"GRAN TURISMO." One of the legendary names in the videogame world and the current King of Racing Games. It's even more amazing when one thinks about the fact that out of seemingly nowhere, Sony (Polyphony Digital) changed the world of videogame racing overnight with their debut of GRAN TURISMO 1 on the Sony PSX a few years ago. Since that time, fans and players worldwide have become accustomed and spoiled by the sheer extensiveness and grandeur that the GT series has evoked. While many companies have tried to take the crown back from GRAN TURISMO, in the end, they always fall short, or they manage to take it only for a few months before it falls back into Sony's hands again. So it is here with Sony/Polyphony Digital's newest offering GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC, for the Sony PS2.

To say that this game is "brilliant" is an understatement: Polyphony has taken the extensive physics engine, amazing realism, and all the experience from their past two GT games and with the power of the Sony PlayStation 2 system, they have managed to raise the bar on racing games once again and crafted one of the biggest, prettiest, funnest, and coolest racing games ever created. Period.

First, the graphics: Quite simply, this is the most graphically stunning racing game ever created, and this is their first try on the Sony PS2 system! I can't even imagine what GT4 would look like now that they really have a handle on what the PS2 is like. From the amazing real-time lighting, to the real-time reflections, to the awesome wet rain-soaked tracks (weather effects), the graphics are a sight to behold. Check the Castrol TOM's Supra race car as it blasts through the SS-5 course after the rain. It is simply amazing. From the ultra-detailed cars to the environmental detail on the tracks, this is the game to beat.

One of the most amazing aspects for GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC is the replay. After you beat a race, the game will take you immediately to a "Replay" of your entire race from different camera angles. To say that the replays finally look like "real-life replays" is not too far from the truth. There are certain shots and angles where all you can do is just sit and stare in awe at the realism. Polyphony added in massive graphical enhancements and touches, such as an amazing "Heat Shimmer" for tracks/races that take place at especially hot times of the day. This heat shimmer is the actual recreation of that warping effect you see when you stare off on a long stretch of road during an extremely hot day. They actually recreated that for GT3! On top of that, you can select various Replay Options, including a Music mode, and this is where it gets more amazing: They came up with ~20+ different "graphic effects" (like Burnout, Black and White, Mosaic/MTV filter, different solid color filters, etc.) and choreographed them to the music! So whatever music is playing back during a Replay will have the cars and the entire race choreographed and in synch with the beats and the tempo of the song playing. It seriously looks like a professionally edited music video that you'd see at some top sporting event ceremony or a club. It looks that good.

The music is probably the only major downside to GT3: Continuing in the long-standing tradition, most of GT3's music is "blah"/mediocre at best. Sure they licensed some high profile music talent like Lenny Kravitz, but the special GRAN TURISMO remix of his "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" is just... bad. The majority of the tracks range from mediocre alternative rock to weak club/techno. In the end it just doesn't work with a racing game that's supposed to keep the adrenaline constantly flowing. The lone standout track is the bad-ass classic "GRAN TURISMO theme" that was used in the original Japan-only GT1 release (Sony USA was stupid enough to remove this awesome, pulse-pounding rock track and replace it with a horrible alternative for the U.S. release).

The sound effects, on the other hand, are simply awesome. Once again, they sampled and managed to recreate the authentic engine sounds for all the hundreds of real-life cars in GT3! From the tires screeching in a massive powerslide to the dirt kicking up as you blast through a rally course, the sound effects wonderfully complement the situation.

Finally, it is the gameplay that GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC really excels on. They have effectively given the player two entirely different games in one package: "Arcade" mode and "Gran Turismo" mode. But unlike in the past GTs, the Arcade mode here is just huge! There are over 130 "goodies" to be unlocked, or rather, you have up to 130 slots to win 1st Place/Gold in, and they help to unlock extra Tracks, extra Cars, etc. To the newbie, Arcade mode is a great way to hop into GT3 and play it like an arcade game—there are no weird settings/parts/etc. that you need to do. Just hop in, pick a car, pick a track and off you go! For those that didn't quite understand or didn't want to bother with the hard-core "sim" mode in GT, here's your game. And as aforementioned, this Arcade mode is truly epic. They could've sold this mode alone as a complete game and it still would've been better than 99% of the other racers out there!

Moving on, you can also try the heart of the game, the "Gran Turismo" mode. This is similar to the earlier GTs in that you start off with a small amount of cash—$1,500,000—and no car, and you must earn a license and buy a car to start racing. While 1.5 million sounds like a lot, the prices seem to be either in Yen, or some inflated prices, since the only cars you can afford with that amount are tiny, weak cars like the Toyota Vitz (Echo), with its measly 88 horsepower engine.

Firstly, the License Tests are challenging and more varied than in GT1—you have the B License, then A License, International B, International A, Rally License, and the toughest of all of them, the S (Super) License. To say that the S License was "hard" is an extreme understatement. The S License requires massive skills to pass—and this reviewer knows quite a few gamers who've given up on getting it after hours of trying in vain—but don't let this turn you off. The creators of GT3 are really pushing this game as a "long effort" game—the GT mode is not simply a walk in the park and something that can be beaten on the weekend: Just earning and playing with the B License races and challenges alone will keep you more than satisfied for weeks, let alone playing the A License racing cups/challenges, and then I-B, I-A courses. It's a huge game, folks.

To give you some perspective on game length, consider this: The first race/Cup you can win is the "Sunday Cup" in the Beginner's League. Getting 1st place will yield you $60,000. A brand-new solid sports car (like a Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, etc.) will cost you around the $4,000,000 - $8,000,000 range. Brand-new Racing Tires (Super Soft) cost usually around $4,000,000 as well. Do the math. But you'll eventually get to advance to other Racing Cups/Challenges where first place can yield you $500,000 or even up to $1,000,000 per race (in the Beginner's League), so this will help. But again, you have make it there first.

And like the previous incarnations, there's plenty of car parts to buy—from Racing Suspension kits, to Brakes, to Engine NA (Normal Aspiration) Tuning, to Port Polishing, to fully customizable Transmissions to even Weight Reduction on the car (to make it lighter so it can go faster). The only bummer here is that they removed the final "Racing Kit" modification found in the original GT—originally, you were able to buy a final "Racing Kit" which changed the entire body of your car to a fiberglass/custom body complete with awesome decals/logos, and allowed you to adjust downforce, etc.—but this was removed from GT3 (probably due to either time issues (since artists have to custom create entire new texture maps/models for every car in the game), or due to licensing issues.

One other amazing feature is the amount of alternate races they have, specifically Rally racing and Formula 1 racing. The Rally races are just awesome! Like their debut that captured the racing crown from Namco and the RIDGE RACER series, so their Rally racing in GT3 does the same with Rally racing games and Sega's great SEGA RALLY series. The Rally racing in GT3 is simply perfect. It feels excellent and provides a nice set of courses to race in, and the physics model is stunningly good, so good that it feels better than SEGA RALLY 2 in some cases. And the F-1 racing is fun as well (and by far the hardest cars to get).

Finally, the sheer amount of cars in GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC is nothing short of amazing. They managed to get even more hard-to-find cars and put them all in one place—from your standard must-have racing staple of Toyota (Celica, Altezza, Supra), Honda (Accord, Integra Type R, NSX), to more elusive cars like Australia's Tickford Falcon GT car, to exotic cars like BMW, Mercedes Benz (SLK Kompressor!), and even Porsche, er, I mean RUF, which basically takes Porsches and modifies them for racing (since they couldn't get Porsche's license, they got RUF instead, which allows them to have modified Porsches—brilliant!). And the most amazing aspect is that every car feels different; their physics and handling all hand-tweaked and programmed brilliantly by Polyphony to give each car their real-life idiosyncrasies.

In an interview with the Japanese producer of GT3, he stated that they hoped to provide enough racing in GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC to let gamers play for more than one year and still not be finished with it. It seems that GT3 is looking that way: From the extensive Arcade mode to the even more detailed Gran Turismo mode, to having up to 6 players (!) i-Linked together playing 6 player head-to-head matches, Sony and Polyphony Digital's GRAN TURISMO 3 A-SPEC is just epic. The cutting edge, amazing graphics, realistic physics, and hundreds of cars that you can get (and modify) all add to the longevity and completeness of this game. To show how serious Sony is for this game, they even included a separate 187 page book showcasing the cars, talking about the parts for the cars and what they do, and more! The only downer that this reviewer can think of is that this game might be "too epic." Oftentimes after racing for hours on end, there just seems to be a slight burnout setting in, but those are quickly erased by all the highlights in the game and the challenges they provide, like when I passed and completed all the license tests, including the S class License, or when I earned the Escudo (995 horsepower!) from beating the entire Rally racing division/set of races, etc. Quite simply the best racing game. Ever.

Rating: 9.5 / 10.0