Gran Turismo 5 is one of the most ambitious and deepest racing titles ever
created. After many years in development, a full 'prologue' release that
acted as a teaser and, a detour onto the PSP, Polyphony's long-awaited
title has finally arrived. It brings with it a plethora of content
including more than 1,000 vehicles, dozens of tracks and a seemingly
infinite number of modes and options. This sense of being overwhelmed
begins the moment you boot up the game and wade through its initially
intimidating set of menus. As the game begins, you have a menu of
seemingly endless choices, making it difficult to know where to start. A
good indicator of how deep the game is comes when you check into its
arcade mode, where you can choose from dozens of vehicles and race on any
of the game's many courses. These include standard racing courses such as
the expected Suzuka and Fuji Speedways, to the game's standard selection
of fantasy courses like the famous Autumn Ring. There are also a few new
surprises in Gran Turismo 5 with the additions of famous NASCAR tracks
like the Indianapolis Speedway and Daytona courses. You can also choose to
race on city courses with tracks that take you through Tokyo, London and
Rome. Most of the courses in GT5 take place on standard surfaces, but
there are a variety of off-road courses, including a couple set in
snow-covered mountains. The courses themselves are technically impressive
and have been rendered and designed to be as close as possible to their
actual counterparts. Each track has several variations with long and short
routes. This adds some depth, but mastering each course takes some time.
Finding the best route an each course can shave precious seconds off your
lap time and the key to mastering the game is finding the best places to
brake and accelerate on each course. You can begin this process by going
through a few practice laps then competing against real world drivers in
actual races. As in many of the earlier GT titles, there are several
different approaches you can use if you want to progress through the game
and earn more unlockable content.
The most obvious path is go into the GT
mode, which is an extended career section. You begin at the bottom of the
rung with a slow car and compete on some relatively simple and
straightforward courses. The first few rounds are basically cakewalks, but
as you move up and win, you can unlock more interesting challenges. Your
basic vehicles in these modes are underwhelming in terms of power and
aren't that interesting to drive, but you can upgrade them to increase
performance and chances of winning. Each level in the GT mode is divided
into cups, which consist of 2 or 3 races that you can compete in. There
are different requirements for each cup with specific vehicle types and
models required to compete in certain races. These can be purchased at
either the Dealerships, where manufacturers display their newest models or
at the Used car lot, where you can find cheaper sometimes more obscure
races. Buying newer vehicles gives you generally better performance, but
you can purchase repairs and restorations for older ones to bring them to
new-level performance. Further upgrades allow you to install better
engines, more powerful drivetrains, better tires and so forth. Adding
paint and detailing options means you can customize each vehicle in the
game extensively. One interesting strategy you can use is to purchase and
upgrade less powerful vehicles then sell them back to earn additional
credits for more powerful or exciting cars. In addition to earning credits
to use in the stores, each race won also increases your experience level
points. These can increase your overall level, and as this goes higher,
you'll also be given the chance to unlock additional content in the form
of extra vehicles that can only be purchased at these levels and the
ability to compete in Special Event races. These Special Events are
usually interesting challenges focused on a specific aspect of the game,
such as NASCAR driving or completing a task on the Top Gear test track,
where you can go in a little deeper and add some experience and credits to
your overall score.
Gran Turismo 5's GT mode is divided into
two distinct levels, one of which is the standard A-spec mode where you
control the vehicles yourself and offers a satisfyingly deep gameplay
experience. The second mode is called B-Spec and is slightly more
problematic. Instead of manually controlling your own car, you instead
direct a computer controlled AI driver through the course through a
command structure. Here, the objective is to see how well you can direct
the action and while it's interesting in theory, common use makes it fall
a little flat. Your commands can only occur every few seconds and you have
to wait to adjust them, and making the driver do what you want is an
exercise in frustration. For example, if you use the command to increase
the pace too often, your driver will over-steer and make more mistakes,
while playing this mode in a safer mode leaves you behind the pack with
little chance of catching up. Since this mode offers the same tracks and
structure as A-Spec, there's little incentive to keep going. However, the
other sections of the game fare a bit better. As expected, the game offers
an array of branching license tests the tweak your skills and increase
your driving potential, though some of them can be tedious. However, you
earn experience points and credits as you win licenses and completing
levels allows you to unlock additional vehicles and courses in other
areas. As in previous games, you begin the license mode by performing
simple tasks such as braking and acceleration then move on to more
advanced techniques such as turning at high speed and learning the basics
of drift mechanics. Its quite an extended tutorial, but the driving school
techniques you learn come in handy later on when you're driving more
advanced vehicles. This is where the game's realism comes into play, since
you're driving real-world vehicles with accompanying physics and
reactions, you'll definitely need to know how to handle different aspects
of racing. Things like learning the best route, finding the apex of each
curve and mastering the art of drafting behind other cars makes the game
more challenging to play, but also adds a satisfying authenticity to the
experience of GT5.
Learning
to master the subtleties of driving race cars has always been one of the
strongest elements of GT5's appeal and the newest installment doesn't
diverge from this path. You can definitely see the realism in the ways
that the cars handle and react to different situations. Its incredibly
realistic physics engine means that performance is accurately reflected in
each car. With such a massive lineup of cars available, this is an
impressive accomplishment. The size of the engine, drive train, weight,
tired and transmission all play key roles in your performance on the
track. Even small adjustments in the gear ratio and other seemingly minor
aspects of your tuning can make a huge difference, so this sense of
realism is complete, though it does make the game a bit more complex than
most other racers on the market. For those uninitiated to the series, this
depth and complexity might be a little off-putting, but for gamers who
want to go a bit deeper and put in the effort, GT5 definitely delivers on
its promise. One of the key additions to the game this time around comes
in the area of damage, which is implemented in the series for the first
time. It doesn't seem to really be as dramatic as it is in other games,
but crashes and minor fender benders definitely affect your performance
and can significantly affect the outcome of each race. You'll need to
repair your vehicle if you want to restore its performance, so while
avoiding crashes is always a good strategy, Gran Turismo 5 ups the ante
with the bumper-cars method now coming with significant consequences.
Learning the controls delivers a slightly long learning curve, but the
game's interface on the track is fairly simple and steering is superb. You
can choose to use either the standard analog stick or digital pad to steer
and can use either a standard brake or a more severe clutch brake in order
to stop quickly. However, this causes the vehicle to fishtail out of
control and can make you lose significant time on the track. Most players
will probably play GT5 using the standard controller, but for added
realism and challenge, using one of the high-end wheels such as the ones
made by Logitech definitely adds a new layer of precision control to the
proceedings. Using a wheel instead of a controller makes things feel even
more realistic, but the game seems much less forgiving when these are
used.
As far as the single-player mode goes,
Gran Turismo 5 offers what players have come to expect form the series
with a few new elements. It's a slightly disappointing approach which is
especially true of the vaunted NASCAR addition, which only consists of a
few races and a limited field of competitors. What's there is nicely done,
but for a series noted for its comprehensiveness, it's a disappointing
implementation in this department. Another element of the game that
doesn't feel as good as it could have been is the multiplayer mode. While
players can compete against others online and post low-lap times, there
isn't as much content included in this mode as one would expect. The new
online Gran Turismo TV is a good idea, but again the limited number of
videos included is a bit of a disappointment. The upside is that there is
an abundance of content included in the game and what's there is generally
impressive. One of the more interesting additions is the photo mode where
players can take beauty shots of the courses and cars in their garage and
share them with others. Using this mode allows you to really appreciate
the level of depth that has gone into the game. This attention to detail
is what has always made GT titles stand out from the pack and this hold
true for the most part. Unfortunately, it seems that the developers have
made a few sacrifices in the level of modeling vehicles. There are two
classes of vehicles, which are standard and premium. While the standard
models look good, they pale in comparison to the detail that's gone into
the premium models. You can easily see the disparity in quality during the
interior viewpoints, where the differences can be quite pronounced. This
is highly disappointing and feels like a corner has been cut. In terms of
the track designs themselves, the HD visuals are quite impressive and the
game runs smoothly once you get onto the track with a consistent frame
rate and nicely rendered special weather effects such as day and night,
rain and snow that adds a level of realism to the game. Unfortunately,
there is a price to be paid for these visuals and that comes in the form
of long load times. It takes up to a minute to load each track and while
the game allows you to install to the hard drive, its still a bit slow to
load when this feature is enabled and makes playing through multiple races
in one sitting more of a chore than it should have been. There are
definitely some elements that push the PS3 hardware, but there are also
some that seem to fall short of the mark, so it's a mixed bag in this
department.
You can tell that a lot of time has gone
into making Gran Turismo 5 a highly-polished and deep racer, and sheer
amount of content included on the disc is a strong testament to this.
Unfortunately, the long development time also seems to have caught up with
the game in some ways. It seems a little behind the curve in some areas,
such as its online component, and others don't seem to fit and should have
been discarded for being outgrown. Not to be overly negative, since the
opportunity to play so many race types and use so many vehicles is quite
impressive, but there are some key areas where the game is a bit lacking.
The most obvious of these comes with the long-loading times, the dreaded
monotonous license tests and some superfluous modes, such as the B-Spec
races are slightly disappointing. However, the breadth and detail that the
game offers is quite impressive and those willing to put the time and
effort into will find that Gran Turismo 5 largely lives up to its promise
and delivers one of the more impressive racing simulators on the market.
Whether it was worth the wait depends on how much effort you want to put
into it. If you're only looking for a few quick races and want superficial
flash, Gran Turismo 5 will probably not be to your liking. Delve deeper
and you'll find an almost unprecedented amount of content to play around
with and enough vehicles, modes and options to keep you busy for months on
end. Its not without its faults but Gran Turismo 5 is an impressive
technical achievement that deserves praise for its unrivalled ambition and
incredible depth.
- Michael Palisano
