This is an extract of my Writings dating back to February 2017. Taken From my Gaming Archives, Excel Spreadsheet. Enjoy the Read.
Hype! Hype! Feeling proud of myself! let me get that out of the way first off! I Finally achieved Gran Turismo 5 XL platinum! time taken; 4 Years And 3 months. here´s my story:
To start I got the game back on Jan 1st, 2013. I have always loved racing games, so much that I spent hundreds of hours on Gran Turismo titles. I have been playing the Gran Turismo series since its first release back in the PlayStation days, ever since I have always liked the game. Played every single one since then, GT1, GT2 on the PSX, GT3, GT4 for PS2, GT5, GT6 for the PS3, And looking forward to getting Gran Turismo Sport for the PS4 sometime this year (hopefully).
So as usual, I start out with golding the licenses and already started struggling, but doable on a Dualshock 3 controller. As I played the game and as I cleared pretty much every single race event on my road to platinum I encountered a Brick Wall, no rather, an Adamantium wall, yep, adamantium. The so-called “The gold standard” trophy was the only thing in my way to claim platinum. It required to gold every single race in the game. Well, little did I know that there were these 3 unique races called Sebastien Vettel´s Redbull XJ2010 Challenge. This is where despair got the best of me. it required to beat 3 time trials around 3 world-known circuits with the fastest imaginary car in this game. Redbull XJ2010 HP: 1500+ Lateral G-Force of 6.
I tried and tried and TRIED… to only get bronze times and for a good while, didn´t come remotely close to gold times. at the time i had already about 178.5 hours of racing experience, but I was also tired and wanted to try new games. So I decided to come back to it Later.
So it was now January 2014 and started practicing those dreaded Redbull Xj2010 time trials with the controller. I soon realized I was capping my limit and still nowhere near the Gold times. I then decided to invest in a Peripheral known as a GT driving Force Steering wheel, designed for racing Games. that´s when things started to look up. a little.
Getting used to the wheel felt like learning the basic steps of driving from scratch! I thought that it wasn´t such a good idea to get the wheel after all. But with a little persistence and dedication I understood how it was to drive with the wheel and I Managed to Gold 2 out of 3 Events of the Sebastien Vettel Redbull Challenge! I was literally 2:10:00 (those are minutes) away from my glorious platinum, a platinum so rare I couldn´t think of anything else but to get it. But boy those two minutes were eternal, because that is the gold time for the Suzuka circuit time trial, the hardest of the 3. So even with the wheel I failed to beat the gold time. it was now halfway through February 2014. I decided to take yet another break from the game.
It was now November 23rd, 2015 all the way through December 25th, 2015 and I was practicing every day, sometimes one hour some other times four hours to try and grasp the platinum I so wanted, the thing is, had the PS4 not come when it did (dec. of 2015) I should have been able to beat the time once and for all.
You see, the thing with the track, Suzuka circuit with the Redbull xj2010 requires inhumanly fast reflexes, nerves of steel, and well, a luck base of at least 170 if it were just like a final fantasy character. I was beginning to think no normal human could do this event. keep reading…
It is now March 30th, 2017. I was scared to challenge what I considered to be an impossible time trial for me but still went for it. 5 hours later across 3 days something triggered in my head. “Hey what IF I´m more aggressive with the wheel, will it allow me to turn at higher speeds?”, because let´s face it, up to this point All my times were 2:11:040, and recently these days 2:10:967.
I needed to squeeze an extra second to beat the 2:10:00 gold time and claim my Ultra platinum. so I decided to go with this farfetched idea of being more aggressive. Well, it turns out, the stupid car likes it Hard, and began to turn more at higher corner speeds.
On the golden run, I remember talking with my brother who at the time was watching me race and giving advice and said; “maybe in your next session try out different approaches” That´s when I felt compelled to say: “there won´t be a next time”, and through the miracle of my accumulated practice, grief, frustrations, and broken controllers (yep, I´ve done that too) I lapped in at 2:09:975 earning me the gold time for this accursed track. I Literally Jumped out of my Seat, landed on my knees, both palms to face, vowed down to floor level while shedding a tear or two all while thinking: I DID IT! YES! I ALWAYS KNEW I COULD!. My brother was beside himself but was also happy for my achievement and congratulated me.
Here is a Video from a friend and his YouTube channel! check it out:
Can you feel the Adrenaline just by watching this? this isn´t a normal car. It’s insanely fast and the track doesn´t help, if at any given moment your 4 tires go off the race track, it´s game over, it was so unforgiving. Now imagine being behind the wheel at 300 MPH corner speeds.
I don´t know how, but I did it. All I know is that even if Lady Luck didn´t smile at me during these epic 2 laps; I would not rest until achieving this victory. But now that it´s here and it´s real, I can only feel proud of what I accomplished through sheer practice and dedication, and that is why I´m writing this life event, because, to me, this achievement means that everything is obtainable, you just have to work hard for it. Today is a small victory for trophy Hunter Vicious_Beast82, a videogame fanatic, See you next time!.
Well, that´s all I have to share about this Absolutely ridiculous achievement. And I just wanted to throw in there that, whether some people can gold this thing in mere 30 mins, truth is for me, it has been the biggest challenge EVER, hands own. Hope you liked my little story.
One thought on “Gran Turismo 5 XL Road to Platinum. The Struggle.”