You wouldn’t know it by reading this blog, but one of the few video gaming genres I have loved unconditionally my entire life, ever since I was old enough and tall enough to reach the sticks on arcade cabinets, has been car driving and racing. I have fond memories of Pole Position; consider the OutRun soundtrack to be the greatest in the medium’s history; have smiled with Cruisin’ USA, gritted my teeth courtesy of Crazy Taxi, and laughed over manic multiplayer Mario Kart DS sessions. And even though I eventually gave up on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and open-world games in general, I took immense pleasure in simply cruising around a loving parody of the very real Miami Beach that I had spent much time in when I was younger, listening to the ’80s tunes and satirical talk shows on the radio. All of this is especially ironic since I have no interest in driving in real life and, in fact, only ever did so for a very short time.
But yes, I love driving games, even though I’m not very good at a lot of them. This last bit is why I don’t buy them all that often, and why, until recently, the first and last simulation racer I had ever bought was Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, which came bundled with my first PlayStation 2. I had heard fantastic things about the Gran Turismo series, and this latest (at the time) entry in the series looked damned pretty, so for this casual driving game lover, I thought it was a no-brainer. However, my problem was just that: I was a casual driving game lover, and GT3 was very, very serious. In career mode, I got a starting car and some circuits to race on, but to save up enough money to upgrade from my lowly PT Cruiser was going to be a tedious task, and I never stuck with it. Of course, it didn’t help that the license tests, required to unlock the higher-level races, demand a certain sort of precision which my casual self couldn’t possibly hope (or want) to deliver.
I eventually set Gran Turismo 3 aside for other games, including the simpler but much more accessible go-kart racer Mario Kart DS, and ended up never touching it again. Another console generation rolled around. I picked up Mario Kart Wii and went through the entire Grand Prix in that, as I had with its predecessor, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted a more robust racing experience, something like Gran Turismo, but given my past experience, I had to do my research more carefully this time. We don’t have a PS3, but we do have an Xbox 360, and the Xbox brand’s equivalent of GT was Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport, so I began looking into that series. I already knew of its reputation for delivering as deep and realistic an experience as Polyphony Digital’s “Real Driving Simulator”, but could I play a Forza game and still have fun?
The answer? A resounding yes.
