The Depression Years

((This is part of a series that I'm uploading on dA: The Gran Turismo cars that have a special meaning for me, and why they mean something))

_{- This music here may fit to this chapter: [link] -}


In 2005, I got a Gran Turismo 4 cd. I was waiting for this game for years. Now I'm playing it for years. Oh my, I still love this game!
GT4 itself was a breath of fresh air for the GT series: new cars, new tracks, new missions, more races...

My first months in GT4 were kinda weird for me, because I saw myself running off track many times. The handling in GT3 is quite different from GT4's. It took me some time to get used to GT4. And by the end of 2005, I already had all the licenses.

2006 was a turbulent year in real life. It changed me. But I still played GT4.
...by 2007 the game wasn't so great. The A.I. rivals are so dumb, it wasn't fun to race against them.
I had done most races of the game, and most missions too. Because I loved the series, I didn't want to see Gran Turismo as a boring game. Oh no.

I challenged myself: "Let's get all the gold medals of all the License Tests".
And in 2007 I got every gold medal from the game. And completed the Mission Hall events as well. I was fast!
I went back to the races. But it wasn't cool. It was frustrating. I won every race I entered. The A.I. rivals don't help the game. I wasn't happy to battle against a such stupid machine. I felt I was racing alone.
I wanted to take a break from Gran Turismo.
...crisis in my GT world!

During 2007 and 2008, I bought different games. I'm not used to spend my money on games, but yes, I was buying new games. I even bought a PSOne, and some old cds. Including a GT2 copy. But the game was downloaded from the internet, and its speed wasn't stable. Sometimes the gameplay was so slow, it was awkward to race there.
I was distant from the GT universe.

By 2009 I started to miss Gran Turismo 4. I wanted to play it. Great!
But my PS2 isn't new anymore. Most times, the console couldn't read the GT4 cd... until it completely stop reading the cd. Damn!
I couldn't see, but my skills were getting really rusted...

And why is the Lotus Carlton here in this list?
Well, it is one of my favourite cars of GT4. Now I can't say it is the car I used most in Gran Turismo 4. But it sure is one of my most used cars.
With the Carlton, I tried to get the most A-Spec points I could get from a race.
It is special for me, because it was trying to keep the game interesting to play. The Carlton is like a knight-errant, who fought for the Gran Turismo series, during the "Dark Ages of GT".



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BROETTO'S 'SPECIAL GRAN TURISMO CARS' LIST:
Mitsubishi Eclipse: [link]
Honda Beat: [link]
Mercury Cougar: [link]
Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version: [link]
Ford Escort WRC: [link]
Volkswagen New Beetle: [link]
Pagani Zonda S: [link]
Dodge Viper GTS: [link]
Lotus Carlton: [link]
Audi RS4 'The Queen': [link]