Gran Turismo 5 (GT5) has been in development since before the PlayStation 3 was even launched, and the expectations leading up to its release were roughly proportional to the length of time that racing sim fans spent waiting for the game. Memories of its predecessors have, for the most part, been relegated to nostalgia territory, so make no mistake, Polyphony Digital had a mammoth task on its hands. Anything short of perfection would surely disappoint.
Has GT5 lived up to expectations? Is it the ultimate racing simulator?
Polyphony did a good job of turning a gargantuan video game into something that is actually quite approachable from the outset. GT5 is a is a serious car simulator, but it manages to ease you in at a pace which most gamers will find comfortable. Your options are very limited in the early stages, and it is relatively easy to win races with the starter cars.
Early on, the game shows signs of one if its greatest, albeit most forgivable frustrations. If you are connected to the internet, you can expect to be greeted with a patch requiring a few hundred MB download. Then there is the installation which takes around 45 minutes.
We can easily forgive GT5 these early annoyances, after all, it is a serious racing sim, and the fact that it takes so long to perform the highly recommended install is testament to the game’s vast technical scope. However, things don’t speed up radically once the game is up and running. The menus feel sluggish, although I did find the layout appealing. The introductory screen is broken into 4 basic tabs; two of which are the most important: GT Mode and Arcade Mode.
Arcade Mode allows you to jump right in and race a variety of cars on a variety of tracks. It’s perfect for when you have a friend over, as it allows you to show off the high-end cars, and also features a split-screen mode.
GT Mode, in contrast, is essentially a career mode. Players start off with a set amount of credits, and must purchase their first car. Players start off on level 1, and are limited to a few entry level events. There are also license events which players may complete. These are designed to teach players a wide variety of racing techniques, from drifting and high-speed braking, to effectively using slip streams, and loads more. Like all events, players can earn bronze, silver or gold medals in the license events, and experience points are awarded depending on how well one performs.
There are also special events, which are particularly exciting. Although they make up a relatively niche portion of the game, the special events provide much needed variety by allowing you to try your hand at NASCAR racing, kart racing, rally driving and more. You can also take on the infamous Stig on the Top Gear test track. Special events earn you credits as well as XP, and like all events, you have to be a certain level to participate in each challenge.
On to the game’s core. You are likely to spend the majority of your time participating in the A-Spec races. These are broken up by levels, and in the beginning players only have access to the beginner events. Depending on how well you place in the events, you will earn experience points and credits, which allow you to advance to higher tier events, buy new cars, and upgrade the cars you already have.
Also presented on the GT Mode home page are the B-Spec events. These allow you to hire and manage racers. Once you have selected a racer and chosen a car, you may enter him in a race. You will be able to give your racer vague instructions during the race, such as “increase speed”, “maintain speed”, “overtake” and “decrease speed.” Your racers start off as hopeless noobs, but quickly improve. This section is a neat addition to the already vast number of things to do in GT5, but it will probably not appeal to the majority of gamers.
Arguably as important as the actual racing, are GT5’s cars. Put simply, Gran Turismo 5 is a game made by car lovers, for car lovers. As previously mentioned, there are over 1,000 cars, ranging from entry level hatchbacks, to contemporary smart cars, to classic muscle cars and of course high-end modern racers. The selection is simply mind boggling, and the premium cars have been designed and rendered with unprecedented attention to detail. On the flip side, some of the standard models are notably unimpressive, having been pulled directly from the PS2’s Gran Turismo 4.
Not only can players buy cars through the car dealership, but they can also browse the used car reseller, which is constantly being updated. In fact, the vast majority of the game’s cars are not available new in the dealership, so it is worth checking out the second-hand market for the occasional gem.
There more cars in GT5 than you are ever likely to drive, and there is also an impressive variety of modifications which you can make to them. Every time you make a change to a vehicle, it will have a noticeable effect on the way it drives. Upgrading to racing tyres will give you an edge when taking corners, and upgrading your engine will increase your maximum speed or acceleration. It is also possible to customise your gear ratio, suspension and transmission settings if you really know what you are doing, but for those less knowledgeable about the inner workings of cars, it is quite simple to just upgrade certain parts and benefit from the improvement.
Polyphony has provided a solid framework for gamers to work within. The in-game car market is extensive and exciting thanks to the dynamic second-hand market place. Players are able to upgrade each vehicle with meticulous detail, and the effects of doing so are always noticeable. There is also a wide selection of race types, and players will be forced to try out different vehicles to enter different races. For example, most races will have a limitation, so you will need to have a particular make/nationality/spec of car to enter. This encourages players to build up a range of vehicles, and you genuinely grow attached to some of them.
While the game is well structured, and we have to commend the developer for getting creative, the menu interface is sluggish, and switching between tabs usually requires a loading screen. It feels like more could have been done to streamline this interface, and the end result is a less seamless experience than we would have liked.
While all the bells and whistles are great, the true star of the show is the actual driving. The physics engine is breathtaking to behold, and the cars’ handling is particularly engaging. Simply driving for the sake of driving in GT5 is bliss. Important in any racing game, there is a true sense of speed, and GT5 performs admirably in this department. Cars feel weighty, and every car handles differently, which is exactly what we expected. Car sounds are also solid, although some car aficionados make claim that Polyphony missed the mark on some vehicle sounds. At any rate, faulting the audio would be tantamount to nitpicking, and with a decent 5.1 speaker set up you will literally hear the individual moving parts in your opponent’s vehicles as you pass them – it’s really quite special.
Naturally, the game’s technical prowess is not limited to the sounds and physics, and the visuals are at times breath taking. Sadly, they are not consistent, and some tracks, much like the standard cars, appear to have been imported directly from GT4. Had the entire game been as well rendered as the newly created portions, we would have had a visual masterpiece on our hands.
Some tracks look like they were pulled straight from GT4, Courtesy of furiousfanboys
The multiplayer component, perhaps as expected, is plagued by lag and glitching. Unfortunately, given the high speed nature of racing, even the slightest lag can be a problem. This is particularly noticeable at the beginning of a race, where cars will pop in and out of place, making it very difficult to take the entire experience seriously. In all honesty, I don’t see many South African gamers getting too heavily invested in this portion of the game.
Does it all come together?
As previously stated, Polyphony has crammed the game full of different challenges. Licenses, special events, A-Spec and B-Spec races will keep you busy and interested. The variety offered by the special events does a lot to improve the game’s value proposition, and the A-Spec events will keep you coming back for more. The variety of cars is another highlight, even if they are not all rendered to the same standard. You are likely to find yourself growing attached to certain vehicles. They are expensive, and selling them never yields a decent return, so you may as well hold on to them and upgrade the ones that are worthwhile. In the end, you are likely to have a wide variety of cars, some of which will be favourites, others which you will never drive.
This image, courtesy of furiousfanboys illustrates just how poor some of the car models are in comparison to rival racing sim, Forza 3.
Different events range from the deeply challenging, to the highly frustrating. One of the early NASCAR events requires you to overtake 3 opponents in the final stretch of race by effectively using slip streams. This took me hours to earn gold, and the credit and XP payout was relatively meagre. The challenge directly after this one, however, was incredibly easy and earned me a whopping sum of cash and XP. Overall, you will consistently be challenged, but sometimes this spills over and just becomes frustrating and unrewarding.
Certain events are just not fun. The first Top Gear challenge springs to mind, requiring you to “race” a crappy old VW van around the test track. You start in last place, and have to somehow get to the front of the pack within two laps – an arduous task in a vehicle that maxes out at around 100KM/H and handles like a concrete mule. Oh, and hit a perimeter traffic cone and you’ll have to restart the event. In fairness, you are never forced to complete an event to continue your career progression.
The AI is not particularly intelligent, and you can expect your opponents to regularly drive into you, causing you to spin out at high-speed, effectively requiring you to restart. Other times, it will be remarkably easy to overtake AI opponents in positions where they almost seem to give up their lead by not capitalising on an advantage.
The damage modelling becomes more advanced and unforgiving as you progress to higher levels. For the first 15 levels you can bump and crash your car as much as you like, with little in the way of consequence. Later on, damage becomes more noticeable and can cause mechanical malfunctions as well as problems for aerodynamics. Repairing damaged cars is expensive, and at around level 32 it becomes important to drive safely, as you can easily forfeit your winnings from a single race to repairing the vehicle from damage incurred during said race.
A sluggish menu interface, previous-generation spill over of certain cars and tracks and the associated low quality rendering, and the occasional infuriating (like seriously, not fun at all) challenge hurt an otherwise fantastic experience. However, despite its flaws, Gran Turismo 5 succeeds in two core ways that make it a highly worthwhile experience. Firstly, the challenges are dynamic, varied and interesting. Secondly, the game at its core is about racing cars, and the actual driving is remarkably enjoyable.
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