Something had to give. After Gran Turismo 6, a wild, vast and maddeningly uneven game that whisked players from West Sussex to the moon and back in its eccentric hymn to the automobile, developer Polyphony Digital had to try a different tack. The result, a typically belated debut on Sony hardware from a studio renowned and often reviled for taking its sweet time over things, will likely prove as divisive as any Gran Turismo before it.
Judged by numbers alone - and as a reflection of the automotive industry, one that's driven by a pursuit of bigger digits whether they're measured in mph or mpg, Gran Turismo Sport surely begs to be - this falls miserably flat. Judged even by past entries in the series, let alone the broader driving genre, it comes up short. The 162 cars on offer at launch are a mere fraction of the 1200 featured in Gran Turismo 6, its 40 tracks well under half of what was available last time out. There are other painful edits elsewhere: dynamic day/night transitions are out and, bar one rain-slicked car park, there's not much by way of variable weather conditions to be found at launch.
Given how savage those cuts have been, what exactly has been gained? A certain consistency, for one - Gran Turismo 6 and its immediate predecessor were both generous games, but also games in which older car models with their roots in the PlayStation 2 era sat uncomfortably alongside all-new 'premium' models. It made for an experience that was just as often unsightly as it was beautiful to behold. Gran Turismo Sport, however, feels premium throughout, as glossy as a high-end car brochure from its impeccably stylish menus through to its exquisite car models. This is, more often than not, an exceptionally pretty video game.
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