It’s ruthless on the road, as you’ll be hitting dirt in most cases if you don’t approach a corner at the right angle, or brake just enough to give you the right curve to exit a turn. The realism of Gran Turismo 7’s car physics are some of the best I've ever experienced. When you hit the road, it’s business as usual for a Gran Turismo game. The method used to present this information is dated, dull, and will test your patience depending on how open you are to learning about car culture in this manner.

If you struggle to stay engaged in school lectures, you might have a hard time here. It’s just a simple slideshow with a few voiceless informative lines displayed on the screen as the game presents each of the cars you've collected at different angles, showcasing the game’s level of detail, from the interior to reflections in the headlights. The downside is that the presentation could have been delivered in a more interesting and modern light. Once you collect the right cars for your menu, you are rewarded with a brief history lesson about those types of cars.

Most of the time, if it’s not introducing a new feature or championship event, the cafe gives you specific themed menus that task you with collecting specific cars, whether it's Ford Mustangs, or 4-wheel drive (4WD) vehicles. I find Gran Turismo Cafe a fantastic addition to the series, as it’s a proper guide to ease players into the game’s many highlights, while purposely putting them in the driver's seat of various car types. Instead of going through the ranks doing races and unlocking new ones, your progression through GT7 is streamlined through what they call the Gran Turismo Cafe - a place where you are given certain tasks, like collecting specific cars, participating at races, or trying out one of the game’s game modes or features.

Gran Turismo 7 is a complete package, but it doesn’t open up until you spend a good amount of time in the game’s new approach to career mode. While I wasn’t too keen on certain features, this is a welcoming platform for curious would-be car enthusiasts, and veterans will appreciate the attention to detail. What we have here is a love letter to the car industry as a whole. But the more I played Gran Turismo 7, the more I felt like the developers were delivering something more than just car porn. The racing sim's realistic gameplay and attention to detail remains stellar, as the meticulous reconstruction of every in-game car is enough to make any auto aficionado smile. It’s been a long time coming, but Polyphony Digital has finally delivered a new mainline entry in the Gran Turismo series - Gran Turismo 7.

Gran turismo 7 xbox one