6 years in the making, over 1000 cars, over 70 circuits: Gran Turismo 5 is finally in our hands. At times this labour of love to the automotive world is right up there with the greatest racing games ever made. At other times though, it’s a convoluted mess of incomprehensible menus and unnecessary barriers to progression. However, if you love driving and want to collect some of the most desirable cars in the world, then Gran Turismo 5 is the only game that you will ever need.
The handling model is GT5 is as realistic as any driving game can ever hope to achieve. The physics engine behind the cars offers significantly more “feel” compared to Forza 3 and each car and track combination produces noticeably different handling characteristics. Weight shifts around the car in a very convincing manner and you can really feel where the grip is depending on your choice of tyre and circuit. Unfortunately, if you’re playing with the standard Dual Shock 3 controller, it can be difficult to make precise turns, particularly in long corners, such as on oval circuits. It’s much easier to be quick if you’re using a steering wheel (we reviewed the game using the Logitech Driving Force GT). You can feel every bump in the road through a force feedback wheel and it is far easier to predict and correct slides. If you want to get the most out of the game’s handling model then you definitely need to invest in a steering wheel. However, for more casual racing fans the Dual Shock controller still does a great job most of the time.
In the single player game the focus is once again on GT Mode where you start off with a small sum of credits and must work your way from cheap second hand Japanese sports cars, to monstrous supercars and racing cars by earning extra credits from winning events of increasing difficulty. This is a tried and tested formula for the series, but in an attempt to modernise, there is now an experience points system included. Many of the game’s cars are not available to buy until you reach a certain EXP level, even if you can afford them. The EXP concept seems tacked-on to GT Mode and is the cause of many unnecessary blocks to player progression. After you’ve levelled up a few times the amount of experience you earn for each race suddenly drops considerably compared to how much you need to level up. This forces the player to either grind through the game by playing the same races over and over, or spend most of their credits on one car in order to access car-specific races. Some players will love the sense of achievement that comes with the grind, but those who take racing less seriously will probably get bored with this style of progression very quickly.
Luckily, the career mode offers new Special Events, which usually provide far more EXP and credits. They also offer some of the most unique and entertaining races in the entire game including a Sebastien Loeb Rally School, Jeff Gordon NASCAR School, Top Gear Test Track Challenge and Karting. Karting is one of the best parts of the entire game. The extremely responsive karts do a great job of teaching you about car control and sense of speed, while also offering some of the closest racing in the game. The rally special events are good fun as well. They use procedurally generated circuits, forcing you to rely on calls from the co-driver when approaching corners. The special events also give you access to cars that you might not be able to afford to buy and use in the main races. This is a good way to show you what you’ll be driving later in the game and help you to prepare for the jump in speed.
Alongside the normal “A-Spec” races and Special Events, GT Mode also includes B-Spec races where you take the role of race team manager and instruct hired drivers while they drive the cars. You can tell your driver to overtake other racers, improve their pace, defend their position and so on. Unfortunately there is no way to fast forward through these races and they’re not really any more engaging than watching a replay of your own driving. It’s an interesting extra mode, but nothing significant has really been added to B-Spec since its first appearance in Gran Turismo 4.
The presentation of GT Mode leaves an awful lot to be desired. The main “GT Life” screen is a cluttered mess of icons of all shapes and sizes and the loading screens between menus do little to help navigation. The loading times are made even worse during high traffic times on PSN as the game sends data to the GT5 servers every time it loads. During the review we often had to manually disconnect from PSN simply to make loading times more manageable. The game seems to add extra menu layers for no good reason as well. For instance, if you win a car after an event, it doesn’t just appear in your garage. You have to select the car delivery icon in GT Life, watch a loading screen, watch an unskippable animation of the car driving towards you and then watch another loading screen. Unusual design elements like this have become a staple of the GT series over the years, but that is no longer an excuse in an age where most video games feature streamlined, user-friendly menus. At some point Polyphony Digital need to stop tacking things on for the sake of it.
GT5′s online mode at the moment is fairly limited in terms of gameplay. There is no matchmaking available so you must find races by reading through lists of user-created lobbies. Setting up a lobby is also a herculean task. The list of tweaks and options is enormous, which is great if you want to create very specific race types, but it creates unnecessary barriers to setting up a quick race to play with friends. Polyphony Digital have promised that there will be numerous online patches going forward, so hopefully this part of GT5 will eventually become more accessible. The other side to the online takes its inspiration from social networks. Every player has a profile and a wall where they can post 140 character messages, share photos and trade cars. Over time this will surely become a hive of activity for die hard GT fans who want to share content with each other, though unfortunately, there is no way to share tuning setups or replays with friends yet.
On the track, Gran Turismo 5′s presentation is utterly stunning… some of the time. Despite 5 years in development, 800 of GT5′s 1000 vehicles are simply upscaled models from GT4 and don’t feature noticeable damage or cockpit cameras. Frankly, these 800 “Standard” cars are downright ugly. Even some of the classic GT circuits show signs of being upscaled from previous versions. Trial Mountain and Autumn Ring look particularly poor. Thankfully the 200 “Premium” cars areabsolutely phenomenal with a level of detail that no other driving game even comes close to matching. On the outside, the panels and aerodynamic pieces are exquisitely modelled. The interiors are equally gorgeous with working dials and every button and loose wire clear to see. The new tracks look significantly better than the classic ones too, with far more detailed textures and greater numbers of trackside objects.
Unfortunately, on some of the ultra-detailed new circuits, running a full field of premium cars can cause the framerate to take a dip, especially if you start at the back with the other 15 runners in front of you. Weather effects are pretty rubbish too. Rain looks particularly poor compared to F1 2010 and particles hitting the windscreen are very low-res compared to the rest of the graphics. Night racing on the other hand is incredibly realistic and offers a real challenge. Headlights realistically illuminate the road ahead and light will even catch on clouds of tyre smoke and dust from other racers.
GT5 is arguably the most realistic console racing game ever made, featuring a handling model which cannot be matched by any of its rivals. Unfortunately, while technically this is a superb product, the game itself falls way short of the mark. AI still follows a basic on-rails path most of the time, the online is not yet fleshed out enough to challenge Forza 3 and the career mode is an old fashioned grind through predetermined racing categories that haven’t changed much since GT4. There are also numerous smaller problems, from the lack of any option to turn off HUD elements, to the lengthy loading times. The return of “The Real Driving Simulator” does prove beyond any doubt that Polyphony Digital has perfected the “feel” of driving in a racing game. However, it also proves that they have a long way to go to develop a game which can match the quality of their simulation.
Joseph Barron
There is a really good game underneath all the menus, immovable HUD elements and stupid three layers of conformation for each option.
You wont find a better review that accurately reflects the actual gameplay experience.
Yea, I was worried this would be the case. As someone who’s not much of a diesel-head the GT series only served as eye-candy for a few hours before I got bored. It doesn’t seem like GT5 is anything different (albeit much tastier candy!).
Think I’ll stick to F1 2010 for now. A good balance of simulation and fun gameplay.