GAME CLEAR No. 95 -- Gran Turismo 7

Gran Turismo 7 (2022, PS4/PS5)

Developer: Polyphony Digital
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Clear Version: PS5
Clear Platform: PS5
Clear Date: 6/19/22

Finally got around to finishing this. GT7 has a healthy single-player set of “Café Menus” to work through before it’ll show you the credits. Took me about 20 hours.

This is the first Gran Turismo game I’ve played, and I had a pretty good time with it. Of course, I have my gripes with its always-online requirements and its digital marketplace, but I looked past those things to try to get at the game underneath.

What’s there is really good. I was worried Gran Turismo would be a bit dry for me. I’ve enjoyed the Forza Horizon games, but I thought this one might not have quite the thrills. On the contrary, I actually often found myself engrossed and having a great time with its traditional, track-based races. The Café where you get your missions mostly alternates between sending you on missions to unlock a series of significant/historical cars and sending you to Grands Prix. I really enjoyed both aspects, but I particularly like the clear care and love Polyphony put into their attempt to cover a wide range of automotive history. Hell, I think the first car it gave me was a Honda Fit Hybrid. Not exactly an enthusiast car! But the in-game characters described all its attributes and what made it a top-selling commuter car.

The driving assist options are plentiful and help make the racing experience enjoyable on a gamepad and accessible to someone that doesn’t really know shit about the deeper details of racing and performance driving. License Tests given in the game also provide a decent way to at least get a high-level view of how one should approach various parts of a race. Polyphony was smart to offer an experience as deep or shallow as their users may want.

It’s a minor complaint, but I must say this was not the visual marvel I was hoping it might be. I’m sure a lot of that is that it was also released on PS4. Racing games are often a great chance for console makers to really flex their hardware’s muscle, but the PS5 only got minor visual upgrades. Again, not really a dealbreaker for me, but it was a bit surprising.

Overall, I had a fun time with it. I don’t know if I loved it enough to return to the series, but I’m glad I gave it a shot. I do hate that the game is largely offered as a service rather than an ownable, single-player product, but that’s just the industry these days. Maybe things will turn around eventually.