Yesterday I picked up Gran Turismo 6 and played through the beginner series and first license test today. There are a few improvements over Gran Turismo 5, but not very many. First off the intro movie is just weird, and makes no sense. The piano music and even the second music piece feel out of place. Chalk that up to Japan just being weird I suppose.

The first thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the pathetically awful sound effects in Gran Turismo 6. The cars sound like vacuum cleaners and collisions sound like someone banging on a plastic drum. Downright awful sounds that distract from the racing experience.

The menu system is a bit cleaner than GT5’s, but it still has a long way to go. The computer desktop style just doesn’t cut it anymore. The in game music is another thing that distracts from the supposed ‘simulation’ racing experience. Sure you can turn it off, but then all you have to put up with is the godawful car sounds.

The fact that there are still license tests in this game is also puzzling. What point do they serve at this point? How many times do we have to do a brake test? I want to play a racing game to race, not to be faced with mandatory road blocks that slow progress in the game and can’t be skipped.

On the plus side GT6 does seem to load faster than GT5, but not by much. For example, when you finish one part of a license test you have to back out to the menu to get to the next sub step of the license test. WHY?

Overall GT6 is a slight improvement, but if you’ve ever played a Forza game you’ll notice the Gran Turismo series is miles and miles behind the competition. I can’t wait to get an Xbox One so I can go back to playing Forza.