Gran Turismo 4 Guide: This little Piggy went into scary amounts of detail

To most gamers, consulting a game guide is about as offensive as spreading jam in their console's disc drive and glueing drawing pins to the controller. Which is why we were so impressed with Piggyback's guide to the unbelievably deep Gran Turismo 4, a book that is less a simple walkthrough and more an indespensible companion that will actually improve the game itself. Piggyback's book has only just come out, months after the game itself, because the typically fastidious publisher has compiled thousands of hours of road testing into 292 beautifully illustrated pages.

If the self-titled 'Real Driving Simulator' was renowned for its depth and accuracy, then the guide is more scary in its pursuit of the perfect driving experience. It goes right into the sort of detail that would get you strange looks if you recited it in public, and we do fear for the sanity of the writers.

However, if you want to know how to take every corner of every track in the game, tweak every single element of your car to perfection and you need a full guide to each of the 700-plus cars contained in the game, this will do the trick. True Gran Turismo fans will lap it up (sorry).

The game itself and Logitech's Driving Force Pro wheel are probably all you need to teach you how to drive. Of course, real driving is not as much fun as Gran Turismo 4, and real cars to tend to get smashed up when you crash into things. We'll stick to the virtual roads for now, but we've got some way to go: we've only got ten cars in our Gran Turismo garage. Pass the leatherette driving gloves, we've got work to do. -GC