My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Saturday, September 09, 2000

Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?

I Actually Get All Golds on My GT1 IA License and Win All Four Nismo 400R's!

For the past few weeks I went back to GT1 and actually managed to get all gold on my IA license tests. A combination of extra practice, use of Sony Dual Shock Controllers, and sheer persistence made this possible, even though I had at one time given this up as impossible.

Here's a summary of my IA license test standings now:

The above shows how I save my name in license tests records. It indicates the date I got gold on each test. Well, I left IA-1 till last, and first got gold on September 6, but kept reloading a game with only 7 IA golds, allowing me to collect all four colours of Nismo 400R.

My wife was watching X-files beside me when I won my first 400R. The episode where Mulder and Scully are supposed to be going to a Teamwork Workshop but instead stop off and fight with the ghost of Ponce de Leon.

There's just a little scratch on the left rear panel of the Griffith. Nothing a little touch-up paint won't fix. Well, okay, maybe it will need some gunko, emery cloth and elbow-grease.

So, the first serious corner I think I went in a little fast, slowing down below 100mph just before exiting. A similar situation for the esse; I went a bit fast through the first corner, and slowed to below 80mph on the exit of the second. The the last corner. Went in fast and gave it a nice drift up to the top, hitting the wall and bouncing right off, allowing me to maintain over 100mph through the corner without dragging along the wall too much.

Of course, the Griffith has reasonable acceleration. So whereas in those two B license tests you had to carefully hold yourself in on the first corner of the esse so as to maximize exit speed from the second corner, I think with the Griffith the lesser of too evils it to take the first corner a little too fast and thereby spend less time in the whole combination. The same principle may even apply to a single corner, sort of.

But the first 400R was silver.

So I was glad I did the save thing (I have many many memory cards, in addition to several multi-page ones) so that I have a record of the gold medals as well as a game with the prize car and only 7 gold medals with only IA-1 to go!

So, as I said before, I use a Dual Shock, with analog gas/brake, manual transmission using R1/R2. Handbrake is L1, but I never use that. My left thumb just steers.

It actually only took me eight successful runs to collect all four colours of 400R. In order, I won, silver, silver, silver, red, silver, yellow, yellow and, finally, gray. Of course, with each new colour, I arranged to buy that colour into the 7-silver reference save. Eventually, I made the game where I had set my best IA-1 time my "main" game.

The test I found the hardest was IA-6 (Trial Mountain). I thought I would never get it right! But eventually I did. It was a frustrating course because you could have a good run and then blow it all on that last esse-bend. SSR5 was a surprise! I'd just done IA-6, and thought I was warming up for SSR5 (IA-2), when I did a gold run (partly by benefit of some wall-sliding) even though I'd never managed silver on that course! I rushed to save that game. Later, while trying to beat IA-1 I began to wonder if I should have instead made IA-2 the one I left until last. But eventually I managed to beat IA-1 enough times to get the four 400R's. Only one run was really "clean"; a well-timed drift into a light tail-end bounce of the wall in that last corner really does seem to help keep your speed up and your time down. I know, I'm a long way from the demo run time, but, hey, my method worked to win the cars.

So now, if I go to do the Normal Series with a 400R, I have to decide whether to use my silver one, my red one, my yellow one, or my gray one. I usually choose the red one.