Gran Turismo is near enough the greatest thing that ever happened to racing games. Let me firmly establish that right now. No-one had made a racing game quite like it before. It rocked the entire genre and its incredible girth cast a giant shadow that most other racing games in the tail-end of the original PlayStation era struggled to emerge from under. There was a long period of time where my copy of Gran Turismo was a permanent resident in my PlayStation. Its default location wasn’t in its box; it was in the console. Waiting.

Under the bonnet

"Of course we should have GT-Rs in our game. Just maybe not 75 of them."

Kick it in the guts, Barry!

So what was so great about it?

Nope, it's not a Ruf.

The 0-60 words or less

I never actually played the original Forza Motorsport. At the time of its release I’d just begun working on Australia’s Official PlayStation Magazine and had been thrashing around with Gran Turismo 4 for six months. I was assured I’d dig Forza, which I suspected, but I didn’t really have room in my life for it. Besides, I already had an Xbox racing game I was addicted to: it was called V8 Supercars 2 (or TOCA Race Driver 2, as it’s more commonly known as).After diving into Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360 two years later I quickly realised I probably should have made space, but hindsight is 20/20.Check out the video above for our discussion of the original Forza Motorsport, and read on below for a quick summary and a little additional insight.Forza Motorsport was released worldwide for the original Xbox in May, 2005. It was developed by Turn 10 Studios, which was established by Microsoft in 2001 and tasked with building a simulation racing game with a vaguely Italian-sounding name that Microsoft could call its own. It features just over 230 cars and a wide mix of licensed and fictional circuits and point-to-point tracks.First impressions? Junkie XL’s instrumental ZZ Top remixes are quaint a decade on, but they’re certainly not very good.Beyond that, I’m a little surprised at how straightforward it is to get into the groove of the handling here. The visuals don’t look their best on a TV as big as the broad side of a van and the sound fails to excite, but the racing still engages.Interestingly, Forza Motorsport follows the trend of GT by locking most of its content away but that’s something the series quickly moved away from, which I think was the right move.Hey look, there’s Ferrari! And Porsche! Man, GT4 doesn’t have those. Hey, this damage model isn’t too shabby. Wow, these customisation tools are pretty snazzy, too. And, hey, check it out! The vehicles leave marks on the trackside walls as they graze them. That’s pretty neat.All things I likely would’ve said if I’d played Forza Motorsport back in 2005. But I shouldn’t gloss over them, because they’re actually important elements of the Forza series that have seen it eclipse its spiritual ancestor in several areas. It’s certainly no trivial matter that Forza brought the likes of Ferrari and Porsche, and later Lamborghini, to the table before GT. Damage, too, and its fantastic customisation suite. Forza Motorsport may have been conceived as a Gran Turismo clone, so to speak, but it certainly carved out its own identity from the get-go.Forza Motorsport may have been a fairly transparent attempt to reimagine the Gran Turismo series on somebody else’s hardware, but it’s hard to be too cynical about it. For a first attempt it was hugely impressive and it’s quite admirable just how many core pillars of the series were established way back in this debut release.

Tacho Tuesday is IGN’s regular look back at some of the most memorable racing games ever made. Previous instalments covered The Need for Speed Colin McRae Rally , and Burnout 3: Takedown . Got a proposal for a racing game you’d like us to dig up? Track down Luke and Cam on Twitter: @MrLukeReilly and @jazzebration . All suggestions are welcome!