Other GT4 gameplay modes

Arcade Mode

GT4’s arcade mode is more of a free-drive approach where you don’t win anything from beating races. You slowly unlock more tracks as you play the main game. You’re able to choose from over 300 cars and 30 tracks from the very begining, with Nurburgring being one of the readily available tracks. That makes it great when friends are over and you just want to play. There’s no real “arcade mode” races such as in GT3 or what you might expect from a driving game at an arcade. The one disappointment with the arcade mode is that you are no longer able to load your modded cars from the memory card.

Mitsubishi rally cars are pretty good

More SLR McLaren

Can you tell it is one of the cars I really like?

Lister Storm

Woo! Look at that backfire

A faster shutter speed

B-spec mode

New to GT4 is the B-Spec mode, which is essentially a coaching mode. Knowing that some people will simply enjoy watching the cars race in HDTV glory, it’s possible to simply coach your driver by determining how aggressive your racer (by picking a number 1-5) and then pushing a single button when you want the driver to try to overtake an opponent’s car. We did not spend much time in this mode.

See how bad the bokeh is?

Photo Mode

With GT4, it’s clear that replays were so last generation. Now, Polyphony Digital has implemented a still photo mode in which you can composite your shots any way you like and save them as a JPEG to a USB flash drive (any brand!). What’s great is that you can get HDTV-resolutions in this image and also get the benefit of non-real-time motion blur and depth of field effects. Using the replay theater it is possible to pause the action at any time and choose between 64 different camera positions (think physical locations) and then zoom in from 14mm to 687mm, tilt and pan.

As a camera system, the game offers user-selectable f/stops (for blurring the background) and shutter speeds. There is exposure compensation (EV +/- 1) but the system is designed for infinite ISO. That is, f/22 and 1/4000 will give you the same exposure as F/1.4 and 1/60 in the game – one just has more background blur and motion blur. In addition to taking pictures of races, you can also bring your car to non-racing venues to take some shots. You can even choose which direction your wheels are turned to. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well the system works, and it’s a great way to get some customized wallpaper for your desktop.

For what it’s worth though, I’m not sure the Polyphony Digital people really understand photography. The shutter speed and aperture have no bearing on reality. Some shots taken from a 687mm lens at f/1.4 are still sharp from front to back. I would also have preferred a “slow shutter pan” mode in which I could have a perfectly sharp car with blurred rims. For the truly nutty photographer-gamers out there – the bokeh is pretty bad.

The original image from GT4

Edited in Photoshop to mimic real 35mm film. It almost looks like a real picture!