Full Review for Gran Turismo 5 by sphynxx

Introduction

Welcome to my review of the Playstation 3 exclusive offering from Sony and Polyphony Digital; Gran Turismo 5.

This game has been in the making for the better part of 5 years and with many fans becoming more and more frustrated at constant delays coupled with all the hype that Gran Turismo 5 received, many fans were sceptical that Polyphony could put out a final product that would come close to living up to expections.

Graphics

The graphics in Gran Turismo 5 really can be quite outstanding at times. Especially if you get premium cars on a track such as Nurburgring Nordschleife.

However in saying that, the difference between the 200 "premium" cars and the 800 "standard" cars can be quite staggering. With the premium cars getting very polished & refined graphic details, as well as an in-car driving view compared to some, at times, very Gran Turismo 4 graphic detail on the standard cars, especially when you factor in the dirt & grime cars pick up through off-road rallying or small excursions of the racing track.

The graphics are the main point of difference between a "standard" car and a "premium" car. Sure, there are some other benefits of owning a Premium car, but it really boils down to the graphics. Some cars are able to be owned in both Standard and Premium versions, whilst others are Standard or Premium only. Some cars which are available as Premium cars truly boggle the mind.

You can buy a "shopping trolley" Toyota Prius as a premium car, complete with refined & detailed graphics and interior driving view, but yet a supercar such as the Bugatti Veyron, which is one of the most desirable & fantasised cars in the world only gets the "standard" treatment from Polyphony. I truly don't quite know what Polyphony Digital were thinking including a Toyota Prius, a car that is by all accounts a "green treehuggers" car in a racing game and giving it more detail than a true supercar such as the Veyron.

That is partially why I didn't score this game a perfect 10 for graphics. There is also the surrounding effects & backdrops of the game. Yes, the backdrops are truly outstanding and at times draw droppingly beautiful, but when you watch a replay & you notice paper thing spectators with graphic designs plucked straight out of the original playstion version of Gran Turismo, you can't help but be a little disappointed. Likewise with the graphics for the air disturbance created by passing cars on the grass & what have you on the side of the track. Blocks of flowers & grass getting pushed down one block at a time as a car passes instead of them all moving together fluidly.

These aren't great matters by any stretch for a racing game, but they do start to taint the overall experience.

Sound

Sounds scores a nine out of 10 from me due to the attention to detail Polyphony Digital put to this aspect of the game. From sitting in your Garage, changing to a new car & hearing the engine roar to life to listening to your favourite machine blast through the revs, there really isn't a game with comparable sound on the Playstation 3.

I may be wrong in saying this, but cars that have been given the Premium treatment by Polyphony Digital seem to have a much crisper & pleasing exhaust note than their standard counterparts. This is understandable, but when there are 4 times as many standard cars as there are premium, it gets a little frustrating when cars such as the Subaru Impreza 22B, a rare and sought after peice of Japanese motor engineering is a standard car & sounds a lot like one. Likewise the same could be said for the aforementioned Bugatti Veyron. If this were giving the Premium treatment, not only would the graphics be a lot sharper, but the exhaust note from the W16, quad-turbo monster would be a lot sweeter as well.

There aren't really a lot points to complain about the sound in Gran Turismo 5. I have had the occasional odd sound when passing through tunnels but that's about the extent of it. The sound in this game is about as perfect as Polyphony Digital could get giving only 200 cars Premium status in the game.

Gameplay

Gameplay scores a 7 mainly due to the fact that the new levelling system that Polyphony put in to Gran Turismo 5s GT Life mode gets so progressively slow that it kills the fun of the game.

In Gran Turismo 5 we have the usual 'career' mode. Now titled GT Life as well as the Arcade mode, featuring split screen. GT Life has been split into two sections; A-Spec and B-Spec.

A-Spec is the mode in which we, the players, drive & race and B-Spec is the mode where we act as team management & coach our driver(s) throughout their race, controlling the pace & manouveres our driver(s) attempt. Whether it be decreasing the speed to lessen the chance of spinning out, holding the current pace, increasing the pace, but also increasing the risk of mistakes or overtaking the car in front. Each mode is independant from the other, and doesn't effect each others progress.

In this installment of Gran Turismos 'career' mode, gone are the License requirements to enter races. The License tests are now just that; tests & learning grounds for the skills needed to be successful in this game. They no longer impact on which content a play can, or can not, access.

In their place, we have a new system. A progressive levelling up system. Both A-Spec and B-Spec have this system, but are both seperate from each other. In order to level up, you have to compete in races and gain XP or experience points. If you win a race, you get more XP and you will level up faster, which is great. Except when it comes to the levels past 20. This is where the fun gets sapped from the game.

Once you hit level 20 and can access the Extreme series of races, each level takes a monumental amount of time to reach. Each race only gives out, on average, around 4000XP where as progessing from Level 20 to Level 21 requires roughly 80,000 or so XP. With only 1 race series to choose from at Level 20 in the Extreme Races, hitting Level 21 can take a while. The same can be said with progressing to Level 22 due to only 2 race series being open to compete in at Level 21. The same continues on through the higher levels with most requiring several hours of "grinding" or repeating races to earn XP to advance to the next level.

The levels also have a second function. Aside from dictating which races we can enter, levels also limit us to which cars we can buy. Every car as a level requirement that the player must meet before we're able to buy the car. Some higher cars can be won from License tests, others from series victories, such as the Bugatti Veyron. Which, if we were to try and buy, we'd have to be level 20 before we could purchase it.

Along with the level system stopping us from buying our favourite supercars early on in the game, we also have some serious race grinding to do to be able to afford some of the more desirable historic cars. A Ferrarri Enzo requires 1 million credits, and if you're lower than Level 23, some serious, long term grinding is needed with most low level races only paying out around 30 to 40 thousand credits per win.

This payout vs price ticket situation only gets more tedious when you factor in that some cars are hitting the 20 million credit mark.

But aside from the credit and XP griding being rather annoying, there's the AI, damage & driving mechanics in Gran Turismo 5 to talk about.

First off, the AI. Usually, one would assume it stands for Artificial Intelligence. Not in Gran Turismo 5. Aggrevatingly Idiotic would be a better description. Apparently players do not unlock the 'realistic' AI until they reach Level 40. Until then we're stuck with an AI system that doesn't take note of proper racing 'rules' such as the "B-Pillar" rule in which a passing car that is passed the B-Pillar of the car has successfully completed a pass, meaning the passed car must relinquish track position to the passer to avoid accidents etc. Not the AI in Gran Turismo 5. They'll just keep on holding down their racing line, crashing into you & pushing you off the track. Then we have the B-Spec AI. Even our own driver AI, being controlled somewhat loosely by us is an absolute idiot. Again, the 'B-Pillar' rule plays no part, with even higher leveled AI drivers, they seem to relinquish positions fairly easily, whilst making a meal out of trying to take them.

That raises another point. The AI seem to drive on magnets, being stuck to the racing line, whereas it seems that the players are driving on ice. Several times I've been given the lightest of taps & sent spinning off the track. However, should I return the favour to the offending car, the AI just will no spin, they'll continue with full steering lock & something only happens if you manage to force them to hit the grass. This was probably inroduced to stop people forcing & crashing their way to the front, but to those like myself who race pretty fairly, the inbalance is aggrevating.

The damage mechanics, like the AI, has the feeling of being done a but half-heartedly. Again, we don't get full damage mechanics until Level 40. Supposedly both reasons are that players wouldn't be ready for them until that stage, but even so, the damage on the Standard cars just looks plain awful whereas damage on the Premium cars just seems to be left wanting.

The Driving mechanics however are pretty great. Turn all driving aids off and use normal 'road' tyres such as Comfort mediums and try taking on the Nurburgring Nordschleife in a modded RX-7 & you'll find yourself flying off the track if you push the car too hard, too fast. Careful throttle response & sensible braking are needed in this game. We can longer just jam on the throttle and slam on the brakes when exiting/entering corners. Proper control is needed.

The only complaint I have with the driving mechanics comes from the Drift mode and using a controller instead of a Steering Wheel set up. Without the use of a Wheel, the Drifting can be, at times, a bit hit an miss as the steering with the L3 stick isn't as controlled as a Wheel. Whilst there isn't a drifting event in GT Life, rallying does return and this is where the lack of precision control due to the controller comes hugely into effect. Although it isn't as noticeable on tarmac races.

Lastability

Gran Turismo 5s career mode was called GT Life for a reason. The game isn't designed to be played & 'beaten' 100% within a week of it's release date.

Through the slow level progression, the race grinding for hours on end to earn enough credits is all geared to one thing. Keeping the game playable for a long time after release. Endurance Races aren't unlocked until level 24 or 25. We have a new feature called "special events" in which give us a one time payout & XP haul if you win it the first time around. These, like the main races are unlocked at certain levels, with the final & hardest Special Event being unlocked fairly late in the game. Then we have the sheer scope of collecting our favourite cars. With 1000 cars in the game, the amount of grinding we have to do just to buy them all is staggering. Then, if you want to modify them, you have even more grinding to do. Grinding may be tedious, but having done things this way, there is at least some incentive to continue playing once you've completed every race.

Overall

Overall this game deserves it's rating of nine out of 10. Even with all the small irritations this game throws up, they are in the long run quelled by all the good points this game as to offer.

Polyphony Digital has definitly come close to creating what they've always claimed their Gran Turismo series as being; The real driving simulator.

Yes, the small annoyances can wear on you, but they're easily pushed aside by a moments glimps of the mountain range in the background of Eiger Norwand. Or as your blasting your 1200+BHP Bugatti Veyron down the straight of the Circuit de la Sarthe 2009 (no chicanes) track at 430KPH.

The pleasures & joys of this game truly are fantastic.

Final Score: 84%