I was always a fan of racing games growing up. However it wasn’t until I bought Grand Tourismo 3 on the PS 2 that I turned into an addict. Grand Tourismo is like that. The funny thing is that most games with this painstaking level of detail and difficulty are rarely widely popular. GT is one of the PlayStation lineup All Stars and each release has been pretty notable. That said the coming of GT 5 was viewed as pretty special from the start. It was delayed form release on the PS 2 because of the promise of the PS 3 horse power. And everyone salivated over what an HD quality version of GT would bring. Little did we know it would be 5 long years before the two would actually meet in a full GT 5 release. So its out... and the review storm is on. I am not going to try and get into every single little detail. But here is the take from one serious hard core addicted GT fan who is around a 3rd of the way through the new release by percentage.... perhaps 5% through in reality.
(plus minus ratings in comparison to the series as a whole)
Driving: +
The core of GT has always been your connection with your car and the track. It is better than ever and better than anything else I have played on PS 3 including Shift and the new F1 2010 game... both of which are pretty damn good driving games. No matter how negative the review I have yet to find one that doesn’t tip its hat to this critical core element and admit it still does not have a real peer in what else is available on a console. The only thing I have heard listed as perhaps on par or even exceeding it is the PC sim iRacer.
Cars: +
Premium cars are awesome. Standard cars are basically GT 4 cars with the updated driving model. While the models have been upped somewhat to PS 3 and do look considerably better than GT 4... they pale in comparison to the premium cars and the track environments. It is noticeable enough I often register if I am driving past a standard or premium car even while in the midst of a white knuckle tire squealing corner. Mostly I don’t care, more choice beats to little choice as long as the driving dynamics remain true. However, the lack of a cockpit view in standard leaves me a bit cold as that is my preferred vantage point. Granted, considering how much time I have spent whizzing around in bumper cam mode I get over it pretty quick and I still occasionally resort to it even in a premium car... particularly right hand drive models on difficult tracks/races. Hopefully Kaz and crew make good on their promise of continuing to upgrade cars to premium status with patches etc...
Tracks: +
There are more tracks than ever. Some old friends, some new creations, some new real locations and some MIA. I really hoped Infineon would remain after its appearance in GT 4 and it is the only real MIA that bugs me personally. The new graphical treatment of the pavement is stellar. Dirt/Snow and Wet all leave a bit to be desired in terms of ultimate perfection in each, but are all done very well. Weather is unfortunately not an option on every track and so far it seems there is no real dynamic component to the weather... ie its either raining and wet or sunny and dry, no range from full dry to torrential downpour.
Modifications and Tuning: -
This is perhaps where Grand Tourismo is sitting on its laurels a bit. For a long time there just were zero options for tweaking your cars mechanical setup to any significant extent in the car racing genre except for GT games. Forza, Shift and even the F1 and some of the NASCAR games have largely lifted this aspect from the GT series and implemented it. In some cases (shift and forza) they have done so pretty well. GT still stays on top but mostly because what tuning you can do has a much better translated impact to your driving experience than what any one else has managed. The actual interface for tuning and making modifications on the other hand is pretty bad... and there are now some glaring omissions. The tuning options have gradually been nerfed into a much more approachable format. The problem is they now appeal to neither extreme. You still have novices complaining that they don’t understand and you have long term series veterans tearing their hair out because they can’t tweak their cars to the same extent they have come to expect from the series. None of this has to do with exterior graphic modification mind you. I am talking about nuts and bolts configuration settings of the cars various systems. My current experience in GT 5 with tuning has left me a bit frustrated. Two key elements are either not available or not available yet. Brake upgrades and being able to monkey with individual gear ratios and final drive gearing. Being able to stop later and maximize getting your power to the ground via drive line gearing have been two MAJOR aspects of learning to go fast with a car in GT. I list the gearing as a medium problem since you can still do a kind of auto adjustment with the top speed setting. Not great but it is better than being stuck with a set gearing. I also cut it some slack because it either unlocks at higher levels or they forgot to enable the dialog for some reason and can easily fix it with a patch. The lack of Brake upgrades is a serious oversight in anything purporting to be the ‘real driving sim’.
All that being said the mod and tuning is still pretty in depth. Suspension is thankfully just as configurable as ever. Would be nice if they would expand tire/wheel to a full performance issue... ie side wall size, tire PSI etc... It does seem they included wheel weight in the equation this time around but there seems to be no way to figure out what the various rims weigh other than by taking note of your total weight before and after installing them.
Core evaluation:
So you have a crap load of accurately modeled cars to modify and race around numerous tracks. That in and of itself is the absolute core of Grand Tourismo and on these counts it delivers and it delivers well. If you like Tourismo games in the past you will have a familiar experience adapting to the new version where old reliable features you loved have been altered or gone completely. After a while you will likely come to appreciate the trade off decisions and happily get back to racing your favorite new races or shaving hundredths of a second off time trail lap times and enjoying some new variations like weather and night driving with headlights.
In the end that is the Bottom line evaluation of GT 5. It does what it has always done and with a few exceptions in the mod/tuning department it does it better than it ever has. The scale of the game is huge. Unfortunately, unlike in the past, I think PD hit a quantity over quality problem with GT 5 and that is where its problems show up.
So what is all the fuss about:
Probably 99% of the flak bouncing around the internet about GT 5 at the moment can be traced to two things that are linked at the hip. It is over baked and over hyped. IT is over hyped because they over baked it, and over baked because they over hyped it. The popularity of GT 5 is such that it is considered a console buying decision. IE there are people that buy a play station JUST for grand tourismo games because it is exclusive to play station and they like what GT does that much. Whether you understand how a game can push someone to buying 400-1000 dollars of gear or not it is a very true state of affairs. As such anticipation of the new release of the game constantly builds and GT 5 spent a very long time in the pipeline. Much longer and it might have started drawing comparisons to the Duke Nukem sequal that is now pushing 15+ years on the ‘its coming’ front. As such the known capability of the PS 3 hardware, the proven track record of polyphony digital to get more out of playstation consoles than just about anyone else, and the amount of time they were taking to do it all combined for a ridiculous amount of hype. To much hype is the majority of the problem. The only real fuel for the fire now that reality has quenched the hype are the over baked elements of the game that really show up as discordant notes in the non-core elements that give it such a huge scale.
What do I mean by over baked? In software development, when you continually work on something and start going through major revisions you encounter some very odd states of affairs. It is very easy on large projects for various elements to get out of sync and reach various levels of completion. As a result if it is not carefully managed you get over baked software (at least that is what I call it) and it is an odd conglomeration of finished, polished, burnt and uncooked elements. GT 5 apparently went through numerous design changes and as they did they continued to carry over bits and add new goals. The driving model, their bread and butter is really the only thing that seems to have gotten better throughout the whole process (The teaser HD download, Prologue and GT academy showed a clear progression) but some other elements kept causing problems. The decision to do premium or HD quality cars meant they hit a real wall in development time. Keeping to standard car detail level with only a mild update would have left them well behind the pack in the graphics department. No matter how quality the guts are, console games live and die by how they look and even GT is not immune to that. Damage and Weather were long term wish list items from GT fans and its creators alike. There is a track generator, TV content, Major licensed content firsts (Top Gear, NASCAR, Red Bull, Ferrari, Lamborgini etc...). All combined it was probably to much to accomplish with a game that has the scope of GT to their previous high standards. And it shows. Implementation of weather and damage are not what anyone really expected. The Top Gear and NASCAR elements have a ‘tacked on’ feeling and missed some obvious options. Even though the new stuff is by and large ‘good’, they are often not ‘great’, and most telling there are a couple that are definitely under par when compared to the competition. This is not what is expected from Polyphony digital. Its kind of like one of the recent golf seasons where Tiger Woods won the most tournaments, made the most money but every one said he had an ‘off year’ because he didn’t win a Major or two.
It is important to keep some perspective. There are more competitors and dedicated specialist titles in the car racing segment than ever before that have intention to be ‘realistic’ or at least more than just an arcade racer. Where GT rally driving was once the only game in town, there are now multiple dedicated titles to it that, unsurprisingly, are better in their tight focus. F1 2010 has an insane weather system that blows GT5 off the track because weather is so crucial to realistic F1 race strategy. We may never see another GT game that dominates its peers the way the old releases did. But that doesn’t mean the new release is bad or worse than previous versions by any stretch of the imagination. What you get in GT 5 would still take buying several other titles to try and replicate with alternatives... and you would still probably want GT as there are elements it is still best at.
Here is hoping that for GT 6 they refrain from trying to incorporate to many ‘new’ elements and finish the ones introduced here. A full stable of premium cars, a working dynamic weather system, more realistic damage, and expanded tuning back to the days of yore would make a very nice next release... or ultimate state of GT 5 after numerous patches that seem to be on the way.
What would I change?
Top Gear would be a MUCH larger section. Ford Transit Van around Nurburgring trying to beat Sabine Schmidts Time from the show. Diesel Jag to try and beat Clarksons. EVO and STI race around the Top Gear Test Track. BMW M3, Audi S4, Merc AMG race. Hot Hatch Race. Reasonable Priced Car Power lap leader board. Stig Challenges. Veyron Challenge. I mean there are so many options to pull from over the history of the show it is incredible that all we got were two really annoying slow runs in old VW’s and a Lotus race on ice skates (comfort hard tires).
Practice would allow you to choose a field of cars of your choosing for a race. Practice would also enable you to choose for fuel/tire wear during the session. Very annoying that you can’t groove a endurance setup anywhere but the actual endurance race.
Better balancing of the field on multi type races. The old ringer problem is back in force and it seems like every race or champion ship is really a competition against a single stand out car in the field and you have no idea how out of whack it will be. Often leads you to having WAY to much car or having no chance at all.
All convertibles would be top down or there would at least be a solid indication of if it will be up or down when driving it on the purchase screen.
B-Spec would be a bit more engaging. The generic slow down, stay put, speed up and overtake missives are not very engaging. It would be nice if you could develop a race plan for your driver and watch the telemetry and relay instructions like brake later into turn 6, earlier into turn 3 etc... This could be a pretty cool way to engage non driving gamers. As is it is kind of like watching paint dry... though fun to watch the race if it has some cool cars.
Online Time Trails would not be for single lap wonders... they would be for 5-10 lap totals and Damage would be ON. Disqualification for running all wheels off track would be much stricter.
Better Driver AI. Shift had pretty good AI... it was nasty and dirty but you got a real sense that the computer cars were aware of you. Often times GT computer drivers act like moving pylons on a pre-ordained line that could care less if you were there first. F1 2010 probably has the best AI I have seen in a racing game.... probably because the drivers act like they have some sense of self preservation (crashes can end the race in that game).
Menu’s would be super streamlined and far more logical to navigate... the damn things look like they were meant for a mouse. There is often no logical method of getting your cursor around the numerous selections. There are LOAD times between menu screens and you have to jump menu screens ALOT.
Garage is available from more places.. hooray... but you still can’t buy a car from the list of allowed cars for given races. This means numerous screens out of A or B Spec, back to GT home then into the dealerships, the dealer , the car, the get in the car back to GT home back out in the A or B spec.... its tired. Its old and it should go. Also your garage should allow for all your modifications/buying/oil changes etc... It is really annoying when you have like 5 new cars to have to go to the garage to ‘get in’ then go change the oil then go back to the garage, get in the next etc... etc... etc...
Oh I could go on and on. Suffice it to say I like the game enough to nitpick it to death with things that could be better. Bottom line is I play it to often and probably will continue to do so for a while to come.
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