Gran Turismo's Pursuit Of Visual Perfection, One Game At A Time

Gran Turismo is video game's premiere iconic racing game series. LikeLara Croft, it has improved graphically. Take a look, at how good-looking it's become, game by game, for over a decade.

Gran Turismo (1998, PlayStation)

The game doesn't look bad until the 1:50 mark or so, when the cars start bouncing off each other and the backgrounds start looking like a cascade of mud.

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Gran Turismo 2 (2000, PlayStation)

The sequel had an excellent intro movie. The cars looked smoother, the roads rougher, as they should be.

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Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec (2001, PlayStation 2)

Yes, the PlayStation 2 made a difference. The U.S. intro movie from GT3 A-Spec showed grand visual improvements.

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Gran Turismo 4 (2005, PlayStation 2)

The gameplay footage from GT4's intro doesn't kick in until around 2:40 but when it does you can see that the backgrounds in this series are so much better in this game than they'd ever been.

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Gran Turismo 5(2010, PlayStation 3)

And this is how Gran Turismo looks in 2010. This is the intro to the brand-new GT5. Gameplay kicks in around the 3:40 mark, though to be honest— and to praise this game— it doesn't look much like a video game, now does it?

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