GT is finally back and once again strikes it's own unique and sometimes odd path in the racing sim genre.
The next point I would like to speak on is that I am a huge GT fan despite my criticisms and I am only offering an initial impressions review here today. After I take GT for a long term road test I will update my review accordingly.
When you first fire up GT5 you'll immediately be prompted to install a ginormous 8GB of game data to the hard drive to speed up load times. Since that would take 30-45 mins I chose to do it later and I also did not believe it should be necessary to install that much data for a console game. Since I had a chance to play the game without the 8GB install I could compare the difference. Tracks take about 30-35 secs to load without and 18-23 secs with the install. It's not a huge difference but probably worth it if you're going to spend a lot of time with GT which I'm sure you will. It also significantly speeds up other menu loading screens.
The next thing you may notice is GT's familiar menu system returns. Now I was expecting them to update it to something a bit more flashy by now but at least it retains the game's unique interface. It is a bit unweildy sometimes to find what you are looking for and there is more loading in menus then I would like but it works well enough. There is also a huge amount of features packed into the game so I can understand how it is not as simplified as other racing games. In case you are not familiar with the interface, it consists of many sections that are all presented to you on the screen, a bit like a PC desktop. You have a cursor that you can move around to select things. It's good to be able to access many areas from one screen but the problem is not everything is on the main GT life screen. My main complaint with this is after you enter several layers of menus in a race selection screen to check out the entry requirements, if you want to go buy a car meeting the requirements you have to write down or memorize the allowed cars and settings then back all the way out before you can access the dealerships! It's the biggest problem with the interface and should not have been overlooked.
They could have just allowed you to access the car purchase screen from the same menu and auto filter so it only allows you to purchase cars that meet the requirements.
On the postive side the GT Life screen and community lounge makes you feel right at home and you can even customize the look to personalize it. Vehicle information is also very neatly presented and there is an incredible looking showroom for cars that lets you change between several life-like back-drops that bath your selected car in different shadows, reflections and lighting.
One of GT5's most impressive aspects is the sheer volume of features. Here I will give a brief description of each.
Arcade - A quick way to jump into a hot car, pick a track and just race. The split-screen 2 player mode is the highlight here and something I was desperately hoping for since it's better to have a friend right beside you to enjoy the thrill of driving.
GT Life - The CARPG career mode where you spend most of your time. Manage your garage car collection, upgrade parts, tuning, license tests, enter race events and special events. Special events are where you'll find kart racing, Nascar racing and lessons from Jeff Gordon, Rally Racing and lots more. Kart racing is a pretty cool diversion. The karts zip around the tracks at break-neck speed, and feels like a grown up version of Mario Kart. I tried out Nascar and yes indeed Jeff looks like a rubber-faced zombie. But on the bright side those Nascars are an incredible experience to drive. The roar of the big block engine is just so visceral and raw, the sense of speed is amazing. The basic format of how you progress is relatively unchanged from the last 4 games though and I wish that there was something more to motivate me throughout the endless series of races like some kind of story.
B-Spec: A race manager mode where you don't do any driving and instead must manage a race team and "train" your AI driver to become better. This is the only feature I haven't tried yet, mostly because I have no interest in it at all. This is one area I believe development spent too much time with and their time could have been spent making improvements elsewhere.
Museum - As you progress through the career you unlock stories from each manufacturer through the ages of the auItomobile industry. A great addition for car fanatics.
Track Maker - I had a chance to whip up a few tracks and I have to say I was impressed. You can choose the type of terrain and weather, length of track and many parameters that allow you to customize the general shape and characteristics of the track such as width, height, sharpness of turns etc. You can modify parameters for each section of track but you don't have exact control over every inch of track. It is slightly dissapointing that it is not a full track creator but at least it is very easy to make interesting tracks quickly. The downside is that the environment looks pretty bare-bones.
Online - Finally GT let's us race our hot, souped up rides online with other fans. They use lounges where people host races. From here you can chat or talk with others, choose and set up your car and do practice laps while you wait for the race to start. It was pretty quick and easy to find races to join but it is tedious waiting for others to get ready. I wish there was a limited time before the race automatically starts. If you are hosting the race there are a good number of options you can customize such as restricting cars, horsepower, penalties, driver assists but the weird part is that anyone who enters your race can only choose a car that is in your own garage. One other nice option worth noting is the ability to set the amount of boost to drivers that are loosing. This helps close the gap a bit between skill levels so there can be more even races. I only played a few online races and there was only a few slight instances of lag but overall a very smooth experience. I have heard there is a quicker matchmaking setup to get into races faster but I haven't found it yet. I also thought it amusing how most people online were picking muscle cars and then whining every time they got beat by a Zonda...which seem to be very popular online.
Photo mode: This mode is pretty much like controlling your own high-end digital SLR camera. There are many settings to configure to get stunning shots of all your favorite cars. You can even export them and use them on your PS3 menu or on your PC. It also helps you admire and appreciate every fine, elegant detail lavashed on the Premium car models.
GT TV - This is another new feature for this iteration of the franchise. It works like Netflix where you can browse a catalog of shows all about the auto racing world. Again, it's a nice touch for hardcore race fans and may even make casual race fans become more interested.
It's time to talk graphics now, and for this game it's one of those controversial subjects. You may have heard that the game has over 1000 cars. It's a really mind boggling figure but once you realize that only about 200 are premium models (extremely detailed, rendered cars specifically for the PS3) it somewhat reduces this feat. What's the big deal you might ask? Well, to put it bluntly, the 800 standard cars look pretty bad. This is a classic example of putting quantity over quality. The premium cars are so detailed and realistic but when they're racing with a pack of standard cars ported straight from the PS2 it gives you an inconsistent feeling to the game. The same inconsistent graphics quality is seen in the tracks and environments. Some tracks are very beautiful while others (mainly the ports from the first 4 GT games) have flat, blurry textures. Most of the time you don't notice this because the scenry is flying past you but sometimes the ugly is so obvious it's hard to ignore. For instance, on Nurburgring the leaves in trees form some kind of weird latice texture with ugly lines criss-crossing through almost like the texture was blown up or that the 1080p resolution enhanced the defect. The shadow effects suffer similar problems where they are jagged edged and flicker. There is also a lot of jaggies on the edges of objects. Not sure what it is with Playstation games but a lot of them have trouble with jaggies. I'm not saying GT5 looks bad, I'm just trying to say that the visuals are a mix of extremely high quality mixed with low quality, out-dated graphics that is very obvious and there is no need of that in a game that took 5 years to make.
The audio is thankfully more consistent and it's all very high quality, crisp and clear surround sound. Obviously for a racing game it's crucial to dial in the correct sound effects for engines and sound effects and GT5 hits it spot on. Every vehicle has a unique exhaust and engine note. Once you get into the more powerful pure-bred race cars you'll hear and feel the raw, unrelenting power as you push the engine especially if you have a home theatre system. If you don't have one you should get one because there's nothing like hearing the pop and crackle of a big block engine as it backfires or the howling of a turbocharged V12.
The music throughout the menus which you'll spend a lot of time tuning and tweaking are for the most part pretty laid back, jazzy and calm. There's a few thumbing, up-beat tracks in there but not enough to call the soundtrack a hit. Luckily you can play your own tunes saved on your PS3 in the game.
Another controversial subject is that of the AI and damage systems. For a long time the developers neglected to pay attention to these while the competition provided a much better experience in these departments. At least for now it looks as if the AI and damage has not been improved very much but I have heard that there is advanced damage and AI that's not unlocked until you advance much further in the game. We will see but I sure hope so because it's a part of GT that desperately needs updating.
As for the physics model, it is definitely much improved. There is no other game in the world that can match GT's unrelenting attention to creating the perfect racing simulator. If you turn off the assists then you will truly know what it feels like to race. You'll feel the inertia, the weight transfer, the grip of the tires on the road. Even bumbs and uneven surfaces from real-world tracks have been modeled in the game. This is where GT5 truly shines. For anyone who just loves cars and loves to race them, this is the only game that delivers such an incredible experience. The downside is that Polyphony focused too much on extremely fine details that many people may not appreciate or notice while they failed to advance the Gran Turismo series far enough to make it live up to the high expectations of fans. Series like Forza may not do simulation as well as GT but it delivers a more accessible, and sometimes more fun experience overall. I feel that the GT series is beginning to show its age but despite it's flaws is still able to hang with the best of the competition and I know that I'm going to have a lot of good times with this game. It's just sad that it falls short of expectations when Polyphony had so much time to perfect it.
Category Scores
Presentation - 7.0/10
Graphics - 8.0/10
Sound - 9.0/10
Gameplay - 8.5/10
Longevity - 8.5/10