Sunday 29 April 2012

(Game) Gran Turismo 5

Many reviewers commited a grievous error in my opinion when they reviewed GT5 at launch and didnt revisit after a few months.
The concept of a continually evolving game on a console was and remains a rarity in our modern enlightened era and yet as games such as Minecraft and Terraria have shown they are becoming more and more common, i actually think of GT5 as a trail blazer in that area in regards to consoles.

Hilarious as the idea that a studio as introverted as Polyphony Digital could be considered innovators is I believe it to have merit.
Upon release GT5 was fighting its own infrastructure, crippling lag induced by the game trying to speak to the online servers regardless of whether you were connected or not left some reviewers who were fighting to release the first review of the game out to believe that it was simply bad game design as opposed to releasing too earlier for its fledgling infrastructure to cope with.

To give PD credit this issue was very quickly addressed and while never being a lightning quick experience the menus eventually became usable enough that I for one never thought of them in a critical light again.

The problem with the game has less to do with what didn't work but the length of development time the game had.
I`ve often thought that console gamers have a significant deficiency in terms of patience compared to the PC gaming community, very rarely have the console community ever had to wait years for a game to be released as a result they saw a five year wait as meaning that the game, when released, would be as close to perfect as possible.
This simply is not the case nor would it ever be the case.

PD are noted perfectionists, when modelling Spa and other real world circuits they walked and mapped every bump, every change of surface and in the case of the Nurburgring every piece of graffiti!
Its small wonder it took so long! and yet every bit of this serves to make the actual experience of driving the circuit the best ive ever experienced on a console.
Tyre degradation is excellently modelled and has a major effect on braking, especially for hairpin turns, you know something? Driving has never been so good on a console and ill put that in a certificate for PD they can frame.

Too often in driving games you dont "feel" the change between Tarmac and Dirt, too often elevation changes and bumps mean nothing whatsoever to your handling or peformance but with the level of detail in GT5 all of a sudden it did.
Try risking a glamce at you hands when running for the first corner at Monza after you exit the Parabolica, those little twitches your making? thats the result of perfectionism my friend, enjoy it because outside of PC driving simulators such as rFactor you`ll never find such an accurate modelling of driving.

The B Spec mode is an interesting addition too, i grew up with games such as Grand Prix Manager and when it was announced that this game would have a mode in which you play the owner of a driving team i literally yelled "Yes!" much to the irritation of the wife.
This Spec however seems less of a feature and more of an afterthought, yes there is a whole series of B Spec events and rewards but that feeling of disassociation with events on-screen is far more powerful than it used to be in the GPM series, the lack of the ability to perform R&D and use a Wind Tunnel is, in my opinion, responsible for this feeling.
Its just a level of detail that would have completed the sense of immersion necessary for this type of mode to work.

Now i know i havent mentioned the Online component, well thats mostly because its simply functional.
It has a range of options such as Performance Point restrictions, Specific Car championships etc all rewarded by credits and EXP for your single player but there is no gloss to it, its not slick in ny way and almost feels like it was a bolt-on job.

Oh and a quick word on Licenses, they used to be harder and they used to mean so much more, they feel ok and there are rewards for getting all gold medals etc on all of them but gone are the days of bragging to your mates about grabbing the S licence.

Ive gone on longer than i wanted here but i have to be critical of Polyphony Digital here, whilst the driving is fantastic and the Premium cars are almost photo-realistically beautiful they need a catastrophic kick in ass from Sony.
The game isnt worthy of the current generation. There i said it, the reason for it is that its Gran Turismo 4 Part 2, it has all the feel of the old games, the music feels recycled, it still has the massive amounts of pointless Japanese cars despite its overwhelming userbase in Europe and the US and like Sony itself they seem to be stuck in 2004, the Internet has become so much part of modern life that to have a Online component that feels like an experiment from the PS2 is simply not good enough.
I just cannot understand the mentality of people who`d happily throw time into the Photo Mode of GT5 rather than make more Premium cars, it honestly comes across that they live in a bunker, unaware of their competitors.

After five long developmental year, more modelling of tracks and cars than is healthy and collaborations with Red Bull Racing on the X1(or whatever its called these days) its just maddeningly old school, to the point it needs to be told by the new school of driving games just how embarrasing its becoming.

Bet you thought i`d defend it didnt you?

Demo.



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