A new fan-made mod for Gran Turismo 4 has just been released that promises to "improve on the game in ways Polyphony Digital themselves would," according to the team behind the project.
Gran Turismo 4 Spec II offers an exhaustive number of improvements, additions and tweaks to the core GT4 experience, including new Driving Missions, new circuits, enhanced engine sounds, new vehicles, fresh camera perspectives and much, much more.
"Spec II is based on the NTSC version of Gran Turismo 4 Online Public Beta and will be distributed as an xDelta patch requiring this version," adds the official page for the project. "Please ensure you have a Gran Turismo 4 Online NTSC disc image with a MD5 hash of 3306538778dda2ded87ceaf52c944a98 to apply the Spec II patch upon release."
This patch has been a considerable undertaking, with a core team of 14 people involved.
Here's the full list of changes:
Gameplay
- Toggleable prize car randomizer with seed based on username
- Added Event Synthesizer with adjustable difficulty
- Added new Driving Missions 35-40
- Added 15+ new events to various event halls
- Tightened restrictions on some events to encourage using different cars and strategies
- Road cars start with Road tires instead of Sport Medium
- Added Circuit Valencia from Tourist Trophy to Arcade Mode and Event Synthesizer
- Cars can now be repainted at GT Auto
- Manufacturer and associated tuner wheels can now be bought for most cars at GT Auto
- Changes to various weeks' used car dealership stock
- Added dealership discounts for certain weeks
- Shortened "1,000 miles!" significantly and renamed to Grand Tour
- Reduced number of races and/or laps in certain extra-repetitive events (e.g. 2CV Championship and Special Condition Hall)
- Changed the tracks of some existing events to provide a fresh experience
- Made all cars and tracks available in arcade mode by default, including Citta di Aria in race modes
- Changed Extreme Events' unlock criteria from GT World Championship completion to International B completion
- Lowered Endurance Events' unlock criteria from 25% completion to 20%.
- Rebalanced some driving missions and licences to compensate for GT4 Online physics changes
- Changed prize cars for most events (hand-picked, present when randomizer is disabled)
- Added ability to bind shift up/down to R3 up/down
- Rigidity Refresher Plan is now scaled as 25% of the car's value up to a maximum of 35,000 Cr
- Added Full Restoration, restoring condition and mileage to brand new, scaled as 50% of the car's value up to a maximum of 250,000 Cr
- Rally cars now have Dirt and Snow tires unlocked by default
General Improvements/Additions
- Enhanced engine sounds for 400+ cars with 130+ new recordings
- Enhanced race transmission and tire skid sound effects
- Added new colour options to various cars
- Restored original Esso variants of Exxon cars
- Added Mini Cooper 1.3i '98
- Added Korea-exclusive Hyundais: Click Type-R '04, Tiburon Turbulence '99, and Tuscani CCS '03
- Added Korea-exclusive Lexus IS200 GT-1 Race Car '04
- Restored regional equivalents of cars such as Vauxhalls and Toyota Altezzas
- Added no-stripe FPV GT '04
- Made no-stripe Ford GT '05 available for purchase in the Ford dealership
- Corrected physics data for many cars such as the Lister Storm, Gillet Vertigo, VW Golf GTi '05 and various kei cars
- Added engine names to most cars' spec sheets
- Removed extra bumper cam leaning and blurry crash effects
- HDTV (aka 480p) options are now saved rather than needing to be set every time
Added Options
- Global car assist overrides (no more setting ASM and TCS per-car)
- Enable/disable Gran Turismo 3-style chase camera
- Enable/disable roof, bonnet, and interior camera
- Enable/disable analog or digital gauge HUD on all camera views
- Expanded Race Options menu to allow toggling of individual HUD elements
- Restored multi language selection from retail PAL Gran Turismo 4
- Highlight owned cars in dealerships
UI Improvements
- Overhauled car dealership layout with larger period-accurate brochure images for all dealers
- Added Quick Menu to SELECT for easy access to common functions
- Improved 16:9 scaling in various menus
- Increased username length limit to 30 and enhanced username keyboard to allow for numbers, spaces, special characters
- Added R3 camera zoom to dealerships and garage
- Added dealership descriptions to most cars
- Fixed inconsistent spacing/characters in car and track names
- Current UCD cycle week is now shown on the status menu next to the current day
- Added count and percentage of distinct owned cars to the status menu
- L1/R1 can be used to jump 10 items forward/back in car select and GT Auto wheel menus
- Added Length, Displacement, and Engine Type display/sorting to garage
- Added Typical Opponents button to race select screen
- Added GT Mode shortcut to jump to GT Auto when L2 is pressed
- Added GT Mode shortcut to jump to Tuner Village when R2 is pressed (if a tuner exists for the current car)
- Added quick access to garage when viewing event restrictions
- Secret and Monitor settings in Options have been enabled without requiring button combo
- Manufacturers are now sorted alphabetically in the garage menu
- Added extra game status-based details to Home menu