25 Years Ago, PlayStation Fans Got an All-Time Great Racing Game

The racing genre has gotten plenty of permutations over the years, from the bombastic kart racing of the Mario Kart franchise to the more grounded realism of the Gran Turismo series. Both properties have had an undeniable impact on the broader gaming industry, with plenty of titles trying to replicate the success of both. The thing is, even a quarter of a century later, no one — not even the Gran Turismo developers — has been able to catch up to their biggest runaway success.

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec brought the realistic racing sim series to the PlayStation 2, quickly becoming a best seller and critical darling. Still regularly considered among the best racing games of all time, the title also came to represent something more about the PlayStation 2 as a whole. 25 years since it first debuted on the global stage, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec is still one of the best racing games we’ve ever gotten.

How Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec Took Over The World

Debuting in Japan on April 28, 2001, before making its way to the rest of the world that summer, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec remains one of the gaming industry’s most successful racing titles ever. The Gran Turismo series had debuted a few years earlier, quickly earning acclaim across the industry for its tight design, strong graphics, and commitment to accurately recreating the driving experience. The first two games in the series were well received, with the debut entry still being the top-rated game in the series on Metacritic with a 96/100 cumulative score.

Trailing just behind that game in terms of review scores is its more famous cousin, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, which earned similarly terrific reviews when it debuted on the PS2 in 2001 and sits just 1 point behind the first Gran Turismo on MetaCritic. Kazunori Yamauchi, who had led the development of the previous two entries in the series, worked hard to improve on what had come before. The tighter focus on driving gameplay created a more realistic effect while playing, especially when using the Logitech GT Force steering wheel peripheral (which Yamauchi collaborated on). The enhanced processing power of the PlayStation 2 meant that the developers were able to improve on the graphics to a truly staggering effect.

While the improved graphics came at the cost of severely reducing the number of cars that players could use, the number of cars still approached 200 and featured plenty of iconic vehicles like the Ashton Martin. While critics might have been slightly less impressed than with the first game, the game’s release early in the PlayStation 2’s life cycle helped be used as a case study for what the console could do. Especially compared to the more blocky graphics of the PlayStation, the PS2’s version of Gran Turismo became a must-buy for a generation of players. The game went on to sell 14,890,000 copies worldwide, making Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec among the best-selling console games of all time and the second best-selling game for the PS2 entirely — only beaten by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Gran Turismo 3 Was One Of “THE” PS2 Games — And Why That Matters

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec was also notably the most successful PS2 Exclusive. While the PlayStation 2 had plenty of mascot characters exclusive to it at the time of release, like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Tidus, or Sora, Gran Turismo 3 came to represent the console just as much. At the time, it was impossible to find anyone with a PS2 who didn’t have a copy of Gran Turismo 3. The broad appeal of the game and the technical strength of the final product made it a great showcase for the potential of the console, with more impressive graphics than any home console had truly shown off to that point. It became a selling point for the PS2, speaking to the way the console came to be seen as the casual gamer’s ideal pick in that generation of consoles.

While Nintendo had its enduring strengths embodied by the GameCube and Microsoft made a decent debut with the Xbox, the PS2 became the most common console. It was the one most gamers had around the world, with Gran Turismo 3‘s success (and subsequent re-releases as part of the PlayStation Greatest Hits line) keeping it in heavy rotation for years. It’s notable that even when the direct sequel Gran Turismo 4 came out a few years later, it couldn’t keep up with the enduring strength of Gran Turismo 3‘s ubiquity. I still remember seeing Gran Turismo 3 at every party or sleepover I had after the PS2 came out. It was a constant fixture of PS2 libraries, in a similar way Mario Kart became a constant for Nintendo players or Halo was a must-have for Xbox gamers.

Gran Turismo 3 represented the PlayStation 2’s computing power, its depth, and just how far game developers had come from even just a decade prior. It was a game where players didn’t have to buy into becoming a space marine or a magical warrior — they just wanted to be able to drive cool cars at top speeds. It’s a broad hit that underscored the broad appeal of the console. 5 years later, that technical achievement and broad success still stand out as one of Sony’s greatest gaming victories. It was an all-time great racing game, and it remains as such a quarter of a century later. Even with franchises like Forza Horizon pushing the genre further and sequels like Gran Turismo 7 pushing the limits of what the series can do, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec remains one of the all-time contenders.