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Gran Turismo 7 Review Thread

First we need to establish that people have differnet tastes and have differnet experiences before we can have a meaningful discussion. There could be people sick of Elden Ring but not sick of Horizon.

Okay, I can acknowledge that, but this isn't about me questioning people's tastes for liking or even loving Elden Ring as the GOAT or what have you. I don't think me asking about the consistency (or lake thereof) in the review process from some reviewers is suggestive of that.

Elden Ring changes enough to make people happy. And the inherent qualities that people like in Souls games tend to age better arguably. People like the souls games for things like difficulty, secrets/exploration and clever level design. I don't think people really get sick of hard games, finding secrets or clever level design. Same way people don't get sick of Mario when it's the same essential game but the level design just gets crazier/more-clever every time. But what people might get sick of is clearing icons off the map to complete checklists and choose your own dialogue. There's not much that really heavily rips off the souls games either (at least not one that are likely played).

Right, and all of these things can be true. However, again, this isn't about questioning people's tastes or really even questioning design choices in specific games. It's about why some review outlets seem to have inconsistencies in either applied logic between reviews where certain standards are held for one game but not for another similar game in areas of performance that can be quantifiably, objectively measured against a baseline standard. And related to that, where certain games seem to get a very heavy clustering of super-fans (who are going to be more forgiving of certain flaws or design trends than a more casual or non-fan) to review them while other games get a more normalized spread of super-fans, casual fans, and non-fans.

Lets look at Gears of War as an example, back then it was crazy for how it shook things up for third person shooters with its cover system. Everyone copies that so new Gears games can't ride on being the inventor of that system because everyone else has great 3rd person movement/cover or whatever too. Similar to COD with its tactical and precisiony gameplay elements. Similiar to Uncharted with it's overly cinematic single palyer experiences. Everyone starts doing the same shit you don 't get that wow anymore.

In the whole spread of the console gaming market, how many games do cinematic single-player narrative-driven experiences like Uncharted? At the level of Uncharted? That particular genre slice is nowhere near as saturated as FPS games so I don't necessarily see where the analogy has merit here.

The reality is, people need to stop looking at pastreviews and comparing them to today. People try think of the scores too logically when they are subjective scores. They don't write a review going back at every other game they've ever reviewed or their colleagues ever reviewed and try to make the score numbers be relative to that. Review scores are subjectives scores of what an individual person thinks at the time of reviewing

You're missing the point of my argument; it's not about past reviews for previous iterations and thinking sequels need to score better just for the sake of being a sequel. The issue is that some of the more middling reviews, at least for a string of recent releases (mainly Elden Ring, Forbidden West, Sifu, and now GT7), have highly inconsistent logic in rationalizing/explaining why those scores as supposedly merited.

More than a few reviews for Sifu weighed the average down because the game was "too hard", yet Elden Ring gets near-perfect scores across the board because of its difficulty (among other things)? Where's the logical consistency? It's nonexistent. Is there a "right" type of being too difficult? Do they expect linear games to be less difficult because you can't procrastinate as much time running away from the challenge before moving on, like you can with an open-world game? Why does that weigh against a game like Sifu as much as it does? What makes Elden Ring's challenge refreshing in a way that doesn't hurt the experience, by comparison?

And I'm not even going to get into the technical side of things. On that metric alone, a certain recently-released game most likely shouldn't have a 97, considering that even the version with said score (PS5) has notable technical issues. How were none of these technical issues mentioned in the vast majority of the reviews? Wouldn't that have been important to communicate to the customer who's going to go spend their money on acquiring the game?

I do understand that the same review outlet is not going to have the same individuals review each game, more often than not, so subjectivity of how a game is viewed will change depending on the individual reviewing the game. However, that's also why a review can't, and shouldn't, be based on 100% subjective readings, because that's a quick way to bring in random conjecture that can lead to bad optics showing logical inconsistencies. You need to have some constants that can hold true across reviews regardless of the game, and those should factor into the final review score in at least some notable way.

That's not a contradiction. My first post is saying that standards change. Elements that make it special don't stand out anymore over time people people copy (or in other words rasie the bar). Whereas what you are doing is comparing how much has changed between sequels of a "franchise". It's not about change for the sake of change. It's that over time people change expectations and so review/critisize differnetly.

Okay, so what set of standards does Elden Ring employ, that a game like Horizon Forbidden West does not employ? And more importantly, are any of those supposed standards able to be proven to have been equally considered in OTHER games and were THOSE games fairly judged during their review phase by their critics in a way that is logically consistent with a title such as Elden Ring (as an example)?

EDIT: Not trying to make this into an Elden Ring discussion, FWIW
 
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rolandss

Member
We
Why would any sane person consider buying a racing game if they hate cars and racing? Sometimes the stupidity of the reviewers is off the charts. If your reviewing something in a genre you don't like then your review shouldn't reflect your biases. A game should be reviewed fairly.
I think the reviews by genre or series fans are the best, especially for long running franchises or well known genre titles, because they generally know all the foibles of past releases and focus on the features fans care about. I mean if I reviewed elden ring it’d be a shit show because I’ve never played a souls game through to its conclusion, I’m not good at it and I don’t like the genre. But if a fan reviews it they can tell you what’s improved and changed since the last game, what’s new, what isn’t, etc.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Gran turismo 3 is actually the racing game Ive played the most. I was more into cars and racing when I was younger but I kinda grew out of it.
What I like about GT3 was of course that amazing intro with the music and graphics it was a true next gen moment. I also like the leveling up aspect, that you would start with a shitty skoda, then a mazda mx5, then a mitsubishi lancer and better and better. I was pretty dedicated to leveling up and getting more credits I even did some driving school challenges.
I got GT4 for a birthday gift, i played it a bit but for whatever reason I was kinda over the formula. I have not touched a GT since.
However I do have a nostalgia craving with GT7.
 
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John Wick

Member
What does wanting to play a racing game have to do with wanting to read the history of car racing?

I feel like you just aren't following; we aren't talking about someone who dislikes car racing games, or the genre. They didn't like a mechanic where the "story mode" requires going through a bunch of dialog about the history of cars. And they said it wasn't particularly interesting either way, whether you cared about the history of cars or not (in their opinion.)
That was just a response in general to people who review games that they have no interest in or a genre they don't like.
Going back to the review your talking about. Nothing stopping the reviewer from skipping this part if it offends his so. Or completely not playing the storymode. Sheesh some complaints.....
 

John Wick

Member
We

I think the reviews by genre or series fans are the best, especially for long running franchises or well known genre titles, because they generally know all the foibles of past releases and focus on the features fans care about. I mean if I reviewed elden ring it’d be a shit show because I’ve never played a souls game through to its conclusion, I’m not good at it and I don’t like the genre. But if a fan reviews it they can tell you what’s improved and changed since the last game, what’s new, what isn’t, etc.
Exactly. SuperGT is a review I checked out ASAP. He plays both GT and Forza so he knows his stuff.
 

DJ12

Member


This is a short, but sweet review and shows some really cool details on how much you can change a cars appearance with mods.

Obviously hides his fanboying well when the clicks and views count rofl.

Shame these no mention of the physics being dramatically improved like super gt mentioned.

I take super gt's word for it, but would've like corroboration from another driving game fanatic I guess.
 
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SLB1904

Banned
Obviously hides his fanboying well when the clicks and views count rofl.

Shame these no mention of the physics being dramatically improved like super gt mentioned.

I take super gt's word for it, but would've like corroboration from another driving game fanatic I guess.
Kie is impressed by the physics he said
" it feels like a proper simulator now"
 

Killer8

Member
Not as impressed with the ray tracing as i'd thought i'd be. It definitely adds realism and more depth to the car models, but at the same time it's pretty low resolution. The game goes from having a sort of pristine image quality to looking blobby and shimmery. It's the same problem other low-res implementations like RE: Village have had.
 
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Louay

Member
Update look like final Score is 87

 

rolandss

Member
Update look like final Score is 87

It’ll always be 100 in my heart
 

FukuDaruma

Member
I think these are the most honest reviews from real sim racers I've seen so far:

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The Fartist

Gold Member
Forza Horizon 5 has a Metacritic score of 92.
Apples to oranges, but okay. Mario Kart 8 also has a 92. Are you gonna argue that FH5 and MK8 are equal games because they have the same Metacritic score? By your metric, you would, which would make no sense whatsoever.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Reviews are all subjective and aren’t good for buying choices you can actually find fun 6, 7, 8 games.
 

Thanati

Member
Apples to oranges, but okay. Mario Kart 8 also has a 92. Are you gonna argue that FH5 and MK8 are equal games because they have the same Metacritic score? By your metric, you would, which would make no sense whatsoever.
Apples to oranges? How? Last time I saw Forza is also a racing game, or am I looking at the wrong thing here?

All I'm saying is that people are boasting that GT7 is the "bets game ever with a Metacritic of 88" when other games, in the exact same genre, have higher scores.
 

SLB1904

Banned
Apples to oranges? How? Last time I saw Forza is also a racing game, or am I looking at the wrong thing here?

All I'm saying is that people are boasting that GT7 is the "bets game ever with a Metacritic of 88" when other games, in the exact same genre, have higher scores.
boohoo
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
The game gets a point reduction for nerfing the Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo.(probably because they'll Skyline lovers)
Max you can tune it is up to is about 500-600 bhp
That is literally half of what it was in GT1/2/3

Don't need the extra hp anyway, still laps everything 😂
 

Emet_bp

Member
Gran Turismo is a more specific game than Forza Horizon. For example even Gran Turismo 4 is 89 on MC... and it's called one of the best racing games ever, and at the taime it was released for me personally it was a 10/10 game.

GT7 is not a 10/10 game... right now for me is like 8,5-9/10 (it would be 9,5/10 with a couple of new road going Audi and BMW models and at least few more tracks).
Neverless for me personally it's still the best racing game righ now.
 

TheMan

Member
So I'm kind of missing more sim aspects- qualifying, grid starts, cars that are more evenly matched.

Is that kind of racing featured in here somewhere?
 

xion4360

Member
RT is disabling at times for no apparent reason. Seems there are some bugs here. I end up going with performance mode because why bother with 30fps if RT is off half the time. Its always on for the cinematic car shots.

The realtime cube maps are pretty good, and don't have that ugly noisy artifacting that RT does making it look pretty bad at times honestly. In general the graphics are not as good as i expected. Its a step up over GT Sport and i appreciate that at least.
 
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The Fartist

Gold Member
Apples to oranges? How? Last time I saw Forza is also a racing game, or am I looking at the wrong thing here?

All I'm saying is that people are boasting that GT7 is the "bets game ever with a Metacritic of 88" when other games, in the exact same genre, have higher scores.
I'd say an auto-enthusiast driving simulator vs an open-world arcade racer is exactly an apples to oranges comparison.
 

Aenima

Member
So I'm kind of missing more sim aspects- qualifying, grid starts, cars that are more evenly matched.

Is that kind of racing featured in here somewhere?
Mostly online. The oficial hosted daily races they all let you do qualifying times to set your starting position in the race. It can be grid start or rolling start. Thers also alot more sim aspects to take into consideration in these races, like tire wear and fuel consuption. Some races have mandatory pit stops to change tires for a diferent hardness, so its much more strategic.
 

Venom Snake

Gold Member
I'd say an auto-enthusiast driving simulator vs an open-world arcade racer is exactly an apples to oranges comparison.

Exactly. Despite being a car game, Forza Horizon is not car-centric. I mean, why would i get into a Lamborghini and drive it across someone's patio or drag it's low-hanging nose through the tropical jungle? It is all about driving fast through beautiful scenery in the spirit of the good old arcade racers of the past, but on a larger scale. It has its charm and does its job perfectly, appealing to a wide audience of casual gamers.

Gran Turismo on the other hand will be judged differently. It celebrates the car, puts it in the foreground.
It is based on a passion for the automotive industry and a nostalgic feeling that accompanies fans since they encountered the series for the first time. For this reason, it seems to be rather quirky and detached from modern reality and expectations of most gamers.
Of course, the huge amount of content and its variety attract the masses, but the nature of this game seems rather unusual, almost niche.
You either love it or hate it.

If i dare to make an analogy (which i'm not very good at), i would say that Horizon is like one of those fancy dance clubs where they only play hits, sexy chicks swing their asses right next to your face and bartenders serve the best high-octane drinks.

Gran Turismo is a gentlemen's club.
 
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JeloSWE

Member
Not as impressed with the ray tracing as i'd thought i'd be. It definitely adds realism and more depth to the car models, but at the same time it's pretty low resolution. The game goes from having a sort of pristine image quality to looking blobby and shimmery. It's the same problem other low-res implementations like RE: Village have had.
Honestly, the RT is very impressive for the relatively weak hardware in the PS5 and AMD is no where near NVIDIA in this area either. The consoles came out about a year or two to early for RT to look good on them. The materials, lighting and HDR in GT Sport and 7 is very accurate and impressive on a technical level, it's just that the HW isn't up to part quite yet. Maybe PS5 pro will have sufficient RT cores to reach some decent quality.

Additionally, I was quite taken aback when NV pushed RT on 2xxx series cards, it was at least 2 years earlier than I expected. Still I think we'll only start seeing many game relying entirely on RT for their lighting from NV 4xxx or 5xxx series. Yet AMD is still lagging behind a lot in this area which might keep the whole market back for a while longer.
 
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