The best selling PS1 game: I didn't like it

Racing games just aren't my thing. It doesn't matter how much realism they put into the game, how many options they have available, even how much customization. They just aren't something that I enjoy. Therefore, I was a bit surprised to find out that the two of the top three best-selling PS1 games of all time were both racing games. One of them I never played, the other I bought into because of the hype and didn't care for it.

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The last time there was a something that could be considered a racing game that I really played a lot was when F-Zero was on the Super Nintendo and well, that isn't exactly realistic racing.

Gran Turismo had a bunch of real world cars and people who loved the game thought that the stats on each car was rather realistic. I don't really know because I didn't play it very much. My room mate in college played it a bit but for me I just get bored with racing games pretty quick.

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I suppose if there was one thing I was going to say that did impress me about the game it was the graphics. At the time these graphics were pretty damn amazing and no one had seen anything like it on a home console before. We couldn't see into the future to look at games that are out today on the PS4 (and likely PS5 to an even greater extent - I don't know because I haven't gotten one yet) so when we saw the GT graphics back in 1997 our minds were blown... it's just that for me that sensation was not enough for me to actually want to play it.

I don't know what it is about racing games that have never appealed to me but I think a big part of it is that one tiny little mistake can take you out of a race and while that is probably pretty realistic as far as racing is concerned I guess I don't look for games for life-simulations.

The type of games that I like the best tend to be not terribly true to life in that I prefer Sci-Fi and Fantasy type games, especially RPG's.

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My room mate had the decency to not play this game for hours on end when I was at home as well but one thing I remember that he really enjoyed is that you could play a story mode of sorts where you started with a "regular" and kinda shitty car and you won money from races and gradually purchased better and better cars. It was important to not damage or destroy your car in the races as well because that damage had to be paid for at the end of races as well.

I like the idea behind this, but the actual gameplay well, I just didn't like it then and I don't like it now either.

I have tried my hand at a number of free PlayStation plus games that we are offered from time to time and will normally play a few times, get bored and delete it. This was especially true with a rally game that we were recently offered that each race took as long as an actual real life rally race - which I thought was completely absurd.

Gran Turismo is the best-selling PS1 game of all time as it barely edged out Final Fantasy 7 by less than 800,000 units. Gran Turismo 2 sold considerably less than either but was still the 3rd best selling PS1 game ever. I never even say what GT2 looked like but I am presuming fans of the first ended up being fans of the 2nd release.

I wont be doing it, but if you care to see what Gran Turismo looked like and put yourself into the eyes of a person who was actually a gamer in 1997 you can get the ROM HERE for free.