Gran Turismo could be the most anticipated franchise to the hit the PSP. What was originally scheduled for the launch window of Sony’s portable console is finally hitting your memory stick and UMD drive four and a half years later. Sporting some of the best visuals we’ve ever seen on the system and an absurd amount of cars and tracks, Gran Turismo is the definitive racing experience on the PSP.

The first thing you’ll notice is how unbelievably beautiful this game looks on the PSP. Running at a crisp 60 frames per second, the visuals rival the PS2 editions of the franchise. You’ll be able to buy over 800 cars to race on over 30 tracks in the game, each with a forward and backward variant. Tuning your car feels like you would expect from the franchise and you can tweak settings until you get it just right for the best time on any given track. The Driving Challenge takes the license tests from previous Gran Turismo games and turns them into a full fledged gameplay mode, giving multiple hours of play time to complete and perfect. You’ll also be able to race against friends via ad-hoc WiFi if you want to get together and see who’s the best driver.

I was a bit disappointed at the lack of a cohesive career mode for the single player portion of the game. You choose from single races, time trials and drift trials, pick the number of laps, choose your car and track and then race it once. The single player portion of Gran Turismo feels more like a Quick Play mode than anything else. Your progression is tracked by your skills in unlocked better AI racers on any given up track, up to S rating. I would have liked to see more of a true career mode where you unlock cars, similar to what exists on the console versions of the franchise. Buying news cars in the game is also not ideal, as only five to six dealer brands are available per game day (each event constitutes one day). There were times I wanted to run a rally race and buy a new car to do so, but had to complete a couple other events to progress until the desired dealership was available. My only other complaint about the game is the inclusion of Jay Leno as the announcer. I know he loves, collects, and restores cars, but hearing him say “Ready… START” before every race just doesn’t feel like Gran Turismo.

There’s so much content packed into the game’s 936MB download that you’ll be hard pressed to look for even more to do in Gran Turismo. Even though you’ll probably never purchase all of the game’s over 800 cars, you’ll want to keep improving your collection, both on your own and through trading and sharing with friends over WiFi. Whether you download this game from the PlayStation Network or buy it on UMD, racing fans need to pick up Gran Turismo for the PSP on day one.