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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disgraceful and error ridden re-working of Sony's manual., June 22, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Gran Turismo : Prima's Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
...Official, in this case, must just mean it's PRIMA'S official guide but...If Sony, has in any way collaborated, or approved, this mess they should be embarassed. If not, they should stop this immediately. About all this POC amounts to is an error filled, incomplete, instruction "booklet" with a VERY few un-informed and misleading car set-up tips. Oh yeh, it is also bigger than Sony's instruction booklets. Every Limited Edition Car is "perfect" except it costs too much. How sophomoric. They all cost the same and, just like their real life counterparts, each has distinct strenghts and weaknesses. No mention of them here however, just idiotic chatter about each one being the ultimate. Sounds like inept advertising copy... Sometimes, ok even most of the time, the horsepower ratings are correct but often they are not. This is NOT a forgivable offense since horsepower plays such a large role in speed and acceleration. The names of the cars and models don't always match up... Ommissions. My copy of the game has THREE county vs. country races. Well the "Official" guide only bothers to include two? The layouts of the tracks might include the courses total length, it might not. Info about Limited Edition cars you can win. Na. You'd rather read! recycled drivel about the Limited Edition cars available to buy. Enough. It is truly dreadful. Granted, entire volumes have been written about driving and schools dedicated to racing exist for a reason - it is very complicated and involved but the best Sony Playstation game deserves so much better. SOME THINGS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED . Don't belabor in words the twists and turns of each track and license segment. I have the damn game, I can SEE the track. Tell me how to drive the track, tell me about the racing line to take and mostly tell me how to win the tough license segments. ... next, the track turns left, after some dense trees, is USELESS. . How about, at least, some fundementals on how to set up a car. What does increasing camber at the rear [only] do? Should it correspond to other changes in the set-up?...How do you set up a Viper optimally for your driving style and for each course. How do you set-up any other car for that matter. Do not look to this guide for any insight. . Which cars are good on which tracks. Now, of course, some of it is personal taste, but other than Subarus are good in the twisties you are on your own. Even a simple grid of pounds per horsepower and pounds per foot lb. of torque would have been helpful and a useful reference. Oh, but that would have required thought and calculations rather than rephrasing the instructions so forget about it. All and all, pathetic. Buy a book on the theories of suspensions or on racing in general and you will be so much further ahead.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A beginner's guide to GT, very basic and with errors., January 5, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Gran Turismo : Prima's Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
I'm the type that likes to read the instructions before using a new tool, piece of equipment, game, etc. With that in mind, this book gives one a good, though basic, overview of the game that goes a little bit beyond the manuals that come with the game. This overview is probably the biggest value of the book. Once you've played the game through a few races and tracks, however, you will know just about as much as the book can tell you. Another value the book brings is a fairly accurate description of the many cars that come with the game. I say fairly accurate, however, because there are some difference in the horsepower, weight, etc, between the cars in the book and what you actually get in the game. Again, at the basic level the book can give you a feel for what car you should try to go after, but at the highest level of competition in the game, you will need more accurate and detailed specs for the cars than what the book can provide. That's the good part about the book. What about the bad part? For starter, the book is incomplete, literally incomplete, as in there are paragraphs and words missing where they should be in description of cars and tracks and races. Some of the missing information is just annoying, as in words ____ out of sentences (in this example, the word "left" is missing). In other case, a whole race was left out of the description, including tracks used, purse for winning, etc. Having info on this race would be nice to plan your career in the game. These omissions lead me to think that the publishers had very poor or non-existent proofreading of the text, which is surprising given that this is not a first draft but a book available for purchase by the general public. Another gripe is that the book is very basic. Once you get beyond the beginner level, you'll wish for more information on cars that you can win, and setup info for the cars that you do have, in order to optimize them for each tracks in a championship. This type of information is incredibly useful unless you want to take hours and hours testing the myriad combinations of suspension, turbocharging, gear ratios, etc. that the game gives you, for each car you have, for each track you will race on. Even for a gearhead and real-life racecar driver like me, going through all the testing to give myself the best chance of winning a championship gets old after the first few track/car combination. Bottom line, having the book is better than nothing, but after purchasing and reading the book (before even starting to play the game!) I went on-line and did a Yahoo search under Gran Turismo, and found much more accurate and much more useful information on how to play the game, from what I think are non-professional writers who won't sell a single page of their much better reviews and tips. Were I to do it again, I would've saved my money and print out the various tips from the websites.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't make the same mistake as me., December 22, 1998
This review is from: Gran Turismo : Prima's Official Strategy Guide (Paperback)
I bought this book and was highly disappointed. I was hoping it would help me figure out how to set up my car(s), how to unlock any special features, and so on. None of my questions or hopes where answered or met by this book. I would not recommend this book to anyone who's purchased the game... just play the game and read the supplied instructions.
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