Gran Turismo 3: A-spec

The Good
Nice graphics. Large variety of music.

The Bad
The first time that I played it I was very disappointed. There are no used cars. I was expecting a huge car line up. As an example there is the Chrysler dealership and the only car that it offers is the PT cruiser. A lot of the dealerships offer only a very small selection to choose from. Something is wrong with the stats. I bought a Mazda Miata and upgrade the motor so I was sitting on 280hp. It said that the car made 17 ft/lbs of torque. There are still the licenses to get but they seem almost pointless...like someone remembered that GT1 & GT2 had license tests so GT3 should have tests as well. You cannot adjust the level of the music and background volume as you could in the earlier versions. Instead you can only turn it on and off. I find that the music volume is barely audible and I would like to be able to adjust it. I could be wrong but it seems like the tachometer and speedometer are not custom to each car. All cars have a max 9k tac and 200mph speedo, they simply have different rev limiters. All in all the game feels less personal and detail oriented. For me this takes away from the overall fun factor. I am still playing this game, so if it grows on me with time I'll be sure to update this review. I am still playing the game trying to get into it but I'm so far having a hard time.

The Bottom Line
A graphical step step forward. The lack of detail and car selection is disappointing.

I would buy this game only if you already own a PS2 and the game is cheap.

The Good
The amazing amount of realism: Light flowing through cracks in the tree branches and bouncing off the roof; headlights lighting the way through the rain; sun sets blinding your view; logo's on the cars. Everything has been taken care of.

The tracks: Updated looks for classic tracks from GT1 and 2, and new tracks with plenty of winding roads and tight turns, making for some great passing moves.

The Cars: A great selection, including some new models (and my personal fav, the Ford Tickford V8 Supercar, marking the debut of Australian cars in the GT series).

The Rally mode: Bigger and better then GT2, and just as good as any other stand alone Rally game out there.

F1 Cars: Yes they are in there, somewhere, although not the latest versions, but still this makes for another good reason to complete the game as best you can.

And finally, the sound. Plug in your surround sound system, and you'll be in heaven.

The Bad
A few things missing in the latest version:

Online: It's a pitty that an online mode hasn't been included, but that makes GT4 all that more important for the PS2. The i.link modem meanwhile, does a good job of bringing heaps of people together at a time.

The Cars: Not as many as the previous title, but then again, it wasn't all that much fun racing in a VW Beetle, was it? So the lack of a huge amount isn't that much of a worry.

Car Damage: Thank the car manufacturers for this loss, as they do not wish to see their cars damaged. This would have added a lot more realism to the game, and a bit more strategy in buying new parts, etc. So hopefully GT4 will change that.

No Drivers: Not that I didn't like this, but it seems funny driving these super realistic cars without a driver inside them!! Makes it look like radio controlled cars!

The Bottom Line
The only reason (for the time being) why you should save up and buy a Playstation 2. Amazing detail, and a sign of great things to come over the next few years, considering this is a 1st/2nd generation title. You must get this, if only to watch the sun set.

The Good
It's not hard to explain what gets people hooked on this game. First and foremost, I would say the graphics are quite amazing, even eleven years after GT3's initial release they still look great.

And then there's the sense of achievement once you got your first car all prepped up and once you have won your first championship and got away with a new bonus car plus a decent amount of credits. It is then that you really want to try out more cars and can't racing the same few tracks over and over.

The Rally mode does not yet include the penalty system that pestered GT4. This is a relief because the rallies are rather difficult to master even without penalties.

The simplicity of the menu layouts and the speed of switching between screens are also much more of a relief as compared to the tedious and frequent loading screens of GT4. There's not so much aggravating loading involved in this title.

The Bad
Back in 2001, this instalment may have been the epitome of racing sims on the PS2. At the same time, the GT franchise had always been hyped beyond recognition. There are plenty of flaws and frustrating experiences that come along with prolonged play.

I don't mind so much the smaller range of cars available as opposed to GT2 or GT4, no, it's actually the lack of track variety that makes the simulation boring after a short while. And increasing the number of laps for each difficulty level doesn't help make it more interesting.

A problem that has still not been addressed even by GT4 is the resale value of the cars. No matter how much you invest in any further tuning parts, you'll never get the huge amounts of money spent back. I guess I can live with this, but it's nonetheless annoying.

I also noticed that the computer cars are not only dumb and strictly routine by the way the drive, but they are also unfair towards the player. There are some events that are nearly impossible to win, and I'm not talking about the endurance races. For example, take the MR challenge at amateur level: I got me a nice Honda NSX Type R car, all nicely done up to maximum level and optimally tuned too, and still I can't seem to beat the Elise cars here. It's also that much more horsepower doesn't help when speeding up on straights in order to get a little advantage over the competition, because once you reach the next corner, they're all quite close behind you again, and the AI cars seem to be routinely placed on certain spots on the track where you will get to see them every time regardless of your advantage that you think you should have. That's really a pain in the butt, and luckily, this issue has been addressed in the next instalment.

It may be me, but in the steering, I don't like the oversensitivity of the steering axis, and there's no option to adjust the sensitivity of the controller. I'm not intending to buy a steering wheel. In comparison, the steering sensitivity in Enthusia has been done much more realistic, like driving a real car, and I know because I do drive for real.

The Bottom Line
There's plenty of hours of fun in this game. But once you've seen all of the tracks and you've sensed the computer AI's unfairness just to make things even more challenging, the only thing in the game that may keep you motivated to keep on playing is the percentage of completion on the status screen. You may want to see more cars also, but the tedious gameplay will most likely prevent you from clinging on to the experience.