ECTS: Kazunori Yamauchi Q&A

One of the most impressive games at the ECTS show thus far has been Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 2000 for the Sony PlayStation 2. The game certainly has improved visually over the E3 version and its creator Kazunori Yamauchi revealed several peripheral features that could make GT 2000 significantly different from GT2 on the PlayStation. The replays are laden with subtle graphical nuances, the correlation between car damage and driving performance has been improved, the license trials are enhanced, and anti-aliasing is now being implemented. GameSpot had the opportunity to sit down with Kaz Yamauchi to discuss the state of GT 2000 further. The entire Q&A with Yamauchi, with the aid of a translator, follows.

GS: How far do you think Gran Turismo 2000 is pushing the hardware power? The game is arguably one of the best visually on the PS2.

Yamauchi: At this point I have not been able to exploit the capabilities of the hardware 100 percent. However, I am pretty confident that out of the all the games that are out right now for the PlayStation 2 this is probably the one that gets the most out of the hardware.

GS: Other than what we have seen so far, what are some things we can look forward to in GT 2000?

Yamauchi: I have only completed two courses in the game and those do not include the dirt tracks. The dirt tracks are more challenging because you have dust effects and environmental things such as puddles - it all varies so much visually in those courses. So, that is something I am going to work on and it is one of the things that people can look forward to.

GS: Will GT 2000 have some of the same music tracks as GT2?

Yamauchi: I can't go into the specifics at this time, but I can say that the music soundtrack in Gran Turismo 2000 will be different from GT2.

GS: How has the driving physics changed from the previous game?

Yamauchi: I mentioned earlier [during the presentation] that the calculation performance has been enhanced, so you'll get a smoother feeling as you maneuver the cars.

GS: Are there any features that you didn't include in Gran Turismo 2000 that you would like to include in the next GT game?

Yamauchi: One big thing I would like to do is include networking capabilities into future games in the series. I do not know exactly what I want to do yet, but that is something I am interested in.

GS: Something like allowing human opponents to control each of the cars in a race?

Yamauchi: That could be just one small part perhaps. I am thinking of something more grand in scale, but I am still deciding on those things.