I have this a go based on this description and it’s really interesting. A racer clearly trying to do GT but different, and which focuses on different parts of the racing discipline, and what a starting lineup… and no auto save? In 2005? lmao
I love it
Its ENTHUSIAsm is for sure something different, because they had no prior experience and expectations to fulfill/ to live up to!
Alas, that’s why it stands out so much (for me at least) that in each group shot, we have a variety of colors to adore here…
(kinda funny that a japanese game puts american muscle in a licence test predominantly about cornering techniques, as if there was a reason to teach people about a specific trait of handling, hmmm? 
)
thread is really encouraging me to try playing a bunch of recent threedee vidcons with bilinear texture filtering the fuck off
okay how to actually get recent games to do this turns out to be less than obvious help
When you find out, please let me know!
is that something you can force off at the driver level, maybe?
If memory serves me correctly, Enthusia is really all about DRIVING. The car is just a tool to facilitate THE DRIVE. Nothing else about the car is relevant aside from making it feel as close as possible to real life DRIVING. That includes automatic transmissions behaving realistically (upshifting at realistic shift points/kickdown happening when you go full throttle/etc.) as well as Fading Brake Lights for some reason 
I wonder what other car eccentricities are there that we haven’t noticed.
Enthusia RULES. I should play it again some day as well!
i think i might literally need to work for nvidia to find an answer to this one, bah
Tonight will be Melissa’s night! Let’s put that 241hp and 9,000 RPM red line to good use! We head to the one make S2000 Challenge to face the family. Melissa takes an easy win at Grand Valley Speedway. I wonder how much Mugen is show vs. go in these street cars.
While we’re doing one makes, let’s get Max’s Civic Race out of the way. There are some very competitive 3-door hatches out there, but Max takes it at the High Speed Ring!
Carlo has no one make race 
So it’s back to Melissa to check some more races off the list. We head to the Compact Car World Cup’s second race at Seattle Short. There is a 246hp limit. Melissa has 241hp, so this should be a cake walk! We take first, but a feisty Lancia Y 1.2 16V makes sure it’s not a cake walk! All these short wheel-base hatchbacks seem to have ridiculous cornering ability in the tight Seattle Short track.
We win a prize car, and it’s a Clio 16V! Welcome Bridgette to the garage! I love Bridgette!
We head to the Clio Cup one make, but it only allows Clio Sports. A shame!
We might as well see if we can finish first in the last race of the Compact Car World Cup. It takes place at Autumn Ring and the hp limit is now 295hp. Melissa does a great job with a win against these potent hatchbacks!
That’s the Compact Car World Cup complete. We have just broken 100,000 credits. And we get a prize car! I can’t think of a great name for a Volkswagen Polo 1.4 16V so we settle for Marco. Marco Polo 
All these victories have me feeling confident, so I take Melissa to the FR Car Challenge race at Special Stage R5. The hp limit is 443! This could be embarrassing, but Melissa keeps those revs high and manages the corners well enough to pull of a win! I take probably way too many screenshots. The night stages are really beautiful.
This win gets us a prize car that seems very special indeed. It’s a Nismo 270R. And it is now the most powerful car we own at 264hp. Somehow it just feels like an Erica to me, so this is Erica!
Only 30 Ericas were sold! And Erica is also not allowed to race with the Silvias and the 180s. No matter! I think Erica has a really bright future in our garage!
Marco Polo is dangerously close to a real name given to that car , bur still, I laughed a lot, since it never crossed my mind to call it that.
Preposterous to think of the Lancia and 200bhp, that would tear apart the whole car… i guess that pushback was just an inspired drive by the AI equivalent of Pier Guidi
(for those who haven’t seen it:
that pass is even better when you’d have seen the last 40 minutes before, but they explain it anyway)
Also sorry for jinxing 1/4 of your post with predominantly white and black Hondas, but GT2 relaxed again, and dishes out a fine, colorful SS-5 field.
I take notes as I race, and I just filled up another page. So it’s time to make another post!
Tonight I want to see what Erica is like. We go to the Historic Car Trophy at Grindelwald with a 394hp limit. I have no idea what to expect. Erica is twitchy and not as poised and predictable as Albert, but there is a lot more power on tap here. I can’t compete with these cars, so I take fifth and move on. A Ford GT40? Wow!
Next we go to the Luxury Sedan Rome Circuit race. This race also has a 394hp limit, but no Ford GTs to worry about! Erica really wants to get sideways so I have to pay very close attention, but we take first! I LOVE the green Ford Taurus SHO. The good Fords are out tonight.
Prize car time! It’s an Accord Type R. Ok, so now we have two Accords in the garage. I’ll call this one Julien.
Julien is an attractive car for mature drivers. Let’s go race some immature drivers at the Type R meeting! It takes four attempts to get the win here. We finish third, second, fifth, then first. This makes sense when there’s an NSX Type R in the field! The car that gives us the most trouble is a yellow Civic Type R.
Julien reaches almost 60mph in first gear! So downshifting to first is more common than usual.
For the Type R Meeting win, we get a prize car. And it’s the Civic Type R that gave us so much trouble! I call it Tracy. Type R Racy I guess? Sometimes there’s a little meaning to the names. Tracy has no information screen.
I realize that the International C class license we got a while back means Darius can compete in the Mid-Engine Challenge’s first race at Grand Valley East. This may be the most challenging race yet as there are some truly fast cars out there. The Lotus Europa and Elise are particularly nasty opponents.
Snap-oversteer is real with Darius, but I’ve kept the power level not too far from stock, so it’s manageable. For that hard-fought victory, we win another prize car! It’s a TRD 2000GT. Apparently that’s a factory souped-up MR2. Cool! This is now our most powerful MR car and second most powerful car in the garage. Tho Darius is much lighter. This is Tomás.
I hope Tomás has more stability than Darius with all that power!
Edit: I keep forgetting to post the twitch streams. Here’s tonight’s: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1117588896
The 3000GT was my shit in GT3, I hope this little brother from another mother does you proud
look how happy that grandpa Lotus Yurop is when it gets into the lead:
cars today have it rough, they cannot be so happy anymore
n. b. in 60 days from n00b to mature driver with a sporty flair, that’s some progression you can be proud of!
Time for some Saturday afternoon racing! I am running out of races to cheese with the licenses I have. It’s going to be license test time again soon. But first, let’s find out what we can do with what we’ve got. Tomás takes a trip to Special Stage R5 for the 80s Sports Car Cup with a limit of 345hp. A yellow FB RX7 gives us a bit of trouble, but we pull of a victory! I miss pop-up headlights on cars.
To nobody’s surprise, we get a prize car. It’s a Mugen CR-X. These were always Del Sols to me. And they did have an amazing Samba Green paint color available. This is Marge.
Someone at Polyphony Digital really likes Honda! That’s fine. But I’m not sure what I can do with every single one of these Honda prize cars. Speaking of Hondas, let’s get Tracy to the FF Challenge Midfield Raceway race. It’s probably not going to be good due to the 345hp limit. But I always welcome a chance to try out a car I haven’t driven yet! The best we can do is third place. I am shocked at how sharp Tracy’s initial turn-in is. This car feels like it’s rear wheel drive up until the front tires start to run out of grip. I guess there’s a reason these Civic hatches are legendary.
Sixty-nine (nice) days in, I’m becoming embarrassingly rich. I decide it’s time to go buy a new car. I settle on 4WD, but I have to think about what to get. I need cars from other countries to compete in other races. I consider Audi and Lancia, but end up settling on Ford. There is a very special 4WD car at the Ford dealer. It’s the RS 200 rally car. We can afford it. We will buy it! We will call it Desmond. A lot of Americans probably don’t even know this car exists. I know it from rally games.
Desmond’s insane power to weight ratio means we can easily compete in some races with high power requirements. We head to the American Muscle race at Laguna Seca! This is possibly my favorite race track so I’m pretty excited! Desmond’s AWD, light weight, and potent engine give us the win! I screw up my braking on the famous “cork screw” turn, but manage to get it right on the second lap. A very aggressive Shelby makes a suicidal pass and spins out directly in front of me in the second lap! It looks like we crashed, but there was very little if any vehicle contact.
To my surprise, I get a prize car. To my surprise, it’s another Honda. Well, it’s an Acura, but I know what it really is. GT2 considers Acura to be American. I guess the badge itself kinda is? Anyway, this is Susan the Acura Integra LS. A fine car!
We park Susan in the garage and continue with Desmond’s reign of terror. We’ll continue said reign in the next post…
Desmond and I head to the 4WD Challenge Seattle Circuit Full race. Desmond was made for this race! We are pretty close to the 394hp limit, even! First is easily ours! The other cars just can’t keep up with Desmond’s cornering ability and raw power. We also get to do what rally cars do best: jump!
We get a non-Honda prize car! It will be the most powerful car in the garage. That’s right, even more powerful than Desmond. It’s a Nismo 400R Prototype. This is Brian.
We are not finished with Desmond. Not by a long shot. It’s time to head to the Luxury Sedan Cup race at Special Stage R5. There’s a 493hp limit here. But I know the other cars will be tanks compared to Desmond. I’m right. We win!
The prize car is a Toyota Chaser TRD Sports X30. What a mouthful! This is a pretty powerful luxo barge! Welcome to the garage, Cynthia!
Another series we haven’t tried yet is the Station Wagon Cup. I was always intimidated by the 394hp limit in the first race. It should be no problem for Desmond. It is no problem for Desmond! First place is acquired at the Rome Short track.
For this race, we win an Impreza Wagon WRX STi! Another rallying legend! Hopefully it will come in handy in some races down the line. This is Richard. Like many, Gran Turismo taught me that Subarus are actually bad ass. I lusted after Imprezas in the late 90s and early 00s for sure.
The stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1118277352
in that midfield raceway FF challenge, you’ve raced against two yuropean sedan legends, the Citroen Xantia, and the Opel Vectra (B).
The Xantia V6 featured here doesn’t seem to be the Activa version, which is equipped with a special version of the Hydropneumatic suspension … iirc I’ve already posted this vid here,
watch how that mad man is cornering, and how the Ferrari/Beemer load up their left side suspension whereas the Activa stays (relatively) flat.
Anyway, I’ve owned the Inline4 NA 88bhp (8V) engine, which was more of a shifting sand dune than a racehorse, but it had a sunroof! It was red! It had four powered windows! Even drove one lap around the Nordschleife w/ her!
re that Opel Vectra:
if it wasn’t for these valling victim to rust like crazy, would have probably owned one in that fancy yellow paintjob:
model shown here is a souped-up version of resident tuner Irmscher, but that paintcolor was available for “normal” models as well iirc?
In any case, haven’t seen one in that color for a decade or more. At least I got to drive the sports coupe on the same platform, the Opel Calibra:
my brother had three of these, a red one w/ the NA inline 4 115bhp 2L 8V engine, the hotter 2L 150ish bhp 16V (still NA) version, and now, again, a yellow 115bhp 2L 8V. I had the pleasure to drive the 16V version, and it was a blast driving that on ze german autobahn with 170-180 kph for hours. A real workhorse, and quite efficient for the times!
(naturally, the 150ish V6 or I4 200bhp turbo engined version is the rocket ship you’d normally want to wangan’ing down the highways @ night, but beggars ain’t be choosers, right!)
so tl;dr:
you’ve beaten the yuropean ghosts of two of our family cars (or not-quite-but-almost-there ones…)
n.b.:
the Xantia was notorious for its handbrake being applied on the front axle, i.e. the first thing i’ve checked in GT6 was whether they car-
(applies handbrake)
(locking up rear wheels for c007 dorifto action)
Mr Yamauchi, a.k.a Mr Gran Turismo, WHYYYYYYYYYYYY, YOU AMATEUR-
Thanks for sharing that! I love how the GT games get us thinking about cars we grew up with and actually got to see or drive. I’m not sure if any popular racing games before GT let you drive every day cars.
The GT games are also very optimistic about redlines. You can usually shift at least 500RPM past what you’re used to in real life.
come to think of it, Forza Motorsport 3 or 4 lets you shift through gears in the Ampera/Chevy Volt, so… nobody is perfect, but we love nitpicking on things we absolutely live and adore, so it just shows our 
(n. b. have i mentioned that ENTHUSIA has two shifting lights for torque and… forgot what the second one was for? 
In any case, iirc they also had the audible beep you get in (american only?) Rotary engined mazdas, not sure tho whether that could only be heard when in (faux) cockpit mode, or always… it was one of these tiny things i have missed for a decade plus in other games. Probably lost on most players, but still a thing that shows that someone cared.
