GT5 Review
The actual driving in Gran Turismo 5 is brilliant. If driving cars is all you care about, Sony and Polyphony Digital have you covered. These days, I want more. I want a streamlined career mode, an exhaustive set of online features, cutting-edge visuals, and above all else, a spark – the something that turns a game from good to really special. Despite improvements across the board, Gran Turismo 5 still feels like an iteration of the game we were playing on our PlayStations in the mid '90s.
Gran Turismo has always been about near-MMO levels of grinding, and GT5 is no different. To begin with you buy a cheap and nasty car, equivalent to what a 16-year-old might pick up with the money scraped together from five years of doing a paper round. It's the kind of car small enough to fit sideways in a parking bay, and has an engine sound weaker than the Crazy Frog's drivel. But entering some beginner events inside the A-spec menu is just something you have to put up with.
Events in GT5 have numerous restrictions in place, so you can't pick and choose whatever you like. You have to make sure your driver is of a high enough level to enter (performance in events earns experience points), but then you also need to own a car that meets the entry criteria: such as a certain model or car type, a nationality of manufacturer, a vehicle developed within a certain era, or a motor with horsepower under the specified level. GT has always worked like this, but it makes for a lot of messing about in the unintuitive menus.
Instead of suggesting a list of cars that would fulfil the entry criteria, you're left to go off and find suitable vehicles yourself - and there's no quick way to get from the event screen to the showroom. It's a complete chore if you just want to get on with the racing, and a far cry from Forza 3 - a game which made every effort to remove the tedium from acquiring new cars.
At the risk of enraging GT's hardcore followers, Microsoft's driving simulator featured a career that didn't constantly require you to fiddle around in menus, hopping between cars and generally struggling to earn enough credits to buy the next required ride. In the initial few hours with GT5 it felt like I spent more time in the clumsy menus than actually on the track, which just isn't right. I wouldn't have minded if that time was being spent on tuning and buying upgrades (an area which thankfully is streamlined over GT4), but I was just stuck doing trivial stuff.
Highest Rated Comment
The_Safety_Badger
User Comments
RecoN
renegade
SexyJams
Racer2010@ marvindessica
i've been driving race cars for over 25 years and gt5 doesnt feel anything close to reality, its handling and physics are closer to arcade than sim.
forza's handling and physics feel a lot closer to reality, especially when it comes to the feel of the car, change in grip levels and how the various setup changes affect how the car feels to drive.
the cars in gt5 with the driving aids off are all way oversensitive, unnaturally twitchy & a lot less predictable than real life.
The cars in this game are actually a lot more unforgiving than when you race them in real life. the sort of sudden snap oversteer, instant brake lock-up and sudden wheel spin at half throttle doesnt happen with real cars, you feel everything building up and 9-10 have time to react accordingly, on gt5 everything happens without any warning.
wet weather physics are also overly harsh. when the driving aids off it feels like your constantly aquaplaining, even slightly touching the throttle causes a spin & this is not how wet weather racing actually works. the sort of grip levels in the wet in gt5 only ever happen when you have slick tyres on a very wet track.
people always call any new gt game a racing/driving simulator yet in reality they are not anywhere cloe to been a true simulation.
jonkar56@ marvindessica
RecoN@ stpinmass
Not many games have sharp edges and good textures on consoles due to limits. COD MW1+2 is another good example of good quality sharp lines in most parts of the game. But yes the damage should have been tons better, games like Dirt & GRID should slap GT5 in the face with disgust lol
stpinmass
draytone
strickers66@ CheekyLee
I think it's another example of why the Japanese devs are losing touch.They don't share tech like all the western Sony 1st party devs(hence why games like KZ2,UC2 have 0 torn frames)and are stuck in last gen.They want to biuld all their own engines when in fact middleware/other devs tech can help produce higher quality product.
There is a lot of silly fuss about this game though.It's simple really,GT fans will like it but it won't convert anyone.
The only real disappointment is an uncharacteristic lack of polish.
clangod
Overall it's a fantastic game but falls short at a few key junctions which ultimately make it a less than perfect outing for PD.
tvr77@ pblive
, since getting it wednesday morning its the only game to go into my machine and im slowly liking it more and more
i think if the game came out without delay and without all the hype i dont it would be criticised so much, they had so much time to get this game near perfect and iron out all the kinks and give the customer what they were all expecting a 10/10 game!
mikejosh1978
The Bad
Screen tear , finnicky menu's , really cardboard copy & pasted "photo realistic" backgrounds , a damage model thats just embarrassing , a delivery truck icon that just seems pointless when it should just put the cars in your garage , a wasted Nascar & WRC licence , embarrassing online, the 3D looks abysmal , you get a trophy for figuring out in game music??? ,track designer seems pointless , the cars are ugly or shiny WTF & after testing pre-installed to gradual the loading times seen to be no real difference . I'm sure the is more but this lots off the top of my head.
The Good
Menu's look nice even if they are crap, the signature edition , keyring, wallet car , book & box are funky & now i'm really struggling .
I own all of the games in the series from GT to GT5 including prologues & limited editions & the £130 i have paid has been a real soul raping experience & the 1 game of 2010 i thought would slay them all has left me wanting my money back & considering a lawsuit for rape & abuse lol.
Sony , PD & KY should be ashamed of this game and i personally don't believe any review has been realistic enough & deep down a 6 would be the highest you could give this mess . The driving is no discernible difference to its ps2 days and thats the only bright light as the cars are the same & the menu's & mmo/rpg elements have gotten worse . I thought the lack of a GT mode on the Psp was bad but at least its better looking & more functional than this shambles.
CheekyLee@ pblive
Project Gotham Racing 2 was an XBox Live launch title, and it managed to get it right in 2003. 7 years on and GT5 is lagging FAR behind. Don't get me wrong, in terms of gameplay, it is flawless. But, getting to the gameplay is an overly fiddly and frustrating experience, and that is why the title is not getting the 10's that were expected all over.
guyderman
very true - still makes me wonder why, in comparison, Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands got a 7 when it delivered exactly what it should've though and catered fully to fans of the franchise.
pblive
...pretty much spot on.
For all the skill and improvements over car handling, model design (on new models at least) cool head tracking feature, Top Gear test track and karting there are a dozen things that should really have been at least thought about in the last 5 years.
The target audience are going to love the game anyway (I do) but it would have been even better with a good menu system, more robust online (and I don't blame PSN, it's down to how the code copes with the servers rather than the servers themselves I believe) and improvements over ALL cars and tracks. That said, the Arcade mode is pretty cool too.
Scoring-wise, you have to think of target audience just as you wouldn't score a kids game down for being too easy because the intended audience are kids. I'm pretty sure that's what Tom has done here.