Confessions of a Serial Mapper

Introduction

Well, when I heard hat yet again, Polyphony Digital were going another GT game, I was excited as every other driving game enthusiast worth his driving wheel. Yet, my heart sunk when I acknowledged that they were going to, yet again, produce a prologue version of the much larger game. Let’s get this out in the open now, I used to hate this prologue concept, it always felt like you we’re simply paying for a glorified demo and this was my former opinion on the matter.

The logic behind a prologue style of game is pretty simple, once you enough of the programming done, a handful of cars and some tracks. All you need to do with the rest of your time as a developer is to build up the assets, basically model more cars, more tracks and create some more additional events and then you have a full game. But since you actually have a decent working game already, then why not release it as a stripped down version? Well, that’s what I felt was done with GT4:Prologue, however GT5:Prologue is much different.

The Cars

With 71 cars available in the game, there is a broad range to choose from. You can have cars from Audi, Dodge, Austin Martin and best of all a Ferrari. It’s about time this series got their hands on Ferraris and I for one am very happy. Especially when you can get the Formula 1 car from the 2007 season (at a cost of 2,000,000 Cr.). So the car selection isn’t what I would call ‘limited,’ seeing as a full driving game could normally get away with only 71 cars.

The cars look beautiful as usual, however they are starting to approach the point where they look too perfect. The problem of them looking so good, that you can just look at them and say to yourself that they must be fake, the reflections are too accurate and there is absolutely no damage to the car whatsoever. You would never really see a car in that good a condition, even if it just rolled off the production line.

The lack of damage to the cars while racing is also another problem and always has been for this series, however this is going to apparently change either with the release of the full game, or a future update. Which in all honestly is about time, other driving simulator games had damage for a while now.

The Tracks

Along with the great looking cars, you need some great looking tracks. With 6 circuits each with 2 layouts gives a total of 12 different tracks to race on. 12 tracks may not seem as generous as the 71 cars, especially when you consider that half of these are just mirror versions of the previous tracks, or in one case, simply changes a very tight 3 corners into a single corner, with everything else the same. However, they are still well detailed and the crowd actually moves and isn’t simply a 2D sprite any more (well not all the time).

There is a good variety of tracks though; from the High-Speed Ring for beginners, Daytona Raceway to find those top speeds, Suzuka Circuit for plenty of complex 2 and 3 gear cornering and even the streets of London are available to tear around.

The Events

There are 3 kinds of events split up into 4 classes. C, B and A class are the main three, with S Class becoming available when you have cleared all the events in the previous ones. As you ascent the classes, the cars needed are much faster, with longer races and tougher time limits. Some events also come with the traditional restrictions, such as drive train, manufacturer or specific machine.

The races are pretty much standard, you start at the back of the grid, have so many laps to overtake everyone and take the chequered flag. Developing on from the races is the special overtaking events, where you are given just a single lap to overtake all the cars in front of you. This can be a real pain, especilly in one of the S class races where you are stuck in a Ferrari F40 and actually need to almost cheat the game to win.

Time trials are a little different, you have target times for bronze silver and gold, the objective is you and a bunch of other cars are out on he circuit, you have 10 minutes to get the best lap time possible. These are actually quite interesting as you need to use the slipstream of the right car at the right time to get the gold on some of these events. This makes time trials all that bit more tactical and interesting to play.

The penalty system feels very broken currently, you are punished depending on your infraction and penalty level the race uses, but the computer is not. If they drive into you, it is still somehow your fault and you pay the price. Usually the penalty is a loss of power (well, you max speed is limited to 30) and you can’t collide with other cars for a period of time. This loss of power can easily cause you to spin out and when you come back into physical reality from the corporeal world of GT if you are still inside a car, you have a little jump, which is not so much devastating to your speed, but can be irritating. The penalty system needs a full rethink, the way it is currently is not acceptable.

GT-TV

A new addition to Gran Turismo is the GT-TV, a service which allows you to download HD videos to your PS3’s hard drive. These videos apparently range from making of documentaries to Top Gear episodes (which are not yet available apparently). This is a nice feature and helps to make the game more than just a demo. It will be good to see what they put up for download throughout next few months.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer in short simply works. There may be some bugs with it due to how the online play works. It basically you select what race you want to be in, what car and then the game will link you up with drivers of similar skill. Then the race begins. The person with the best internet connection will act as the server, so no need for any servers operated by the developers.

The main issue with this though is that if the player acting as the server drops out, the game ends and that if you want to specifically play with friends, that is also impossible to achieve too. This will change with an update in the future, which will make the multiplayer a great experience. Local two-player is fine too, but you can’t have any computer opponents.

Tuning

Tuning is back again, but with a much simpler and smoother interface that makes it much easier to use. You can’t go out and buy new parts for your cars, which is something I appreciate. However, if you want a tuned car, then you have to buy one from the tuned car manufacturers. It is a system that works well. In some races, they use a Performance Points system. So if you tune your car and make it more powerful, then the PP of the car increases and vice-versa. This makes races challenging no matter what car you own (so it isn’t a case of the person with the best car and most money will always win.)

Other Bits

One thing I am impressed by is Polyphony Digital is actually constantly updating the game, so there is going to be more videos on GT-TV, more cars and more events for gamers to enjoy. These updates will keep coming up to the release of GT5, making me want to come back to the game when they release these updates.

One final issue I have with the game is the grinding. Why is there grinding in a racing game, it simply does not belong. You need to continually repeat races to make the money needed to buy all the vehicles. You do get some money for online play, which is a good benefit to try it out, though you still need to do a lot of races to make enough money to buy all cars.

Conclusion

Well, if you like realistic racing games and you have a PS3, GT5: P is a must buy, it is such a good game. It is a full game in it’s own right, but if you still feel that you would be better off waiting for the entire game to be released, then consider how much you would pay to have it several months earlier. If this is around £20 then you can justify buying this game. I have already wasted too much time playing this game myself and will be playing a lot more of it (well, until GTA4 is released).