30. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec

Perfection in a video game doesn’t come easy, but Polyphony Digital has come closer than most with several of its Gran Turismo titles. Despite cutting back on the number of cars, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec is arguably the best of the bunch in terms of physics, AI, and sound (and even its visuals still hold up today). That’s before getting into the improvements with car shops, Gran Turismo Mode, and the long-awaited arrival of Formula One cars.

On Twitter, Piscatella revealed that in terms of dollar sales (i.e. revenue from copies sold), Gran Turismo 7 is currently the series’ second-best selling game in the United States, two years on from its February 2022 release. It trails behind Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, which released for PS2 in 2001, but Piscatella says GT7 is looking likely to catch up to the top spot “at some point this year.”

Gran Turismo 7 has kept up a healthy cadence of post-launch updates over the last couple of years, having added new content with regular free updates. In February last year, the game added full support for PlayStation VR2 in another free update, while November saw the release of the Spec 2 Update, the game’s largest yet. According to producer Kazunori Yamauchi, the game’s active user count was “doubled” following the release of the Spec 2 Update.

In spite of widespread acclaim from critics, Gran Turismo 7 drew backlash from the community immediately following launch in 2022, with criticism being directed at things such as server issues, aggressive monetization, and more. Developer Polyphony Digital has continued to address player feedback in subsequent updates.

Gran Turismo 7 is available on PS5 and PS4. Yamauchi has previously said that though a PC port has been considered for the game, one isn’t in development.

Yep, Gran Turismo 7 currently trails only Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec in lifetime dollar sales for franchise releases in the US. Likely to catch up to that at some point this year. https://t.co/TU8w7Fy1gF

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) February 23, 2024

#9. GRAN TURISMO (PSP)

Gran Turismo’s portable debut (and to date, its only portable outing) didn’t arrive easily, and though those many years of development and delays didn’t result in the stellar quality that this series is generally known for, Gran Turismo for the PSP was by no means a slouch. Offering surprisingly realistic visuals (for its time, and for the hardware, if nothing else), tight simulation and driving mechanics, and a healthy roster of vehicles to choose from, the portable racing sim made a strong impression on most who played it. There were clear issues, of course, with the lack of upgrades and a traditional career mode being chief among them, but even so, it was a solid taste of Polyphony Digital’s series on the go.

#8. GRAN TURISMO 6

Gran Turismo 6 arrived smack dab in the middle of the biggest lull the series has experienced to date- and it showed. It did, of course, excel in all the ways that a GT game is expected to- it had a sizeable roster of vehicles, was brimming with its love for detail, authenticity, and attention to detail, and as always, its driving mechanics were second to none. Some questionable decisions, however, dragged the experience down in unfortunate ways, from its iffy microtransactions to its unnecessary focus on multiplayer gameplay.

#7. GRAN TURISMO 5

Gran Turismo 5 was where the series’ downward trajectory began (and lasted until not that long ago). Arriving after a long and protracted development cycle, GT5 was far, far from a bad game, and like pretty much every other game on this list, it’s still probably one of the best racing sims we’ve ever played, at least where its driving and sim mechanics are concerned, while its incredibly vast offerings in terms of features, tracks, and vehicles were mighty impressive. But with a half-assed damage system, frustrating progression in its career mode, and surprisingly little improvements being made over its direct predecessor, Gran Turismo 5, for all of its excellence, didn’t quite live up to expectations.

#6. GRAN TURISMO SPORT

Gran Turismo Sport remains one of the most controversial and divisive games in Polyphony Digital’s series- and looking back at the state it was in at launch, it’s not surprising to see why. There was no shortage of core issues with the game, its overriding emphasis on online multiplayer being chief among them, especially since it came at the cost of a traditional single player experience. The fact that the game launched with a disappointingly small selections of tracks and vehicles didn’t much help matters either. Sure, Polyphony Digital’s post-launch support did eventually turn GT Sport into a far better game than it was when it launched, but it was still far from the game series fans wanted it to be.

#5. GRAN TURISMO 2

Gran Turismo 2 is, in essence, the prime example of a perfect iterative sequel. Following up on its revolutionary predecessor was by no means an easy task, but Polyphony Digital chose to do it in the best way possible- by expanding on all the biggest strengths of the first game. More cars, more tracks, a better physics engine. There’s an argument to be made that perhaps its unambitious nature as a sequel held it back from being as memorable as the first game was, but if all you’re talking about is execution of ideas, there’s little to dislike here.

#4. GRAN TURISMO

The one that started it all. In pretty much every way, the original Gran Turismo has been thoroughly outdone by its many successors, but given the game’s significance, you can’t help but respect it. For its time, it was an absolutely revelation. It looked amazing, it controlled like a dream, it was brimming with an impressive roster of modes, cars, and tracks, and above all else, it established ideas and mechanics that have by now become staples not only of the series, but an entire genre.

#3. GRAN TURISMO 4

Now that we’re in the top 3, there’s very, very little separating the three games that are left, and there’s a strong case to be made for each of these three being the definitive Gran Turismo experience. Gran Turismo 4 is, for many people, still one of the best racing games out there. It’s the quintessential GT game, with excellent driving and physics, best-in-class visuals, and oodles of content to keep players busy for dozens upon dozens of hours. Not everything in the game was equally fleshed out, but there was more than enough here to impress even the most cynical players.

#2. GRAN TURISMO 7

Gran Turismo had been in a bit of a slump of form since the launch of GT5, with the multiplayer-centric GT Sport being something of a nadir for the series, so there was a great deal riding on Gran Turismo 7. It pretty much had to be a return to form- and boy did it succeed in doing that. For fans of the series, the genre, and car culture in general, this game is a dream come true. Its single player component is densely packed and ingeniously structured, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, and the level of authenticity and realism displayed here just blows you away. It’s also probably the most approachable game in the series in a long, long time, so it may very well bring in a massive audience- even by Gran Turismo standards.

#1. GRAN TURISMO 3: A-SPEC

It’s hard to top Gran Turismo 3. It is, in every sense of the word, an unabashed masterpiece. It may not have been overflowing with content the way something like Gran Turismo 2 was, or Gran Turismo 7 now is, but the game’s biggest strength lay elsewhere- in how focused and tightly designed it was. Its roster of vehicles was full of cars that felt amazing to control, it had some of the best-designed tracks this series has ever had, and for its time, it looked unbelievably amazing. It’s not just the best Gran Turismo game, it may very well even be the best racing game ever made, period.

Context is of the utmost importance when it comes to the release of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Developer Polyphony Digital had already proven its mettle within its previous work on the Gran Turismo series for the original PlayStation which garnered huge critical and commercial acclaim as well. Thus, fans and the press were already keeping a keen eye on what the developer was planning for its debut title on the PlayStation 2. Polyphony originally named the game Gran Turismo 2000 and would appear such in the beta version that was shipped to demo discs, but ultimately changed it to Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec following the long time it was taking to develop the game.

Racing games are known to be at the very cutting edge of technology, and the case has remained such for decades at this point. Being among only a few studios that made such high quality racing games, Polyphony Digital had to once again make the game a showcase for the at-the-time brand new PlayStation 2 hardware. It’s fair to say that the developer knocked it out of the park, specifically when it comes to the graphics and technology of the game.

Cars have gorgeously detailed exteriors with polygon counts that dwarf those found in previous entries of the franchise. The shadows are leaps and bounds ahead of what one would generally expect to see in any early PS2-era game. Of course, the environments also look equally gorgeous and they are filled to the brim with special effects such as dust particles and smoke flying through the tracks when you drift on the terrain. The shiny exteriors of the car also reflect the surrounding environments through the use of primitive cube mapping technique. Apart from all the technical wizardry, the game also manages to retain a pristine look which can be attributed to some great art direction by the developers. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec‘s technical make-up might look rather rudimentary by modern standards, but back in its day – it stood stall as one of the, if not the best looking game on the PlayStation 2 alongside Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Of course, sheer visual prowess isn’t the only thing going for Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Its gameplay also received a huge bump in quality. The significantly more powerful CPU of the PlayStation 2 allowed for a more in-depth and realistic simulation experience, and Polyphony Digital delivered on this premise with significantly more sophisticated physics and driver AI capable of taking players head-on and providing a worthwhile challenge at the highest difficulties of the game.

While Gran Turismo 3 lacks in the number of vehicles when compared to its predecessors, fans do get to have a fair bit of variety in what is present. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec just has 200 cars compared to the 600+ that Gran Turismo 2 featured, but the ones featured in GT3 are much more highly-detailed than previous renditions. GT3 also draws much more attention to the diversity of the cars on offer with its reworked car dealership feature. Players could select cars from the list of countries, and then from the manufacturer as opposed to stocking cars under rough sections like North City, West City, and whatnot. On the topic of cars, Gran Turismo 3 also introduced Formula 1 cars into the mix, which are a nice addition to the roster even if the number of cars were less.

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec is also one of the more accessible games of the series for newcomers. It’s still mostly simulation stuff that would mostly appeal to gearheads – but it does house a couple of clever design choices that are sure to ease newcomers into the driving seat. For instance, the game’s speedometers will tell you the appropriate gear you should be in when you take a sharp turn so as to maximize your performance in the period afterward. You can also complete a fair bit of the game’s unlocks by completing races on the Easy difficulty, making it an ideal starting point for newcomers to the franchise or the genre.

All of this resulted in the game being a massive hit among fans, and as such Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec enjoyed great commercial reception. The game sold over a million copies in just a couple of days following its launch, and managed to retain the same momentum across a multitude of key markets for quite some time. Gran Turismo 3 sold over 14.8 million copies, which made it the second best-selling PlayStation 2 game right after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which sold 17.3 million copies.

To definitively tell what made Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec one hell of a game, we need to keep in mind the time of its release. 2001 was a great time for racers, and much like today is the case with free-to-play live service games – almost every big-name publisher and developer was trying to put a mark on the genre with its own spin on the formula. Need For Speed, F1 Racing, NASCAR Racing, Test-Drive, and Burnout all released in close proximity to Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec for the PlayStation 2.

However, Polyphony’s attention to detail in both the richness of its simulation gameplay as well as its at-the-time groundbreaking visuals is what would elevate it from the rest of its contemporaries. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec was a game that both newcomers and hardcore gamers could enjoy. Polyphony was able to capture a large demographic of target audience with Gran Turismo 3‘s excellent core gameplay that surprisingly holds up to this day, and perhaps that’s what most importantly makes it one hell of a game.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Halo: Combat Evolved

From being a third person shooter on the Mac to a first person shooter exclusive to Xbox, Bungie’s IP saw its fair share of changes. When it debuted, it presented incredible gun play, well-crafted missions and large sandbox-like levels that rewarded all kinds of play-styles. All of this along with Marty O’ Donnell’s stellar score turned Halo into a juggernaut and Microsoft into a venerable gaming force for years to come.