I’ve spent some time trying to work through the new Gran Turismo Licences that came in a recent update. Sometimes these are frustrating because I’m sure the demonstration video car has more front end grip than I do. I had a similar feeling when I looked at the Lewis Hamilton replays in a previous challenge. Anyway, assuming my times are distributed with a mean close to the Gold time I will eventually get Gold because of natural variation. Curiously if I’m a second behind I know there’s lots of room for improvement and I don’t feel despondent but if I’m close to the Gold time I get most frustrated because I’m continually close but not great. I can’t remember which particular trial I’m taking in the picture but I was very glad to get Gold.
I’m really not a fan of “loot boxes” in computer games. The latest version of Gran Turismo has a kinda-loot box but at least it’s not one you can use real money to get. The task is to complete just over 26 miles of driving within the game within a day. If you manage that you then get a “random” prize. The prizes go from around 5000 in-game credits to cars and even a million in-game credits [I think]. Anyway, plenty of people moan about the consistency of “winning” the 5000 credits. As a counter argument this is what happened to me on consecutive days:
Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve got all the Trophies in Gran Turismo 7, or any PlayStation game, and I am happy. For the last couple of months I have been either working through challenges, racing online, or grinding to get money. I had three trophies to get when I thought a Platinum was within reach. I had to complete 50 races online, this was easy, just time and frustration at people trying to knock me off the track, but I completed the 50. I had to take 100 pictures using Scapes mode, this was time again especially as I didn’t just want to keep pressing the shutter button – I wanted most of the pictures to be a decent quality. The final trophy was to buy three absolute classic cars.
A Detailed Version Of My Actual Car In a Car Park – Taken within GT7
A Jaguar valued at 20,000,000 credits
A ford valued at around 5,000,000 credits
A Ferrari valued around 9,500,000 credits
These cars appear occasionally in some in-game dealership and so not only did I need the money to get them I also needed to keep checking the dealership to buy the car when they appeared. I think this has taken around a month. I managed to get the Jag and Ford easy enough but have spent the last two weeks waiting for the Ferrari. I also as orking hard to secure the 9,500,000 credits I needed. Part of me considered using actual real cash to buy some in-game credits but they are about GBP15 for 2,000,000 credits and so I asn’t going to spaff GBP60 or so real money on an in-game car. The grinding continued.
Yesterday morning I checked the game store and the Ferrari was in there. However for whatever reason was decided it now cost 20,000,000. I was a little gutted as I had already saved 9,500,000 for the original price. I decided that I could wait and then it struck me. I have loads of cars I don’t care about and so I sold some of the racing cars I own. This I did and very quickly made the required purchase price.
I now own a Platinum trophy in the cybers and I’m very happy. There’s still plenty of the game I have left to complete. I’ve got to get gold in all the new licences, win every standard race and then maybe compete a little online. Oh, there are also the challenges or mission things to do so I have plenty more things to be getting on with.
I was exploring the options within the PS5 menu and I noticed that the games I play get totalled up in terms of time played. I’m not sure if I was shocked or just pleased at the amount of time I have spent playing. I do know that it certainly justifies me spending the money on the hardware and infrastructure to experience these things.
PS5 screen capture showing amount of time played . . .
In case you can’t quite see the numbers in the above graphic let me write them down below. I just want to point out that the game could be a PS4 game that is played on the PS5 and register timewise as a PS4 time. Hence, while I tend to play Minecraft on the PS5 its total comes only from PS4 playtime.
Gran Turismo 7 – 120 hours
Fortnite – 111 hours
Minecraft – 722 hours
Now the Gran Turismo times clearly do not include all the time I have spent playing other versions. Let’s be clear. Gran Turismo is 25 years old this year and I’ve been playing it for that long. In terms of cost/benefit I think I’ve done very well.
Last night I powered up Gran Turismo 7 for the first time in quite a while and I enjoyed myself. I even managed to enjoy myself driving Willow Springs which, as a circuit, I don’t like. I did the Circuit Experience section of the game as it’s about thirty minutes play to smash the gold on these. I’m still distracted quite a bit by Fortnite, which feels such a terrible admission but I do enjoy that game. Anyway, I recorded the gold winning lap and zapped it to YouTube.
I’m still playing Gran Turismo occasionally. I’m slowly working through the challenges and completing racing tasks. It’s still great fun and a really nice way to shut the brain off.
How It’s Going – Gran Turismo
I have currently driven a total of 8395.10 miles. I think my favourite statistic is that my average fuel consumption is 35 litres per 100km driven. The real car I drive can do 2 litres per 100km. I suspect that in the future, driving virtual cars will be the only way to enjoy the noise and feel of these vehicles. They should be banned already. Oh, by the way, electric cars aren’t the answer either – they won’t save the planet, they will only save the car industry.
I’m still playing Gran Turismo 7 as it’s most likely the only game I will be able to get a Platinum trophy. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but I’m not in a rush. I have plenty of time. I just enjoy playing the game. I know there’s been annoyance from players because of lots of the internal economic market but I don’t really care about that. I’m happy to just keep playing.
I don’t currently spend huge amounts of time online racing as other people can be terrible and it’s hard t get the balance right. I’m happy to nudge an AI car now and then but it’s different when it’s another person. This is not something most people think about it would appear given how many times I’ve been knocked off. Anyway, I recently did some qualification laps and I was surprised that I claimed Pole Position. Not entirely sure how that happened and I don’t know how Polyphony allocate people to races to it could be entirely random. Anyway, I got Pole. I also won the race and got fastest lap. This was the first time this had happened for me and I was super proud.
I’m still playing on the PS5. Recently I’ve been messing around in Minecraft and organising some things in that game within a new world – expect some videos at some point. The first thing I build, once the resources are ready, is a kelp farm with XP generator. This is handy for enchanting equipment and fixing equipment, anything where you need plenty of XP. I’m also still working my way through Gran Turismo. I reckon I’ll be able to get my first Platinum trophy on a Playstation Game within a year. I’m nearly there, just have to take part in 100 online races and 100 time trials. This will take time. Oh, and I need to buy three of the most expensive cars. Anyway, there’s no rush.
In the meantime I’ve been working my way through the circuit experience challenges. You have to complete sectors of each circuit within certain time targets and then the final challenge is a complete lap. Sometimes I smash this easily and within a few goes. Sometimes it takes a little longer. I don’t mind it taking longer, I get a better sense of achievement when I do get a Gold lap in.
Goodness, did I just take 122 miles of Laguna Seca to get a gold? Yes I did. #GranTurismo7
I reckon the 122 miles I did of Laguna Seca is tiny in comparison with the distance I did around Spa to get the I-10 licence gold. But I’ve got the dedication to keep going in this game even with all the frustrations.
I’ve recently found the 4k screen recording option within the PS5 for capturing clips of play. I only really capture stuff that I’m proud of and normally this will be a replay of a decent lap or race that I’ve saved. I can’t imagine anything worse than watching actual gameplay! Can you imagine seeing me crash fifty times in different places on a lap as I build up to a complete Gold medal win? Here is a 4k video I took of my gold lap around the Dragon Trail Seaside Circuit as part of the circuit experience. It took a while, mostly because of the walls of death and not being allowed to scrape the barriers!
Along with this here’s my lap around Deep Forest in the circuit experience. I got gold but it took some time to completely hook up a decent lap in every sector!
I spent some time racing around the gorgeous circuit of Spa-Francorchamps. I was slightly bothered about the challenge being made in a Porsche but it turns out this particular car was very well behaved. This will be a 4k video [when processed] which I recorded and uploaded. My god, it looks amazing.
While I was watching the replay I noticed the amazing graphics of the brakes getting hot and decided to take a photograph. This was taken at the end of the long straight after Eau Rouge.
Heavy Braking at Spa Francorchamps
When I played this session it was far more satisfying than some recent gameplay. I’ve been attempting some races that I’ve actually struggled in! I also really love the dynamic weather but it’s a bit irritating to not know at the start of a thirty minute race what weather might be affecting you about fifteen minutes in! I will persist and get better.
I’ve been playing a lot of Gran Turismo 7 because it’s fun and looks nice. There’s a photo mode which I mess around with now and then but it’s not really why I play the game. You can take a car and place it somewhere in the world where GT7 people have got high res images of certain locations. Then you can pretty much adjust every aspect of the car, position, lighting and camera details until you get the photograph you want. I then screen shot the best ones and we are at a stage in device connectivity that these media files now appear on my phone in the PS app. I quite like how it all links up. This makes it quite a bit easier for me to save the pictures rather than using a USB memory stick or sharing to Twitter and then downloading that file.
German In Germany
This image was set up and taken quickly for a bronze trophy within the game. You have to photograph a BMW Gr3 car at the Nürburgring. Fortunately I had won a BMW Gr3 car for completing some challenge or other so I already had that vehicle. The other photograph trophy is an Audi R18 at Le Mans and I’ve got to save up to buy that particular car as it’s three million credits in game and I only have about 1.2 million at the moment. The time will come though. In a short while I’m going to work on the Dirt Track trophy so look out for that tweet.
Bora Horza Gobuchul Racing Form
This is my car at the Nürburgring, I own a grey Prius like the one on the photograph except mine doesn’t have a body kit fitted to it, or a wing. While you can’t see the details in this photograph I have modified the car body as far as I can and reduced the weight of the vehicle by taking out everything that’s not needed. The engine has been tuned to a high degree and the suspension and brakes have been uprated. I’ve install some super sticky racing tyres and added a few racing details for fun. I think I’ll take a few more photographs of this car with a standard Prius next to it so the details stand out a little more.
I still don’t have the real Bora Horza Gobuchul because, oddly enough, the parts that are needed to replace the stolen parts are in high demand because too many of the catalytic converters are being stolen. I probably could get a decent one from eBay, and it might even be the one from my car, but it’s with the garage people right now and I’ll leave it there. Meanwhile I have an FR branded Ibiza which you might think was a little hot hatch but it most definitely not. I’ve counted the cylinders and I got to THREE before I ran out of cylinders to count.
