► Full, updated Gran Turismo Sport review
► Rigorously tested: everything as it stands!
► This review is constantly updated
Ever since its release, Polyphony Digital has pumped GT Sport with free updates every month – but now Gran Turismo has its first paid DLC. Focused around the game’s ambassador and six-time F1 world champion, Lewis Hamilton, the latest add-on costs £6.49 and pits you against the Englishman on a range of tracks.
The idea is simple: learn from Hamilton as he coaches you around each corner, and then do your best to beat his ghost lap. It’s part-educational software, part-licence test, and on the whole, it’s a worthy addition to the game – even if you do have to pay.
There are ten time-trial challenges in total, and there’s a nice mixture of tracks; from Brands Hatch to Dragon Trail. The only catch? You’ll be forced to use a very on-brand Mercedes-AMG GT3 to do most of them – or a Sauber C9 for the Nordschleife. The GT3 not the sweetest handling vehicle in the game, but it can be hustled at greater speeds than you’d think, and it’s pretty stable over the kerbs too. Track limits are key, and you’ll have no margin for error, or comfort.
The coaching itself – usually comprising of a one minute video from Hamilton – isn’t that useful, but the replays certainly are. You can follow a ghost of Hamilton to learn lines and braking points, and then you can watch a replay from onboard too – completely with steering, accelerating and brake inputs. Combine the two and it’s possible to slowly but surely zero in on the six-time world champion’s times.
Take the Brands Hatch challenge, for example; we started off around three seconds behind, but careful copying of lines and rehearsed bravery means we’re now less than a second behind the Hamilton ghost. With a little tidying up and more commitment, it’s very possible. But even if you can’t get close to Hamilton, the different rewards, from Bronze to Diamond – along with the great coaching content – will keep you coming back.
Ignore the new credit limit this DLC gives you – that’s only useful if you’re interested in buying multiple high-value cars – and this add on is a unique, albeit limited, piece of content. If you’re a fan of racing wheel-to-wheel, you’ll gain little – but if you want to learn from one of the best racing drivers of all time, this is a must buy.
GT Sport: the constantly updated CAR review
Gamers have waited years for this, but it’s finally here – GT Sport on the next-gen PlayStation 4. This is Sony’s flagship racing game, on its most up-to-date console – and in 2019 it’s one of the best racing games you can buy. However, it didn’t start out like that; although the graphics were class-leading, the car and track list left much to be desired. And when combined with limited single-player opportunities, GT Sport felt like a lightweight, online focused-racing game.
Fast forward two years, and a monthly stream of updates has injected some much-needed content into what was always a very enticing framework. GT Sport finally has the cars, the tracks and the offline races to keep you coming back – and now combines it with the most robust online racing experience… well, ever.
So, what’s GT Sport actually like to play in 2019? In this review we’ll skip past all the gremlins and shortfalls of the day one release, and just look at how Gran Turismo Sport plays now – as after all, that’s how you’ll be buying it, right? With that in mind, start your engines for our fully updated Gran Turismo Sport review.
GT Sport on PS4: the graphics
Choose any track, pick any car, and the first thing you’ll notice is just how good this game looks. On a normal PS4, graphics are smooth and pin-sharp, and lighting is by far the most realistic we’ve seen on a console – save Forza Horizon 4 on Xbox One X. What’s more, the way cars move into focus and the way the in-game camera uses depth-of-field, really helps everything look incredibly realistic. And if you’re fortunate enough to have both a 4K and HDR-capable PS4 Pro and TV, things get even better.
GT Sport is arguably a killer app for HDR, technology which essentially allows for brighter pixels on the screen – and therefore a wider range of brightness. It sounds rather monotonous when written down, but in practice HDR tech allows headlights and glowing disc brakes to ping out of the screen, sun glare to almost get uncomfortable, and the game to leap almost out of the TV. It’s most spectacular when doing night races, and it’s a feature that remains impressive even a year down the line.
| Read our best racing games in 2019 round-up here
It’s all about the little things with GT Sport, though: looking to the rear when you’re in cockpit view forces you to glance through the back window, sparks fly off the undersides of GT3 and GT4 cars when they skip over rumble strips, and bright headlights from cars behind beam through your cockpit during night races. Having watched endless hours of N24 footage, the latter really adds to the immersion.
Even things like the indicators are weirdly fascinating to look at. They’re obviously in the game for hazard lights during pit manoeuvres, but GT Sport has even loaded in the scrolling indicators on an Audi TT, for example, and programmed the interior icons to light up, too.
VR modes are available if you’ve got a PSVR headset, and although impressive in their way, they’re not as pin-sharp as the rest of the game and pretty limited too. VR on GT Sport is a tech showcase, not a separate selling point.
GT Sport on PS4: the sound
Neither as guttural as Assetto Corsa, nor as raw as Project Cars 2 – and certainly not as complete as Forza Motorsport 7 – the sound in GT Sport is still significantly better than what we’ve heard in previous Gran Turismo games. Cars don’t sound like vacuum-cleaners any more, and most feature a rich, distinct character that sets them apart from the rest. Take Porsche’s screaming 911 RSR for instance; it may not wail like it does in real life, but it gives out a pleasing metallic roar that’s worth cranking your soundbar up for.
GT Sport on PS4: cars and tracks
This is one area where GT Sport is remarkably different in 2019 to the game we started with. Months of updates mean we now have a much better mixture of classic cars, concepts, racing cars and even Lewis Hamilton’s 2017 F1 car. As before, the cars are organised in groups, topping out at ridiculous F1-level Gr.X racers but also featuring some interesting classes such as Gr.2, which essentially consists of new and old Super GT cars. They’re faster than GT3 or touring cars, and just below LMP2 performance – and certainly worth checking out…
It’s unlikely GT Sport will ever get to the hundreds of cars on offer we used to see in the original games, but it’s finally covering the right bases, and doing it well.
GT Sport on PS4: the handling
If you’re expecting an exacting, precise ‘sim’ racer like Assetto Corsa or Project Cars 2, you’re going to be a little disappointed – and if you’re after something like Burnout or Ridge Racer, it’s worth looking elsewhere. GT Sport sits somewhere toward the sim racer spectrum, and fiddling with settings such as assists and tyre wear can make it feel more or less demanding, depending on your preference.
| Read our best racing games in 2019 round-up here
Get a powerful car, take traction control off, throw on some hard-compound racing tyres and take yourself to a cold track, and GT Sport is up there in terms of difficulty. When using everything from road cars to faster Gr.3 and Gr.2 cars, you’ll need to think very carefully about when to put the power down, and racing on used tyres just heightens the tension. In fact, GT Sport continues to introduce new tyre models, even a year after release, so the behaviour of cars on used tyres is only getting better.
It’s not impossible to play though; take too many big liberties and you’ll probably end up facing the wrong way, but take a few smaller ones and you’ll just have some hairy moments. It’s a lot of fun, trust us.
Of course, if you’re just after pure speed, or don’t fancy battling your wits against the limits of grip, there’s still traction control available on every car, and it makes the game much easier overall.
GT Sport on PS4: offline, single player
GT Sport was seriously lacking offline on release day, and felt more like a Prologue game than the full-monty, but things have got much better since then. In addition to the licence tests, circuit challenges and driving challenges, GT Sport now has a good mixture of endurance races, and other series-based championships. If you’ve played Gran Turismo before, you’ll know what to expect here – it’s just surprising it’s taken this long to get to this stage.
If you’d rather do your own thing, the game lets you set up time trials, and you can also make a custom race too, so you can earn prize money while practising your lines – well, it’s one way to rack up those credits, isn’t it?
One slightly disappointing thing though. Despite sponsoring endurance races, and showing off amazing lighting – GT Sport’s engine doesn’t currently have the ability to evolve between different times of the day. For example, if you want to do the N24 on PS4, you won’t be able to experience the transition from afternoon, to dusk, nightfall and back again. That’s a shame, because each of those times looks stunning in isolation.
| Read our best racing and driving games in 2019 round-up here
Worse still, if you want to experience a track like Brands Hatch at night, there’s simply nothing you can do about it, right now. And if you want to drive at Le Mans, the darkest you can get up to is currently 10pm, which is a little disappointing given it’s a 24-hour race.
GT Sport on PS4: online multiplayer
This is where GT Sport streaks ahead of the competition, both as an organisation and in-game. For casual players, the online experience is straightforward. You usually have three races to choose from of different class cars, each at a seperate track – and after qualifying you’ll get matchmaked into a grid. It’s exactly like you’d expect from a First Person Shooting game like Destiny or Call of Duty, and it works well here – again, it’s strange it’s taken so long to have something this simple.
Either way, get up and running and races are relatively clean, mainly as a result of the less-broken-than-you’d-think penalty system. Time penalties are added to players for ramming cars off the track and cutting corners, and helpfully you can see these above each opponent. That means you can sometimes decide caution is the better part of valour, and simply hang back if it suits.
Of course, you’ll get into the odd shunt – and soon learn that going two-abreast into a chicane on the first lap isn’t advised – but it’s possible to settle into a pleasant, and often close racing career.
If you’re into eSports, GT Sport is an enticing prospect, and because the series has FIA-certification, you can watch world championships online, with players using exactly the same equipment as you. We’d personally file it under depressing or entertaining, depending how good you thought you were at the game beforehand!
GT Sport on PS4: anything else?
Gran Turismo games have always had a good community feel, be it on forums or elsewhere – but GT Sport finally invites fans inside, and gives the more social and creative amongst us the chance to make a contribution. Players can create liveries, helmet designs and race suit designs which others can use, and it’s actually added another important layer to the game. Fancy a brand new Supra in classic livery? Someone’s made it. Prefer to race in an 911 RSR with the same livery as the the 911 GT1 ‘98? GT Sport has your back.
Throw in the ability to easily see the qualifying times of your friends for online races – and even watch how Lewis Hamilton puts together a lap in the game – and GT Sport finally harnesses the sense of community we’ve always seen in the Gran Turismo world.
GT Sport on PS4: verdict
Gran Turismo is one of the most iconic race series ever made, and while GT Sport isn’t the sprawling magnum opus that GT2 or GT3 was, two years later, it’s getting there. Thanks to aggressive monthly updates, GT Sport has filled out into a true next-gen sequel – it’s now like the games that made the series as important as it is today. If you’ve got a PS4, GT Sport should be your first port of call.