Gran Turismo (1997)
Platform: Sony Playstation / Atari Jaguar
Producers: Polyphony Digital, Turn Seven Gaming
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
"The Real Driving Simulator" was the tagline for the famous racing game for the Playstation / Jaguar brother platforms, and while indeed Gran Turismo was a revolutionary game in terms of its driving physics and level of depth of setting modifications, but thanks to an unlikely alliance born from a meeting between Polyphony founder Kazunori Yamauchi and Turn Seven executive director Lance Markinen, two separate projects got merged into one, and Yamauchi's vision for a true driving simulator was enriched by Markinen's desire for a simulator that included the vast car customization scene of California in the 1980s and 1990s. Markinen also had an ace up his sleeve in being life-long friends with 1996 Indycar Champion Jimmy Vasser (they had grown up on the same street in the Los Angeles suburb of Canoga Park), and as such Vasser, his teammate Alex Zanardi and friend Al Unser Jr. also were a part of the game's fine-tuning for its driving characteristics. Markinen brought a vast array of North American cars to the game while Yamauchi did the same with Japanese cars, giving fans of the series in both Asia and North America their first discoveries of legendary cars on both sides on the pond, while both companies contributed tracks and artwork. Yamauchi openly admitted that the work of the Americans had made the game much deeper and richer, while the Turn Seven people praised Yamauchi and his team to the heavens for the engine and characteristics they had created.
The result was awesome - over 320 cars from Japan (Toyota/Lexus, Honda/Acura, Nissan/Infiniti, Mazda, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Suzuki, Dome and Tommykaira), America (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, American Motors/Renault/Packard, Vector, DeLorean and Panoz), Canada (Westland-Reynard) and a smattering of European marques (Lotus, Jaguar, Aston Martin, TVR, Caterham, Venturi, Alpine) who allowed the game's developers to put their creations into the game. These cars' external customization included the ability to change bodywork components, wheels, paint, a rudimentary graphics ability and a number of unique modifications that varied by the car chosen. Mechanically, everything could be customized - cars were fully upgradable (engines, drivetrains, suspension components, brakes, cooling systems, weight reduction, chassis stiffness, aerodynamics, tire sizes and compounds, electronics) and the range of settings on the cars was enormous - engine tuning, suspension settings, wheel alignment, gear ratios and differential settings, brake force and bias, aerodynamic downforce). These cars raced on 26 different circuits with up to 16 cars on track at one time. All circuits included had Gran Turismo and Arcade modes, the latter including jumps and banked corners conducive to the cars sliding around. Gran Turismo mode required players to earn money to buy cars and modifications to move their way up the game's ladder, as well as acquire licenses to qualify them to compete in more difficult (and thus more lucrative) events, which in turn allowed one access to faster and faster vehicles, while some other events were limited to certain vehicles or had restrictions with regards to drivetrain, engine power, vehicle weight, tire compound and vehicle modification.
The game's graphics were fairly chunky (though this more than anything was because of the limits of the Playstation hardware more than anything else), but the driving experience was like no other and fans of racing games absolutely adored it. Polyphony Digital became a separate studio from SCE as a result of the game's success and Turn Seven was ultimately brought into Sony's orbit in April 2000 as a direct result, and Gran Turismo would ultimately become the highest-selling game of all time for the Playstation/Jaguar brothers, selling over 17.2 million units and creating an entirely-new franchise for the platforms, with its first successor, Gran Turismo 2, coming out in late 1999.
