Polyphony Digital is back with a bang with its 8th installment for the Gran Turismo series in Gran Turismo 7. For the past 25 years, Gran Turismo has been a household name when it comes to simulation racing games. I can still remember playing this game back in 1997 and it always comes first in my mind whenever the talk about racing games is brought up. Twenty-five years has passed and does it still carry the torch when it comes to simulation racing games?
You will be happy that right off the bat, Polyphony Digital has fixed the issues that people raised on their previous games. It seems like Polyphony has majestically taken all the good stuff from their previous installments and beautifully crafted this game into a culmination of about 25 years of progress.
If there is one thing that is common amongst Gran Turismo titles, it is the mastery of hardware of the Playstation. Playing the game for more than 20 hours, I can confidently say that every moment is an immersive experience thanks to the added features of the Dualsense controller. The haptic feedback implementation is insane. You will feel the roughness and slipperiness of the road in the palms of your hands. The adaptive trigger makes acceleration and braking enjoyable as you can feel the resistance in the shoulder buttons. Gran Turismo 7 reigned supreme because you do not need a $400 racing wheel to feel the realism, but just the Dualsense is enough to get the simulation feeling of the game.
In the graphics department, Polyphony heavily relied on realism as every detail of car models was well thought of. You can even see the excellent definition of every nooks and crannies in the car dashboard. Gran Turismo 7 is at its best when it comes to cars as every model is accurate to their real life counterparts. With around 400 models to collect, it is mind-blowing to know the level of intricacy that developers have applied to each. Gone are the days of low resolution models from the 5th and 6th installment. The weather and the colorful vistas of the tracks such as Trial Mountain really made the experience such an eye-candy. Music has also played a good part because the curated tracks on this installment is superb. Taking in consideration the music from the previous installments, they took a modern day approach with the sound design by picking remixes of great classical pieces from Bach and the likes.
Playing the game on the PS5, it’s difficult to choose from the Framerate mode or the Ray Tracing Mode. Framerate mode renders the game in native 4K resolution with 60 fps without ray tracing, while Ray Tracing mode features ray tracing with 4K and 30 fps. It is exciting though if the developers will be able to come up with a Performance RT mode which is common in most current generation games as they did a wonderful job in implementing ray tracing in the game.
The traditional campaign mode is back in this installment with Gran Turismo Café which is the central hub of the game. It’s a virtual café for car enthusiasts and the like where you will be able to get missions such as collecting cars by winning races, and various activities. This is where the game sets itself apart from the previous installments. One of the weakest point of Gran Turismo Sport was the lack of campaign mode. It was nice seeing campaign mode return as it played a vital role by giving the player a sense of accomplishment whilst progressing the game. I can also say that the pace of progression in this game is good due to the implementation of the GT Café. Each and every feature such as car dealers are part of the main scenario that can only be unlocked by progressing the café. There is a huge replay value as you can still play curated races in the GT Sport mode, the multiplayer aspect of the game.
Gran Turismo Café is an immersive experience because you will need to be here most of the time to unlock tracks and sections of the game. Not only that but it also gives the player a good sense of knowledge by providing bits of information about cars and such. Café may not be for all as it deviates itself from the usual campaign although it provided a more organized approached in game progression. It might also be a deal-breaker for some because the café requires constant internet connection to prevent cheating. There is great improvement when it comes to the user interface although it can be improved so it will be more user friendly.
Gran Turismo 7 boasts with all the different customization and tuning it can offer. With hundreds of wheels and paint jobs to choose from, I found myself busy for hours changing the internals and externals of my Lancer Evolution ’98. What I really like with the customization option is that there is built-in Livery where players can customize and share their works to other players, it’s a simulation game after all.
Polyphony Digital is on the top of their game with their latest installment. It is by far the best installment in the series as it combines all the things that we love in the previous ones. It’s a gift for long time fans and a great introduction to the new line of gamers. Polyphony still sits on their throne as one of the best racing simulation games released this generation. I am quite excited as to what Polyphony Digital will bring to the table in the next 25 years.