Okay, everybody got that? I especially am noting the part where it says the Corvette "holds its own with the world's best" at nctd's test track. Also, it's telling us it takes a "highly skilled driver" pushing the car to its limits on a "test track environment" to "search for the limits of this car's capabilities".

Everybody got that?

Now, does anybody see any text about long braking-distances, MASSIVE understeer which slows driver-decisions to a crawl mid-corner, or anything about poor-handling traits which force the driver to NOT push towards any sort of limits...instead, it's the CAR which pushes back, making sure we always stay in this lame 'safety-zone' of driving? 

In Gran Turismo 4, this is just what we find if our C4 is rolling around on N3 tires, which are supposed to be the top rubber a real-life car would have dealer-stock. *Sigh*.

There is some good stuff, too, but it's usually the sort of stuff us drivers try to reserve for damage control. The Corvette's rear does help a bit with throttle-oversteer during exits. First gear does give an incredible whallop if the driver desires it, yet one can also choose to simply grip out of slower corners in 1st, as well.

But overall, it's a massive disappointment, especially when we consider such 2-seater sports cars as the Honda S2000, NSX, any TVR, etc., manage to do so much better, even with N-quality tires attached, even in GT4.

If one slows WAY DOWN, one can avoid the C4's worst malaises, but this, of course, defeats the purpose of buying and driving and racing a sports car, does it not? So let's equip some sport tires before we hang our heads low in shame.

As usual, everything gets better with sports in this game. Brake distances get shorter, the car becomes more tossable overall, and it starts to behave. Best of all, understeer gets diminished from all-encompassing to something which usually rates somewhere between a whimper and an annoyance. In other words, understeer never truely goes away, yet one can now work with the C4 to avoid it most of the time. Phew.

Best of all, the C4 does have a great habit of locking into a groove mid-corner with medium or soft sports. It locks-in and does not let go. Yes! Exit is (of course) completely predictable, as well. Those rear tires rarely allow any misbehavior, and if they do, it's quite easy to control what's going on back there. The real-life C4 was equipped with traction controls towards the end of its reign, but who'd really need them? Especially in the game.

And of course, everything gets better with tuning. There's a LOT of tuning capability folks. Avoiding understeer is usually top of most people's lists, of course, but the C4 as programmed by PD (whether we're talking about the base coupe, Grand Sport, or ZR-1) does give us lots of options here. On racing tires, the front-end becomes too grippy, matter of fact, so that most tuners who were previously trying to avoid understeer may now be trying to induce it!

GT5
I took a '96 Grand Sport to (guess) the Supercar Festival to get some driving impressions, and there are two main tracks here to consider for handling: High Speed Ring in its reversed direction, and the infamous Nürburgring GP/F. One track grants us the ability to see how a car will handle at higher speeds, with wide paths and grand banks to clamber onto, while the other track is tighter, more 'technical', and much more demanding on those brakes, those tires, and handling overall. And I decided to do initial track testing on comfort soft tires, just as the GT4 car was on the best N-quality tires.

An unmodified Grand Sport was driven on comfort radials at High Speed Ring. Its power had not been changed from the 312 @ 5,500 (327 foot-pounds @ 4,500) it was rated without any maintenance. And even with these tires in place, I managed to run a respectable 1:21.771 after three hot laps. Understeer was present at times, but I had to make it show up by braking late. Which is VERY unlike GT4.  

And of course the bigger differences happen at the rear, as this car's butt likes to wiggle a bit, especially out of Turn 4--the latter end of this track's flat S-curve.

So check that out: less understeer, but more oversteer. I like that, and I imagine we all do!  Keep in mind though that to make this car do all this stuff at High Speed Ring, on these tires, it does help to tiptoe through those turns. Some discretion is definitely advised. But once we've got sports equipped, the Grand Sport's net of capabilities broadens, and the tiptoeing becomes more like stomping. 

Nürburgring GP/F, that other Supercar Festival track, will be the true test of course. This will be the "test track environment" NCTD was talking about in their real-life review.

Again, with the lesser soft comfort tires equipped, and traction control still on, I managed 2:35.530 afer a couple laps.

Oddly, the C4 feels a lot more confident rolling around at the higher speeds of High Speed Ring than it does at the Nürburgring GP/F. If some understeer at High Speed Ring showed up, it would go away almost immediately once the throttle or brakes were off. The front-end would then begin to grab lightly, after a moment of settling passed.   

Well at GP/F, everything feels a bit closer to GT4, though it's not nearly as bad. Things only get bad if we screw up. Miss a braking point even by a smidge, even from lower speeds, and the front-end will punish with slow response. This is mostly because of those cheaper tires though. They aren't as good with trail-braking at this narrower track. ..Oh no, not the sand trap! .. Still though, the C4 DOES trail-brake to some degree, as long as we start early.

And when this one understeers in this game, it's nowhere NEAR the understeer I experienced in the previous game on these cheaper tires!  Any front-end pushing in GT5 will be momentary, and temporary. As long as the driver respects braking zones, we can carry a decent amount of speed mid-turn, but missing these zones isn't as drastic as missing them in GT4.  

The car's rear still feels much different from GT4 though, in fact it feels somewhat sloppy at this track. Always getting loose. More like a C3 from that previous game than a C4. Which is fine with me. We have the option of installing a limited-slip if we want to make this go away. Or we can just enjoy the slop if we want.

GT5 is overall much more rewarding, in my opinion. Get it all right, get those braking zones down pat especially, and now the car's front end begins to feel grabbier as we turn in. Mid-corner though, can be tricky. Mid-corner in this car (on these tires) always feels like it's "let's wait and see what happens next" time. Because though the car feels grabby and grippy during Yokohama Curve, the hairpins, the dreaded Schumacher S, and final chicane, there's still some moments when we just don't know where that front-end will wind up. Because getting the front pointed correctly is what it's all about in this car. If the front is off by a degree or two, this means it'll be harder to plant down some gas to the rear, and expect a clean launch.

But the best thing of all is that (like the '97 Camaro Z28), the C4 Corvette feels fun in this game. Fun, twitchy, taciturn, crafty... all sorts of adjectives can be used to describe this car in GT5, in ways we haven't seen since GT2's day. With hard sport tires and no traction control, I now erased a whopping 5.5 seconds from my lap time. And the best part was that the overall flavor of the car (its slight front-end push, its ability to grip & grab, its ability to get slightly sideways or gently throttlesteer on exit) all of this was still there; but with more safety-zone attached.


Summary:
From game to game, quite a mixed bag, and we should at least admire Polyphony Digital's portrayal of the C4's driving capabilities, despite the flaws, misrepresentations, and so forth.