I spent over two hours earlier in the week playing through the newly released time limited demo of Gran Turismo Sport. If you didn’t get a chance to play it I believe this demo is closed now. The massive 43gb demo had quite a bit of the game unlocked ready for you to play.

Unfortunately because of this it also shows you just how incredibly average the game is. I am truly disappointed Gran Turismo Sport hasn’t progressed what use to be a pinnacle racing game on the PS1, PS2 and PS3. In fact it has taken a rather large step backwards in my humble opinion.

There really doesn’t seem to be a lot to do in the Career mode for example. Yes, if you love the driving tests from the previous Gran Turismo games, then these are in the latest game. Once you get beyond that though there doesn’t seem to be much to the career mode. I realise that the timed demo has some content locked and I haven’t seen all their is to offer, but doing short one lap stints against other cars doesn’t feel like my idea of fun.

On top of that the loading takes a bit of time, with nothing else to do while you wait except to watch a video of the challenge being successfully done. One mode I didn’t get to try though was the rally racing. Hopefully this provides bit more variety than what I had experienced.

The graphics are quite pretty but in the demo I was unable to select “Prefer Quality” so I couldn’t run in the game in 4K checkerboard resolution with a variable frame rate. I was stuck with 2K upscaled to 4K, and 60fps. It still looks really good, but I noticed some of the track textures weren’t very detailed, and most likely were quite low quality.

The sound is very average. The engine sounds were muffled, even on a decent 5.1 home theatre setup with an external view (internal view was no different). Bumping into another car doesn’t really produce anything too satisfying either, both in terms of sound or visible damage.

I am truly disappointed at the lack of cars in the game as well. There is the usual excellent addition of having the cars fully modelled in terms of the interior though. Look behind in cockpit view and you’ll see some impressive internal detail, but this isn’t enough to offset the lack of cars. As per previous Gran Turismo games one of the things I have always enjoyed is the ability to set a background and your favourite car and take some really exquisite pictures. I also did like how they got random trivia (like Michael Jordan’s retirement date) in amongst the other menus. There are definitely some great touches on the history of automobiles too, but these nice little touches don’t make up for the average handling and lack of a deep career mode.

I know that I generally play more on the Xbox One and this may provide me with a slightly biased opinion, but I have enjoyed different racing games on all platforms. I still stand by my stance that Gran Turismo Sport is a massive step backwards. If you have been waiting for years for the latest in the long running series I would find a way to borrow a copy from a friend before committing the funds. It could have been so much better and I’m very surprised and disappointed this is the finished product.

Reviewed on the PS4 Pro.