E3 06: Gran Turismo HD Impressions

LOS ANGELES--It speaks to the influence of Sony's Gran Turismo series that the first PlayStation 3 game the publisher decided to show at its E3 2006 press conference is the upcoming monumental release of the next Gran Turismo game. Dubbed in the video as Gran Turismo HD, the game known at last year's E3 as Vision Gran Turismo was shown off by the series' creator, Kazunori Yamauchi. He explained that the E3 demo being shown was built from assets from the previous game in the series, Gran Turismo 4, upgraded and optimized for PS3 HD presentation. In terms of numbers, the demo was running at full 1080p resolution at a stellar 60 frames per second. And yeah, it looked real nice.

The E3 stage demo featured three tracks that should be familiar to longtime GT fans: Tokyo, Le Mans Sarthe, and Grand Canyon. The track- and car-selection menus were considerably redesigned from what you may be used to in the GT series, and there were 10 vehicles to choose from, ranging from vintage sports cars like the Shelby Cobra, to an F1-styled open wheeler, to a handful of motorcycles (Polyphony Digital did just finish the two-wheeled Tourist Trophy, after all), as well as more-powerful GT sports car rides.

It didn't seem as if any of the three track demos shown during the presentation were being controlled by Yamauchi--instead, all looked to be running in replay mode, and Yamauchi (holding what looked like a new Dual Shock Analog controller) was controlling the various camera angles as it ran, switching from traditional follow views, to standard hoodless, first-person, in-car camera angles. A few laps on the Tokyo track showed the familiar downtown environment (first seen in the Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec) running with considerable wide-screen flair. Buildings and foliage were impressively modeled, and the game held its steady frame rate throughout the guided lap.

The Tokyo demo course featured souped-up models from makers such as Nissan. For the second track, France's Le Mans Sarthe, Yamauchi pulled out the big guns: fully tweaked GT sports cars befitting the home of the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans race. During this race, we got a few peeks at some of the new features the next Gran Turismo game might be packing: First of all, we counted as many as 10 cars on the track at one point, a considerable upgrade from previous games, which featured a maximum of six cars on the track at any time. Secondly, and this is a bit of speculation on our part, we couldn't help but notice a few of the backmarker cars attempting to make passes on one another. Could this be a peek at some marked improvements in Gran Turismo's notoriously rigid artificial intelligence? Could AI-controlled cars actually be racing one another? We'll only know when we see more of the game and get to play it for ourselves.

The final course in the demo was the Grand Canyon rally track. Nestled on the precarious edges of America's famous natural landmark, the Grand Canyon course hosted Yamauchi's Shelby Cobra, as well as a few other unusual old-school rides, such as Jay Leno's Tank Car 03, a cylindrical open-engine, exposed-axle monster that looked like a Formula One car from the 1930s. Grand Canyon was perhaps the most impressive track featured in the demo from a visual standpoint, with plenty of overhead, wide-angle shots, which showed the sharp detailed cars and tracks set against the backdrop of the massive photo-realistic canyon itself. More impressive was the massive crowds lining the outdoor course, all made up of realistic-looking individual 3D models. Even better, the crowds reacted to the traffic as it sped by, dancing out of the way of traffic as the cars twisted around the dusty corners, enthusiastic flashbulbs popping all the while.

One of the cooler, if more subtle, aspects of the Gran Turismo HD demo was the amazing audio quality, which was most obvious during the first-person in-car views. The sound of the cars' engines was almost overwhelmed by the sound of the wind whipping over the cars' hood and body, sounding more like a jet engine than an engine powering something with four wheels. We didn't get a good sense of the game's music soundtrack, but for GT fans, the sound of the engines is likely music enough.

Since this was a limited game demo, there are still questions to be answered about GTHD. First off, the number of cars in the game and the number of playable tracks were not revealed by Yamauchi. What we do know is that Polyphony Digital is busy working on arguably the most important aspect of the next Gran Turismo--online play. While no details were revealed in the conference, Yamauchi did say the development team was currently beta-testing online play based on Gran Turismo 4's capabilities. Here's hoping all of that testing results in an innovative suite of online features for the next GT, something that was sorely missing from the previous game in the series. One thing's for sure, the game won't be lacking for power--Yamauchi mentioned that the PS3 version of Gran Turismo will be pushing 12 times the amount of information Gran Turismo 4 for the PlayStation 2 pushes to your television.

While no hard release date was offered for the game, it's obvious that Sony is banking on the Gran Turismo series to help make the PlayStation 3 launch a hit. As Yamauchi said, his team is aiming for the next Gran Turismo to come out "not too far" from the launch of the PS3. As an example, he mentioned GT3, which he said was released roughly a year and a half after the PlayStation 2; hopefully we won't have to wait that long. His final words to the assembled crowd at the press conference were, "Please look forward to it." We suspect that mission's already accomplished.