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The Grand Tour: mayhem and craziness as a game?

by: Dave -
More On: The Grand Tour Game

Top Gear, for me anyway, had always been the same kind of love/hate relationship that I have with South Park: far too crude at times, but also side-splittingly funny at other times. And every now and then, both simultaneously. They are both something of a guilty pleasure that I have to watch surreptitiously lest I fall afoul of the large-ish collection of Spousal Television Decency Laws I live under. Lets just say that when either of those shows are on the TV, my finger is poised on the "Last Channel" button on the remote in case she wanders in.

The thing about Top Gear was the persistent (and ultimately prescient) feeling I had that someday they were going to go too far and get dumped by the BBC. When the shoe finally dropped, I was not in the least bit surprised, nor was I surprised by just who it was that dropped it. Despite my often uncomfortable relationship with the show, I was extremely sad to see it go. 

Thankfully, Jeff Bezos has a whole lot of money to spend - reportedly he's worth $140,000,000,000, which is not a lot if he lived in Venezuela, but it's still a pretty good collection of nuts in the USA. Recognizing what the BBC didn't (that we have collectively forgiven Jeremy for so many things that it has become an ingrained habit), Amazon bought whatever it was that they needed to buy to create a same-but-different show called The Grand Tour. No matter what it was to be called, the expectations were clear: DON'T be Top Gear USA. That's been tried, and has more or less failed. The trick was to be just enough BBC Top Gear to meet expectations, but not enough to get sued. Personally, I think it worked out fabulously!

So what to do next? Amazon is never satisfied with the status quo. But leveraging huge success often leads to huge failure (sequel-itis), often in the form of a failed spin-off, but now and then in the form of a lousy game. The sad fact is that a successful show is usually made so by the sum of its parts, not just one player. It's also often times true that what is entertaining to watch on TV is nowhere near as fun to play in a game.

But here we are: The Grand Tour Game has been announced. 

While unexpected, simply by having heard of it one can easily predict what it is going to be like. Obviously there will be cars, and it is no stretch of the imagination to think that those cars are going to be involved in more activities than being driven to the local pub. It would also be no shock to hear some brutal-yet-funny dialog amongst Jeremy, Richard, and James.

No specific release date has been released, but the plan is for the game to be available in conjunction with the third series of the show. As if I wasn't already eager (read as: impatient!) enough for the next season....