Price: £44.99

Players: 1-6

Originally due for release as Gran Turismo 2000, that gives you some indication of the time taken to bring the third in the series to our screens. Yes, it's been a fair wait but the time has been worth the wait and it easily knocks into a cocked hat the likes of the overhyped Ridge Racer 5 that didn't so much fail to get going but completely stalled at the back of the grid. All the usual options are here. For the Arcade Mode you can try a Single Race, check you're up to speed with a Time Attack mode around each of the tracks, have a Free Run for a practice mode, play the 2 Player Battle for split-screen action, see which Bonus Items you've accumulated, or connect up with others for an i.Link Battle, which can take up to six players, for multi-player action with a fullscreen for each, but it requires each player to have a PS2, a TV and a copy of GT3. Then comes the Gran Turismo Mode which is most definitely the Daddy of the two. Buy your car from many worldwide models including Toyota, Suzuki, Chevrolet, Ford, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Lotus, Gillet and Tickford, take it to the garage for a tune up, apply for vehicle licences by testing your skills, test the capability of your new best friend with speed trials, treat it to a visit to the GT Auto car maintenance shop and, of course, race in the Beginner League, Amateur League, Professional League, Rally Event or an Endurance Race.

The graphics are nothing short of stunning. Sony have apparently included less cars in this release than in Gran Turismo 2 but this has been put down to the fact that it took a lot longer to model each individual car this time round because of the huge increase in polygons involved. And it shows when you drive about, particularly when you can see the reflections in other cars up close and in the replays, not to mention the fantastic reflections off the smooth surfaces. Sadly, like the previous games in the series, none of the car are able to sustain damage, but a friend told me this is because the car companies won't allow it. Even if you don't look at the cars, a glance at the scenery is equally outstanding with perfect attention to detail paid in spades. The sound encapsulates the experience as much as it can with the roar of the engines fighting against each other, but it will never reach the dizzy heights of a first-person-shooter that tends to split your brain apart with noise, but the atmosphere created by GT3's sound is all you need to set you up. The game's handling takes a little getting used to but patience pays off and it allows you to steer around using either the analogue joysticks or the pressure-sensitive D-pad.

When I had a dabble with the first game - and its sequel completely passed me by - I was disappointed to find my car moving relatively slowly compared to the racing games I normally enjoy, including V Rally and Carmageddon TDR 2000, despite friends telling me that the whole point of the game is to build up your car as you go. So, with this in mind, I started off trying to buy a Toyota MR2 but didn't have enough cash so had to downsize with a Toyota Yaris RS 1.5. At first I didn't get the feeling of speed I desired, but it's something you need to tune into so give it time. I also tried the rally stage and had a cracking race against a CPU opponent, often racing almost neck-and-neck with him just edging ahead. As we zoomed along for some time, the look of the other car up close, the dust brought off the ground and the lens flares in the distance, all brings together a look as close to photo-realistic images as we've ever seen on a home console.

To sum up, we have a great racing game that looks superb, contains plenty of different ways to race and an abundance of different and realistically-modelled tracks to drive along and, most importantly, it breaks the norm by not being a racer in which all the other cars zoom off and leave you playing catch-up like so many others I could mention. The only place GT3 is let down on comes in the originality stakes, but then that can't be helped because it's a sequel and it's not really meant to do anything new other than in terms of how it looks and how the game handles. Of course though, a Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 soundtrack would've been superb, but there's adequate backing music in top tunes from the likes of Death in Vegas, Feeder and Muse.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.