h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know if you want to cover console gaming, but if you do, here's my opinion of Gran Turismo (I know it's old, but I haven't bought any new games for about a year!).

For the devotee of car-racing games, this game is several dreams come true. Want lots of courses? Want plenty of choice of cars? Want to be able to have a quick thrash round the course, against the machine or against a friend? Want a game with more depth, a strategy or evolutionary element? Want gorgeous graphics? Step this way.

GT has two modes of play. The first mode is an arcade-style racing game, where you pit your skills against 5 computer opponents or one friend on the second controller. At first, you are presented with a choice of cars and courses which would shame many complete games from the generation before: primarily Japanese, but American and British marques are also represented. Then, as you start to win on the "easy" level, you find that you earn more tracks, then more makes of car, until the range is very impressive indeed. Winning at the higher levels achieves extra bonus items - the credit sequence isn't much, but the "Hi-Res Graphics" award ... well, first I ought to mention the ordinary graphics. They are really good; the cars are not just recognisable, they're spot-on. There are reflections and shadows and it all works extremely well. The Hi-Res mode makes it all so shiny it almost hurts - like the bad guy in Terminator 2 - but is a real thing of beauty.

When playing head-to-head, you can have almost as much fun watching the replay after the race as you do when driving - the first time my brother and I took two DB7s out was a pantomime of 360 degree spins which had us rolling around afterwards as we saw the other person being as incompetent as we knew we'd been. The sound, too is great: every engine note is correct, recorded from the actual car in question. However, the most impressive thing about the whole of GT is the "feel" you get while driving the cars. There is a genuine, noticeable, and very realistic difference between driving front-, rear- and four-wheel drive cars. The more powerful rear-wheelers are particularly prone to oversteer, and require great caution. You can believe that this is what the cars are like to take out on the road.

If that were all, this game would be worth the money. But it's not. The second mode, "Gran Turismo" mode, is even deeper and more fun. You start with a limited budget to buy a car - so limited that it'll be a second-hand Japanese runabout. But don't worry, there's still plenty of choice here - models and model years which never featured in the arcade mode come in at this stage. Once you have a car, you can go racing - but at the moment you're restricted to very basic single races in which you can win only small amounts of prize money.

What you need next is to earn yourself a racing licence. That will allow you go in for bigger races and racing series, where you can win bigger prizes. The first licence you earn is a B-class, which allows you into the Sunday Cup and a few of the "special event" series. That's pretty simple to get if you've learned to control the various cars in arcade mode, and gives you a foothold in the game. Win a race series and you're talking serious money - both as cash prizes and in the form of cars which you can keep and use or sell, as you choose. The cash you win can be spent one of two ways - either buy a new and better car, or upgrade your existing one: racing tyres should be your first investment, then you can beef up the suspension, tune up the engine (or add a turbocharger), reduce the weight of the car - each of these will produce a difference not only in the speed of the car around the track, but also in the handling. It's great fun to beef up a little front-drive car, put soft sticky racing tyres on the front wheels, and then whizz round the track with the back end flipping all over the place.

After the B-class licence comes the A, which is a real challenge, and then the IA (International A) licence, which gives you entry to any and all events. For these higher-grade races you'll need a better car too, so build up a "fighting fund" in the lower divisions first. By now you'll be able to buy brand new cars, and you can feel the thrill of having a Dodge Viper or TVR Cerbera in the garage - and if you're buying new, of course you can pick the colour too!

It will take most mortals many weeks to reach this stage, and the beauty of it is that even once you've won every series, you haven't finished. Go back and win the same series with a different car, or improve your times in the licence test and (by getting "gold level" in all 8 categories) win a car you can't buy on the open market.

Gran Turismo is all the racing game you'll ever need - until GT2 comes out in 2000, that is!

hmmm,
I could include a console section to the page, it would require a bit of a rethink, but i suspect I will get quite a few people wanting to see some console reviews, and I could do one of Tony Hawks Skateboarding. I'll set it up and see what happens!