Gran Turismo PSP: Collector's Edition (Play.com Exclusive)

I rushed to get this game immediately it was released..and boy was I in for a surprise. Waited for it to load, saw the title screen, selected single player...and my jaw dropped.

What were the producers thinking? Just collecting cars and racing single races without a career mode? Uh...isn't all that a bit simple and self-defeating?

Ah well, at least we still have the 'licenses' to get through, which might give the game a bit of longevity, although I sincerely doubt it...

The graphics are nothing short of amazing, but gameplay leaves much to be desired...let's think about it for a minute...you have a hyper-tuned car, sucking itself to the ground....and you tell me it skids at 60km/h? You got to be kidding me...even my Skoda doesn't do that.

And forget playing on the PSP with an analog stick..simply not done.

Good effort, but a whole lot of money badly spent.

This one is a little gem. A mix between GT5 Prologue and GT4, it has an insane amount of cars (863, if you take out all the "dupes" it's still over 500) a good deal of tracks, and probably the best graphics for a racing game on the PSP. What i found to be sucking majorly is the music, but luckily you can unlock the ability to use your own mp3 by doing a couple of challenge sets.
How it handles? Pretty well if you consider the analog nub of the PSP, and the total lack of other analogic controls, giving a full throttle/bashing the brakes driving style. Then again, this isn't GT4 (or GT5...).
Another thing that i didn't like and worse, i couldn't find a reason why they did it like that, is the fact you have to buy cars when those are aviable. You can't go say, to Nissan's dealership and buy any car you want. Nope. Every 2 days you get a few dealerships with some cars! This is my reason to hand out 4 stars instead of 5.
There is local wireless play, and car trading. Challenges are mostly fun. There is the Nurburgring.
The collectors edition comes in a nice cardboard sleeve, and has some postcards of the Bugatti Veyron. You also get a completely black Veyron as a dowloadable extra.

It can install up to a whole gb of data (if you want to install data, you need at least 530mb free) to speed up load times, and that's very welcome.

To all those people who are saying there is no career mode.Please see the challenge mode as there is loads to do in there and good for short bursts which makes it 'portable on the go gaming'

I have to admit that this review is mostly a bash at the psp hardware.
However as GTPSP touts itself as a genuine GT game it must by definition be considered a driving simulator.

I should say that im no stranger to racing games, ive been an ardent fan of Forza 2 and the GT series.

The one problem with the PSP hardware that i have not seen anybody else comment on is the lack of analog function.

The control stick is the only analog button on the device/
So why is this a problem? Simple, you cant feather your throttle when your going round a bend.
So you have the option of either clearing the bend with no throttle and waiting until you are absolutely straight before you hit the throttle, or you can attempt to use the the cars TCS, which is pretty much the only way you can limit throttle.

Either way your driving or lap times suffer, I got through the whole of forza 2 without one touching abs, stability management or tcs, its an annoying that the hardware was just not given these functions.

However, within the confines of the limited hardware the game is about as good as it can be.

Alot of people dislike the directionless/careermode-less play.
Personally i have to say i quite like this lol.
as good as forza was it was incredible rigid in terms of options.

But I cant get away from the fact that there are nice cars on this game that just handle like total cr** because of the hardware.

The ONLY reason im continuing with it is so that i can hopefully put these cars in my future GT5 garage and finally get a proper driving eperience

Purchased this as was bored waiting for GT5 to release on PS3. I wasn't expecting much but thankfully I was wrong. The game plays very well and is fun for novices like me. The AI gets harder as you win more races, which keeps me coming back to win one more race. Lots of tracks and loads of Cars to buy! I think I am right in saying some of the cars can be moved to GT5 on PS3 when it comes out, great! The graphics on the PSP are excellent very smooth and fast. I love the fact GT supports Wi-Fi as well. This is my favourite car game on the PSP, Outstanding!