I hate Clarkson, I hate that little twerp Hammond, Mays' dislike of the other two makes him bearable and I have no interest in cars what-so-ever. So why on Earth do I enjoy the Gran Turismo games? Theoretically a real driving simulator would be absolute tripe to me and I'm certainly not going to have the patience for going through all the driving licence tests and why on Earth can I not just use that top notch Ferrari from the moment I turn on the game?
Thing is, I think that's just what makes it popular and why I've been coming back since the original. It's almost a career simulation with the aspect of a pretty good driving game thrown in (management mode if you want these days) and - to me - that's one of the better features of recent sports games to ply my trade as a footballer at Lincoln City and work my way to international goalscoring superstar hero. I'm not particularly car literate, I'm not going to play it and be able to analyse the slight differences that may get a little more out of it, but I can look at the numbers and work out how to get more out of those pixels to give it a boost. Until recently on the Football/Championship manager games you saw nothing but numbers and had to work out how to use them to your best. Stevenage Borough winning the champions League? Relatively straight forward with the right mind.
As a driving game, it's one I've never had a problem with, one of the complaints has often been the lack of visible damage but to be perfectly frank that does nothing to me. It could just be my style but when I'm playing I tend to drive in driver seat view as I find it easier to gauge turns and distances, so I'm not going to see it except for in a replay but rarely am I that excited by a race I need to sit there for another 10 minutes to see it all from a different angle.
In short, as a genre it's one I'm not particularly interested in and that's due to my lack of interest in the subject full-stop but as a game. I keep coming back, for some part I'd say it could be the obvious improvement curve, of course in races if I turn up in a Bugatti Veyron against some substandard family saloons I'll romp home but going from scraping bronze to gold passes on licence tests shows that your skills are improving. Other than that I think it's just a incredibly well polished, deep driving game that if you're only going to play one of them fills all holes. Though my hatred for Top Gear is enlarged by trying to manoeuvre camper vans around "Hammerhead" at high speed!
Oh yes and I get to drive a supercharged version of Bumblebee from Transformers, probably 'er indoors' favourite feature...
