I've been playing Gran Turismo since the first day it was released on the PSOne, although in those days, we called it the PSX, because it was the nineties and we put an "X" into just about anything we could, that made it totally XTREME!!! To say it's one of my favorite games is a gross understatement; on the day it was released I was a college student, and in typical nerd-college-student fashion, after purchasing the game from Best Buy, I played it through the night, straight into morning, went to school, came home and played it until around midnight that night. Engineering Physics homework had to be put on hold, as I simply could not put it down (and ended up dropping out of college anyway (win-win!)).
The start of it all (ooooh, pixels!):
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am obsessed with cars; it's one of those childhood fascinations that I've never let go. To find out that Gran Turismo was coming out, included tons of cars I love, and tons I'd never even heard of, made me break out in a ginger fever of anticipation. When it was released, GT finally hit that butter zone that so many games before it missed, a racing simulation in the console market, and did it justice.
Once GT moved to the PS2, with GT3, I missed out, because I went with a GameCube instead of the PS2. Not a bad choice, depending on what you want to play and who you ask, but it meant that I had to fire up GT2 on my PSOne if I wanted to play a decent racing sim. I managed to hold off for years, until I bought a secondhand PS2 from a friend of mine in 2006. By then, GT4 had already been out for over a year, so the first thing I did was run out and get a used copy. I came home, hooked up the PS2, dropped in GT4 and finally began scratching the itch. Once I opened up the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife, I bought a Lotus Elise 111 (In black, thank you), kept it bone stock and began learning every single turn of that 12.9 mile masterpiece.
Weapon of choice (looking better!):
Learning the Nordschleife in GT4 was one of the most rewarding and frustrating video game experiences I have had to date. At one point, the gameplay became similar to a very long/difficult stage on a platform game, you've got certain areas down, but other areas destroy you, and you start over again.
The Lotus has always been one of my favorite cars to drive in the GT series, and I can easily say that I lost weeks of my life lapping that track. Looking forward, it should be obvious to you that I peed a little bit when it was confirmed that GT5 will contain the Nurburgring tracks (and the McLaren F1!). I better take that day off of work.
Ok, maybe a week off:
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