Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Sony Playstation 3, 2008)

You can say a lot about Polyphony Digital but they sure take their time to release quality games. With over 60 cars and 6 tracks GT5 prologue must keep us amused till 2009 when the long awaited sequel of GT4 comes out. Question is: will is succeed?

Gameplay

Let’s just get right to the point, it drives amazing. With my G25 I have to use the H shifter, 900 degree turning and the FFB is great, but then again Logitech is sponsoring GT meaning it might be limited to Logitech steering wheels. You begin with just 35.000 credits and no car, not in arcade, split screen battle or time trail. With the dealer option you can buy your way through about 80 cars including all time greats like the Ferrari F40, Audi R8, BMW M3 and the Ferrari F2007. Wait, they’ve included Ferrari’s and even their F1 car? Yes they have, is it next gen enough already?

To get back to the system, you’ll need to buy all cars if you want to use them, no free give aways at the beginning (maybe at the end of a race class, not their yet) This system will keep you playing for many hours because of the constant pull of wanting to have all cars to use them in arcade or against your buddies. If you play against your buddies and you both want the same car then get ready to buy two of them, yes it’s that limited but yet realistic.

At the startup the game will ask you to install itself on the HDD, which takes long. But worse is that it’s not optional meaning 40gb cheap PS3 owners can get in serious trouble as the data is some GB’s big (not sure how much)
One last appeal is the Grand Turismo TV and online but I’ll have to disappoint you, I wasn’t able to play online yet and have just 1 video in my collection, I’ll keep you updated!

Presentation

Some games lack gameplay (motorstorm) and others lack graphics (Nascar 08) but GT5 finds the perfect balance. During my first races I just forgot to change gears because I was too busy looking at the amazing graphics, the thrill of driving out the tunnel in the light has next gen writing all over it.

In addition to the perfect car and track graphics this game also features some great little details like when slip streaming your car will shake and slow down when coming out of it, and when looking back you can actually see the back sheets or the engine when driving a super car.

Driving one with you speaker set tuned up will blow you away. The tire sounds are toned down from the demo in favor of some heavy engine sounds, be sure to turn off the back ground music though.

But like always not all is perfect in this full priced demo, for one the menu look amazing but feel very slow. It often has a short –not too annoying- load time and the dealer option is very limited. Meaning you can’t search a car by list or BHP/weight information, but only trough brand, leaving some time to find them all.

Overall GT5P does nothing wrong. It simply offers the best car racing game on the market.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Game Review (PS3)
scores are 1-100

Gameplay: 70

Extremely boring in less than hour of playing. The game brings nothing new in terms of gameplay. Just the same classic races which swings from one lap to 5 laps length. At least you get a bonus group race if you complete the other three and a range of 71 vehicles to play on those repetitive six tracks. The drift events are present only in the arcade menu, and are implemented as stand-alone events. Every track, with one exception (Daytona), has a drift zone which is divided in score sectors. This is where you have to perform the most outrageous drifts in order to score points. If in GT HD Concept you had the chance to drift in an unlimited number of laps, Prologue brings the limitation of one lap per each drift event.

Graphics: 92

Photo-realistic graphics combined with a high-performance physics engine. This is the core of every Gran Turismo game and still is. Unfortunately the environmental design lacks of any stylized approach which makes the game to look too artificial and cold in some places.

Play the game with any wheel supported by the game, eliminating all driving assists and you will get one of the best realistic driving approach. If you are a simulator maniac, and you are not convinced of what I've written, try the drift events and feel how many parameters have been included in the physical engine in order to simulate all the forces that operates on the car in different situations.

Multiplayer: 80

Support up to 16 players online. But at the same time it is extremely basic, new additions being awaited from Polyphony. At this point it is hard to compare it with what Forza Motorsport 2 or Project Gotham Racing 4 has in terms of what they can offer.

Sound: 79

No way you can customize the soundtrack of the game. At least the tracks are quite mellow so they are not incredibly irritating. The only problem is that the songs repeat themselves during a race. Same song goes over an over again until you end the event.

Hardware: 85

A plus for the online mode which runs smooth. But a minus for the loading times which are long even if you exit a race. I still blame that My Page idea.

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New to the Gran Turismo series is the ability to race with up to 16 cars at once. According to game developer polyphony Digital, NPC's AI has also improved from previous Gran Turismo games.

Also new to the series is the realistic in-car view feature. It includes functioning speedometers and odometers, reflecting rear-view mirrors, wing mirrors and real time in-car lighting effects (cast shadows). Players driving with both the control pad or the steering wheel have the ability to look left and right in the cockpit of the car by using the D-pad. Any PlayStation 3 compatible steering wheel works with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The engine also sounds different according to which view is selected among the available four. Back view is also specific with the in-car view.

Spec II update brings Drift Mode (similar to that of Gran Turismo HD Concept), car tuning adjustments, and head to head two-player racing offline

There is no doubt that GT5 is one of the best looking racing games out.
Now, i would ask the question was this worth $40 to buy as a 'game' or should this really be a demo of what GT5 will really be?

The variety of cars is great and look amazing(having to do a double take some times to see if they are real or not)

The tracks lack a little in variety since there aren't that many of them, granted you can play them in reverse and mirrored.

Now the down side is, there is no upgrades like in previous GT titles. I am assuming that there will be in the full GT5 as well as rumored damage modeling.

An update with performance upgrades, a track/car pack would definetly make this worth the price tag.

For the visuals and solid driving mechanics it gets a Good for the games overall ratting.

Gran Turismo has outdone themselves once again with the 5th additional of their automobile racing game series. The 5th edition of GT offers very beautiful scenic backgrounds while on and off the race track. The graphics of the vehicles are superb and the handling of the vehicles feels like you are actually in the car (I use a racing wheel to play).

There are new "views" offered in GT5. For instance, you can view the game while racing from the inside of the vehicle, outside of the vehicle or first person view.

As far as racing games go....this one is about a 8.5 out of 10. It would be a bit more realistic if when you hit something in the game, it puts damage on the vehicle that needs to be fixed. As of right now, you can plow into a wall and drive away from the accident completely scratch free.

Multi-player offers a completely second side to the game. You can race in career online with other or just play with other on arcade mode.

The user interface makes this game feel more like a racing community. It lays out a calendar, the time, the weather and temperature (real info) in certain popular racing cities such as London, Tokiyo and LA.

The vehicle selection is very nice, although I think a bit limited. On average you can only select about 3 different vehicles from each car company (and volvo is completely missing from the list).

I love this game and traded in my Need for Speed: Pro Street in exchange for it. I feel I made a good decision!

All-in-all I am glad I bought this game and that you will feel the same way if you do so yourself!