Can you remember back to 2004? At E3, in May of 2004 to be exact, came the announcement of the PSP system, and with it the unveiling of a portable version of Gran Turismo. Now, five years later, the game will be released alongside the PSP Go, the third revision of the hardware. You will be able to pick up the UMD and digital version (requires 1 GB) on October 1. Was it worth the wait? Sorta.
Fans of the Gran Turimso series know what to expect, and expectations are very high for this portable version. We have been told, after all, this is a "fully specced Gran Turismo" by series creator Kazunori Yamauchi. Sadly those words are going to haunt him. The problem here is not in the mechanics of driving, or the tracks, or the cars, but the challenge and objectives itself. Games are fun to play because they present the user with a challenge, which includes quests or objectives to complete. Gran Turismo for PSP falls flat on objectives, as there is no career mode to speak of.
The Driver Challenge is a set of short challenges that feels like a really watered down License Test from past games in the series (though as you have no career, they are not tied to progression). Beyond these sets of increasingly challenging tests, such as taking a corner in a FF car correctly, you have three modes in Single Player. You will spend most of your time here, in Time Trial, Single Race, or Drift Trial. Even more baffling than the lack of career is the lack of being able to upload ghosts of your best times in Time Trial, or a leaderboard for your best scores in Drift Trial. There are also no pre-set times to beat in Time Trial; no scores in Drift Trial. The game only has local ad hoc multiplayer, so ghosts, leaderboards, and pre-sets would have gone a long way here.
On the track you are looking at a game that looks and feels very much like Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2. It is not the best-looking PSP game out there, but it is close. There are bland textures here and there, and gemology stitching (white lines) is present on many tracks. However that does not change the fact that this is the king of all sim racers, and the PSP is no different. The only competition on the handheld is a little known series called TOCA Race Driver, but that game does not have the level of physics, cars, and tracks present in Gran Turismo on the PSP.
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