Gran Turismo 4 is genre-defining with GT in general. In 1998, we saw the first of the GT series which, through a combination of realistic driving physics, massive car rosters aimed at pleasing the obsessive collectors in all of us, and courses from around the world, brought us to the limit that any PlayStation gamer, that was a car enthusiast, could ever hope to experience. Topped off with state-of-the-art graphics and sound presentation, which was majestic, we saw the start of the greatest realistic driving series ever to grace any platform. Now, with the fourth installment in the series, the originally titled Gran Turismo 4, we find the franchise at the peak of its quantitative powers in a game that makes superlatives such as “big” and “sprawling” seem somehow inadequate. Yet beneath all the considerable content, Gran Turismo 4 remains remarkably similar to previous iterations in the series, which, depending on your point of view, may or may not be a good thing.

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