To me, GT appears to have evolved to fulfill Kaz's own aspirations. For me, the first game felt like a true Car-P-G, and mirrored my own grounded fantasies of owning even a decent second hand fast car. It was like a playground, providing half of what I needed, the other half coming from my imagination and interest in cars.
I remember reading early interviews with Kaz, where he talked about the Evo he had purchased and how it made him feel.
While Kaz has been able to use the platform to propel his real-life wishes including owning any of his fantasy cars, track days, and even racing itself. I, on the other hand, still wish I had enough money to get a second hand modified Skyline.
I would love to see more of these every-person fantasy features introduced and expanded on and although I understand that a game like GT Sport is a huge win for so many people, I appreciate the change in focus for this new title.
Just a couple of the features that I think might be interesting (for non GT Sport type mode)
- Purchase a track day ticket and turn up to a completely random set of cars with differing AI controlling them. Let me take my beat-up, second-hand car and get left for dead by HyperCars but find myself in a random battle with an entry level BMW while waiting to overtake some rust bucket on the nurburgring.
- Give upgrades and cars small, variable, and randomised power increases and let us sell our creations or parts in an online marketplace. (Anyone remember Motorcity Online?)
- Let the use of your car and the mileage you consume, introduce wear and thus incur a cost to put right, to make using them feel more special (or just sell them as a cheap doer upper on the online marketplace)
- Buy and customise the garage where you keep your collection with ever increasing prices for larger square footage, making you think about the selection you choose and offering something to show off about other than level. Use photo mode to take pics of your themed garages.
Does anyone else crave this kind of feature-set, or others like them?