[#] Gran Turismo (Sony, PlayStation, 1998)

Tokyo drift that thang.

The 1995 Mitsubishi GTO. I can divide my time with Gran Turismo into before and after I found this car. Before, I was lost. I could never seem to get an edge regardless of how much money I dumped into my cars. Races were hard. Physics were wonky. Even the computer drivers regularly seemed to eat shit on jumps and funny turns. I started skipping the "yes you do this before every single race" qualifying laps the second game mercifully dropped because I never did better than last place anyway. Afterwards? You can win most of the cups with this one car. Perhaps it's a bad thing to be able to cheese things with one car, but it wasn't free to get there!

There's a lot of First Game Syndrome in Gran Turismo. As tradition, you start with your license tests to unlock cups. The game challenged me to time trial Special Stage Route 11 (the most angular city course ever designed for a game) in a slippery-as-fuck TVR Griffith without crashing, the bronze time limit set one second below sane by the perverted sadists who came up with it. The game lets you change everything from camber angle to gear ratios before every single race, and I found myself toying with stabilizers and brake controllers like I knew what I was doing, but once I got that GTO just how I liked it? Huge leads and wild riches awaited.

In fairness, the sequel has just as much early game tedium without a setup. The fun has always been in the freedom to experiment with tires and turbos, never the grind to afford them. Once you've got money and a good car, feeling the noticeable difference in handling in every tune and tweak is just as addictive as in its younger sibling. The music's great as always, the courses still attractive and challenging today, and unlocking the gorgeous 60FPS GT Hi-Fi mode is worth it all its own. I'd still give the nod to 2 for the better physics, progression, car and track selection, but this first one grew on me big time. After I bought the GTO.

(If you're looking for the fastest way to make money in the game, enter the Dodge Viper in the Normal Car Cup. Don't tune it, that disqualifies it. Just buy the RT/10 for 70,000 credits or so and watch as you can make 400,000 in a half hour. I can't drive for shit and I did it, so what's your excuse?)