Ryan's Journal

Once upon a time, long ago, I played an addicting racing game called Gran Turismo 3. That summer I invested in a Playstation 2 and proceeded to spend much of my free time going through GT3's thoroughly enjoyable paces, building up my garage of cars and working through the various licenses and races.

I finished about 70% of the game (don't worry, I'm not obsessive enough to go figure that out on my own, it's an in-game statistic). Then I stopped. I have trouble recalling why. I think it's because I thought I:

• couldn't finish a particular endurance race - 40 laps in a crappy, unmodifiable car against other similar cars with computer drivers
• couldn't finish a particular endurance race - 78 laps on a difficult course
• couldn't earn any more than one of the S-level licenses
• couldn't beat some of the Professional-level series
• and most importantly, could not access S-level license test 1, which sits on a waiting screen and never loads

And so I stopped and never came back. Well. An old friend dropped by for the weekend and, upon hearing I owned a PS2, wanted to play GT3, because everybody, everybody who has a PS2 owns GT3. It's likely true. We played, and I discovered that, five years later, I could in fact beat more than one S-level license test (now at three of eight), I could beat those computer drivers on the 40-lap race and the 78-lap race, and I (or we) could beat some of those unbeatable-seeming professional level series.

So maybe I will beat this old school game in the fullness of time (old school - its sequel was released more than a year ago). I wonder why my virtual driving seems to have improved so drastically.

Does anybody have a PS2 or a GT3 disk? I'd like to find out why I can't load that S1 license test.

You must login to leave a comment