the GT home screen. It looks a lot like a phone screen, with various tiles listed in small sections. Much easier to navigate than the previous game.

GT6 certainly feels a lot more, simplified, than its predecessor. Gone is your whole on-line profile that your friends can visit, so no more in-game messages or nosing at what your mates have been up to recently on the log. No more online photos shared with your friends. One more massive change for me is the removal of the used car dealership. Now instead you can buy every single car you want straight from the dealership, as long as you have the money you can get any car you want.

there’s a hell of a lot that has been removed, but they’ve kept all the best bits…

Another large chunk of the previous game that has been removed is the entire of the B-Spec mode, this allowed you to manage AI racers and concentrate on racing tactics and car setup. I know it wasn’t the most popular of modes for sure, but to see it in no form whatsoever is a bit of a surprise.

Along with this the whole driver level has been removed, no more is car or event choice restricted by the driver level. With the car customisations a lot has been removed or compiled into ‘packs’. Buy a clutch pack and it upgrades the flywheel as well, things like that. It makes the game much simpler, but you can still drill into customising the suspension fully, I recommend you do, the default settings are fairly poor. Everything is a great deal easier and far more accessible.

So there’s a hell of a lot that has been removed, but they’ve kept all the best bits… from ALL of the previous games. All of the cars are there, a lot of them may the low quality versions from previous games, but they’re all there. You can no longer tell what cars are high or low quality, at least I haven’t figured that out yet.

All the tracks from the previous games are there with all their iterations, only a few missing, I think there was a Seattle track on GT2 that hasn’t returned, maybe one or two of the less popular ones haven’t come back, but you will never get bored with the track selection.

My general feeling with Gran Turismo 6 is that it’s a ‘best of’. All the best bits from all the previous games all rolled up into one. Not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly ending the series on this generation on a high note, I’ve still got loads to do, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Gran Turismo is also one of those games that tends to get some dramatic updates, so I’m looking forward to what gets added to the game in the near future.