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If the campaign is geared towards making you a better driver, the online puts systems in place to ensure you're a better racer. I've already spoken a little about how Gran Turismo Sport wisely cribs from iRacing, in my view the premier sim on PC, for its online, appropriating the safety rating system that leads towards fairer, more enjoyable racing. It borrows from elsewhere, too, its lexicon lifted from sportscar racing; events are bound by Balance of Performance, the tweaking that takes place in real-life sportscar racing to ensure all competitors are on an even keel. There's even a button dedicated to flashing your lights as you bear down on your opponent - sportscar racing's equivalent of the fighting game taunt.
The result is some of the most exciting online racing I've come across on console, an enjoyably approachable spin on iRacing's formula that makes for tense and - mostly - fair match-ups. There have been quirks throughout the demo and beta periods, and there will always be those left scratching their heads by the necessary rule that means any contact between players means both will see their safety rating hit, but Polyphony Digital has been quick to address issues. The foundation is there for something special - though we'll have to wait until early next month, when online championships that join the daily races currently available go live, to see where exactly this is headed.
What shape Gran Turismo Sport's future will take remains to be seen, and Polyphony Digital is, not altogether wisely, being enigmatic about how exactly these strong yet slim foundations will be supported in the coming months. There will be updates, with cars and tracks inbound - though whether or not we'll have to pay for the restoration of the tracks and cars that have defined the series and been cast aside for Sport is a matter that is still perfectly unclear. For all the positive changes ushered in by Gran Turismo Sport, some things remain the same.
Some things have surely changed for the better, though. Gran Turismo has come in for criticism in the past for operating in a bubble, of ploughing its own path in ignorance of everything else that's going on in the genre. Gran Turismo Sport feels, for the first time, like a little of the outside world is being let in. In its inclusion of features like a livery editor - and a fairly decent one at that, allowing you to create your own designs and share them online - and its slim implementation of virtual reality, this once antiquated series is even in danger of feeling positively modern.
Let's not forget what's been lost for the series' PlayStation 4 debut, though. There's none of that old scope, and only a fraction of the old madness that made Gran Turismo so endearing. There are no lunar rovers, no 19th century single horsepowered wagons and not even anything by way of an open wheel racer to be found in its car list at launch. Yet, conversely, this is possibly the most focussed, directly enjoyable game Polyphony Digital has put out since the heady days of Gran Turismo 3. Racing improves the breed, industrialist Soichiro Honda once said, and Gran Turismo Sport is proof positive of that.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... ort-review