Wow. Trying to give Gran Turismo 5: Prologue a complete review is like trying to count the grains of sand on the beach in Ashikita, but I'll do my best.
Whether you are a new player of Gran Turismo or a long-time fan like myself, the only place to truly start is choosing the Gran Turismo TV option and watch the video "Beyond The Apex". I watched this video at least 4 times before I even started playing the game.
We get to meet Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo's creator. This man loved cars by age 8, and his love has developed into a lifelong dream of providing video gamers the perfect balance between car beauty, and car functionality.
But this is no easy task - for example, his development team took great pains to take 20-30,000 pictures of just ONE racetrack over a 2 month timeframe! Why? To make us feel like we're racing on the real thing.
Every curve in the road, every tire mark on the track, every dip of the car frame with acceleration and shifting is designed to give us all the sensations we would feel driving a car in the real world.
The game gets glowing reviews from Tanner Foust, a professional drifter and Rally car driver. It's one thing for a person like me who's never been on a racetrack, it's quite another when a professional driver says this is the type of game that encourages people to go out and buy a rear wheel drive car and try it for real!
Okay, so let's get on to the gameplay.
The online PS3 players can use the functions of News, Online Racing, and Online Rankings. The only thing sweeter than hosting a race with players from across the globe and winning a three lap race by a hair's breath, is seeing YOUR name at the top of the online rankings.
There are 71 cars to choose from, more than enough to whet our appetites until the full version of Gran Turismo 5 is released. This game gives us a lot of creative freedom: we can alter the AI difficulty, the active steering, the driving physics, braking, traction control, tires, and much more.
The graphics are, for lack of a better word, flawless. During the intro movie, a car is shown driving on a road with sunlight reflecting off the rear panels - the light is shown as patchwork through leaves on a passing tree. That level of detail is also in the gameplay itself.
There are 4 different viewpoints for driving the car: a player with the top-of-the-line racing wheel can choose three camera angles inside the car, while other players can choose the exterior camera to get a better overall view of the car's physics. As far as the controller options, we can choose the button setup ourselves. I was very impressed to see the controller schematic for not just one, but FIVE driving wheel simulators to choose from.
On the racetrack, we have a blue line to direct us on the best path to victory, which we can either follow or alter at our own risk. The path also shows us the optimal brake times, which is a fantastic feature for the novice and expert alike. We have rules to follow - The days of cutting across patches of sand to get ahead of our opponents are gone. There are penalties for hitting other cars, ramming cars off the track, using shortcuts and any boundary collisions.
So what are the shortcomings?
Well, the online portion does have limits. If the host player of a race has a slower internet connection, the race can end prematurely or the picture quality/gameplay is sacrified. Some players are extremely courteous, other players may resort to cheap schoolyard tactics which can ruin the overall racing experience.
The AI can be a little cruel on the racing circuit. We can't hit other cars, but if we're in the line of another car that drifts into us, we get penalized.
The emphasis on drifting is more prevalent in this iteration of Gran Turismo, and the art of drifting is not easy to master. The more casual player might find this aspect of racing very frustrating.
Younger gamers might get frustrated with the realism of the game's physics....this isn't Twisted Metal, after all. But hey, if Kazunori Yamauchi could love cars at age 8, then I guess anything is possible.
But the biggest shortcoming? This is only a prologue....the finished product will most likely not be released before 2009.
Anyone with a passionate love of cars probably has this game in their library already. The casual player can definitely give this game a rent, much as I did. Be prepared, though: Once you appreciate the fine art of drifting and racing with the precision of a heart surgeon, you won't be returning this rental on time. You'll be saving your pennies for a Dualshock Wireless Controller or a Gran Turismo Racing Wheel.
Gran Turismo has truly earned the title of "The Real Driving Simulator". |
A passionate labor of love to give us the drive of our life.