Over the past decade I enjoyed particular Need for Speed titles, the MotorStorm series and truly loved the first Dirt game in the Colin McRae series, but still I wouldn’t call myself a big racing game fan, because it was not an addiction, but more like a fleeting kind of fun. Neither was I a motorhead. Actually, even though I had a driving license and a car, I didn’t care much about driving it and even barely used it.

The things have changed when I’ve accidently stalked into a British show Top Gear on TV about two years ago. I’ve got nothing new to say about it – it’s simply amazing how both informative and entertaining it is. Like someone said, the show is great for you even if you are not into cars and it’s twice as good if you are. By this very moment I’ve watched about a half of its episodes and consider Top Gear being the best show I’ve ever watched on television.

Anyway, thanks to Top Gear I got interested in cars and as I have a PlayStation 3 I began anticipating the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 release. Heard a lot of favorable opinions on the series’ previous entries, but somehow never really got into playing it myself (Well, actually, I spent about half an hour in GT1 and GT4 each to see what they looked like, but it’s no time at all considering how big those games are.). Trailers of GT5 looked amazing and the premise of it being one of the most realistic racing simulators in gaming was really strong.

So, the game came out and I immediately purchased a copy, but somehow aside of installing and only once launching it haven’t played it at all until a few months later. It was just hard to make a first step into this huge of a game, I guess.

One day me and my buddy while thinking what game to play online next ran into the same decision it should finally be GT5. After starting it I truly realized what I’ve been missing. I’m not sure there are words I can explain with how deeply astonished by the world that opened in front of me I was. The game’s realistic graphics with its premium versions of the cars and lots of racing tracks looked amazing. But the looking was just a small part of the whole picture. What really mattered was how Gran Turismo FELT. Each car I was driving had its own character I needed to get used to it to do any good on the track. And all of the above was wrapped in a distinctive audiovisual aesthetics of the game’s interface. Seriously, I have no appropriate words to describe the delight I’ve experienced during that gaming session.

After a while I’ve returned into the game to play the career mode and it was an absolute blast from start to finish of almost every single race I’ve driven. However, since the very moment of release there was a heavy buzz surrounding game’s shortcomings like a cumbersome interface with long loading times, most cars being just slightly refurbished versions of themselves from a six year old game, weak online support, the list goes on.. All those accusations are pretty much substantial and it would be stupid to deny the game is way too far from perfection Kazunori Yamauchi and Sony kept promising for all those years, but still to me they seem so minor next to the things the game offers and is good (and I mean REALLY good) at.

Playing Gran Turismo 5 made me reconsider my attention to gaming. Looking back it’s now hard to imagine I would enjoy playing some games I’ve played before, so among Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, Demon’s Souls and a few others it has become one of the major milestones in my gaming experience. Also, after first playing it I started truly enjoying driving my car. It’s not as thrilling as taking part in a racing competition on a world-famous track driving a super car, but still the core basics feel like a lot of fun and I don’t miss any chance to drive a car instead of using subway or else since.

P.S. Right now I’m jumping into Gran Turismo 4, but still will be sure as hell coming back to GT5 to play it online with buddies of mine or just to get one of the missing golden medals in license tests or special events.

2011