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Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
Zeon
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Registered User regular
So, this is out, on the japanese store anyway. Its pretty awesome, i downloaded it today, played it for about 2 or 3 hours so far.
Some of the cars are currently undriveable, theyre going to unlock them as announcements are made at the Tokyo Auto Show, which is a pretty neat concept. Theres a secret car, which will be released after its unveiled at the show, and the new Skyline has the traditional black bra, front and rear to hide the new look, which will also be unwrapped after its shown for the first time in real life. I think thats kind of neat, the combination of the game and real life.
Theres also a new driving setting, which in turn makes the game more realistic. Braking into a corner will put you into a far slipperier slide than before, hitting the sand acts way more realistically, youre car will slide and probably end up either sideways or backwards. It also slows you down way more. You can opt for the "classic" setting, which is probably a good way to get reaquainted, but the "realistic" setting feels way better.
Also, as im sure almost anyone whos ever played gran turismo has hoped, the AI is updated, and its actually pretty neat. The other drivers actually try and stay infront of you, if you come up to pass theyll try and cut you off, nothing too insane, but its way harder to get around some drivers now. Also theres usually one driver per race whos a real dick (sometimes 2 or three, i think the AI's are random) who will actually try and run you off the track, pushing you out through the corners if you try and overtake high or something. Oh and theres also 16 racers at a time, which really livens up the race. Makes the tracks feel that much more alive than in the previous games, plus the replays are actually fun to watch, even if no crazy shit happened to you during the race.
The bumper cars complaint has also been fixed, somewhat. Theres still no damage as far as i can tell, and on the classic mode youre pretty much free to slam into people and ride them around the inside of the corners, but on the realistic mode, trying to do stuff like that is a good way to lose control, either forcing you to slow down to regain control, or spinning you out all together. Id prefer it if they added some damage though, as a couple times i used another car to "brake" going into a corner, slamming into them at about 150km/h (~90mph) and then drove off fine. Even if theres nothing cosmetic, atleast mechanical so doing shit like that would force you to retire from that race.
Nothing about the new AI or physics upgrades feel cheap either, which is great. It honestly is so far one of the most realistic track racing games ive ever played, which is awesome and the reason ive always loved the gran turismo series.
The downsides, of course, being a demo of a demo, theres only one track, and its Suzuka. Its an ok track, but id have prefered something longer, or maybe more interesting. But ofcourse its the classic japanese track so if they didnt include it the developers probably would have been murdered in their sleep by government hired ninjas or something. The other downside, for me anyway, is the lack of cars. Theres 8 total, 3 are unplayable now. Theres no hondas, which sucks, as i was hoping either the civic type R sedan would make an appearance, or the RSX (integra) R would come back from the HD concept. Theres actually a wide variety of cars in the game, id say probably 20 or so, but only the 8 are playable (once theyre all released). Theres actually an NSX, which sucks because i want to drive it.
The other downside, there are a few graphical glitches. The drivers side mirrors dont show all the terrain, just the vehicles, while the rear view shows both. Also, shadows look... weird. Like theyre almost not properly rendering sometimes. Its most obvious when looking at the interior shadows, either in replay mode or driver mode.
Which brings me to the one major awesome upside to this game. DRIVER MODE. Fully. Rendered. True to life. Cockpits. Its fucking awesome. I heard about this a while ago, but now that ive actually seen it, its fucking amazing. The needles move, steering wheel moves in tune with the joystick (or driving wheel i assume) so you know exactly how far youre cranking the wheel instead of just guessing. Its pretty exact. The only part im not sure about is there looks to be some racing computer mounted in the middle of all the dash models, but im not sure if this is extra racing gear, or just the Nav system/LCD screen that basically every japanese car has had for the last 5 years. This mode makes me super excited to for the full game, so i can drive a copy of my real life car, and know all the gauges and lights and everything. The best part, unlike some other racing games, this mode is actually usable. It places the camera in EXACTLY the right position so you can see your driver side mirror, and rearview mirror, and still have a good view of the road, and can see around the A pillar. Dont know what it will be like in some cars with giant A pillars, maybe theyll shrink them for playability.
Anyway, the demos awesome, full Prologue coming in December (13th i believe), which should be even better. But if you like realistic racing games at all, i wholeheartedly suggest hopping on the japanese PS store and downloading it. Its like 700 megs, and it downloads pretty fast, its well worth spending atleast a couple hours on if you have any interest in the series.
Personally its made me go from "I hope Gran Turismo releases soon" to "pee my pants excited" for the next version. Too bad its more than likely a year off.
Edit, i forgot screenshots. You can see some here: http://www.gtplanet.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=350&page=16
I havent figured out how to take ingame shots, or if theres even a way. But thats pretty comprehensive of what to expect. Needless to say, the graphics are fucking amazing. Watching the replay in some spots is almost like watching a car commercial in HD.
Some of the cars are currently undriveable, theyre going to unlock them as announcements are made at the Tokyo Auto Show, which is a pretty neat concept. Theres a secret car, which will be released after its unveiled at the show, and the new Skyline has the traditional black bra, front and rear to hide the new look, which will also be unwrapped after its shown for the first time in real life. I think thats kind of neat, the combination of the game and real life.
Theres also a new driving setting, which in turn makes the game more realistic. Braking into a corner will put you into a far slipperier slide than before, hitting the sand acts way more realistically, youre car will slide and probably end up either sideways or backwards. It also slows you down way more. You can opt for the "classic" setting, which is probably a good way to get reaquainted, but the "realistic" setting feels way better.
Also, as im sure almost anyone whos ever played gran turismo has hoped, the AI is updated, and its actually pretty neat. The other drivers actually try and stay infront of you, if you come up to pass theyll try and cut you off, nothing too insane, but its way harder to get around some drivers now. Also theres usually one driver per race whos a real dick (sometimes 2 or three, i think the AI's are random) who will actually try and run you off the track, pushing you out through the corners if you try and overtake high or something. Oh and theres also 16 racers at a time, which really livens up the race. Makes the tracks feel that much more alive than in the previous games, plus the replays are actually fun to watch, even if no crazy shit happened to you during the race.
The bumper cars complaint has also been fixed, somewhat. Theres still no damage as far as i can tell, and on the classic mode youre pretty much free to slam into people and ride them around the inside of the corners, but on the realistic mode, trying to do stuff like that is a good way to lose control, either forcing you to slow down to regain control, or spinning you out all together. Id prefer it if they added some damage though, as a couple times i used another car to "brake" going into a corner, slamming into them at about 150km/h (~90mph) and then drove off fine. Even if theres nothing cosmetic, atleast mechanical so doing shit like that would force you to retire from that race.
Nothing about the new AI or physics upgrades feel cheap either, which is great. It honestly is so far one of the most realistic track racing games ive ever played, which is awesome and the reason ive always loved the gran turismo series.
The downsides, of course, being a demo of a demo, theres only one track, and its Suzuka. Its an ok track, but id have prefered something longer, or maybe more interesting. But ofcourse its the classic japanese track so if they didnt include it the developers probably would have been murdered in their sleep by government hired ninjas or something. The other downside, for me anyway, is the lack of cars. Theres 8 total, 3 are unplayable now. Theres no hondas, which sucks, as i was hoping either the civic type R sedan would make an appearance, or the RSX (integra) R would come back from the HD concept. Theres actually a wide variety of cars in the game, id say probably 20 or so, but only the 8 are playable (once theyre all released). Theres actually an NSX, which sucks because i want to drive it.
The other downside, there are a few graphical glitches. The drivers side mirrors dont show all the terrain, just the vehicles, while the rear view shows both. Also, shadows look... weird. Like theyre almost not properly rendering sometimes. Its most obvious when looking at the interior shadows, either in replay mode or driver mode.
Which brings me to the one major awesome upside to this game. DRIVER MODE. Fully. Rendered. True to life. Cockpits. Its fucking awesome. I heard about this a while ago, but now that ive actually seen it, its fucking amazing. The needles move, steering wheel moves in tune with the joystick (or driving wheel i assume) so you know exactly how far youre cranking the wheel instead of just guessing. Its pretty exact. The only part im not sure about is there looks to be some racing computer mounted in the middle of all the dash models, but im not sure if this is extra racing gear, or just the Nav system/LCD screen that basically every japanese car has had for the last 5 years. This mode makes me super excited to for the full game, so i can drive a copy of my real life car, and know all the gauges and lights and everything. The best part, unlike some other racing games, this mode is actually usable. It places the camera in EXACTLY the right position so you can see your driver side mirror, and rearview mirror, and still have a good view of the road, and can see around the A pillar. Dont know what it will be like in some cars with giant A pillars, maybe theyll shrink them for playability.
Anyway, the demos awesome, full Prologue coming in December (13th i believe), which should be even better. But if you like realistic racing games at all, i wholeheartedly suggest hopping on the japanese PS store and downloading it. Its like 700 megs, and it downloads pretty fast, its well worth spending atleast a couple hours on if you have any interest in the series.
Personally its made me go from "I hope Gran Turismo releases soon" to "pee my pants excited" for the next version. Too bad its more than likely a year off.
Edit, i forgot screenshots. You can see some here: http://www.gtplanet.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=350&page=16
I havent figured out how to take ingame shots, or if theres even a way. But thats pretty comprehensive of what to expect. Needless to say, the graphics are fucking amazing. Watching the replay in some spots is almost like watching a car commercial in HD.
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p.s. i think it's bloody awesome and i can't wait for the real thing. (gt5, that is. although... if prologue's available through the psn, i might just bite)
Because seriousely
I'm really hoping this gives me the sense of awe I got from the first GT. Only three racing games have given me the rush of being there like no racer before it. First Virtua Racing, then Sega Rally, and finally Gran Turismo. Everything else has just felt like slight progressions.
I doubt they think we'll believe that this time.
They announced last year that Ferrari's were going to be in GT5. In fact, they even included one in GT HD.
Anyway, yeah I downloaded it when it just came out and I really suck. Excluding GT HD, I haven't played a Gran Turismo since GT3 so... I'm not very good anymore...
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Come on man. Its right there, in the link.
Yeah gt3 was the last one to really catch my attention. Been kinda bored with them since.
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Fixed for anti-hotlinking fun. Nice looking model too.
The nissan black mask GTR doesnt have it, because i assume the interior is remodeled this year and they arent show it yet.
The other three cars, the mitsu, daihatsu and BMW have it. press select to cycle through the modes.
No damage modeling. Dont think its coming for GT5 but ive heard rumors it is.
Havent played Forza 2, the only other realistic racing game ive played this generation is DIRT, so i dont really have anything else to compare it to. I said in the first post though, this game feels way more realistic than GT4. The cars actually react properly if you brake while entering the corner, giving you the proper over/understeer youd expect. The AI is also way improved in my opinion, and actually put up a pretty good challenge.
Realistic mode is, i believe from memory, the third option down in the menu, theres 2 choices, the short one thats defaulted when you first run the game, and a longer one. The longer one is "realistic" mode.
Ferraris in (though not racable in the prologue demo), but no lambos yet, as far as i know.
No online play in the demo either.
And the full Prologue, so far has confirmed to be free and downloadable, coming December 13th. Who knows though, they might end up charging for it. "Confirmed" 50 cars, 5 tracks, online play, thats basically an entire game right there, so its kind of hard to believe theyd give that away for free, unless theres a huge incentive to buy the full game, like, 1000 different cars and 50 tracks, more online modes, something like that. It really makes me think theyre going all out for GT5, considering what a "disappointment" GT4 was (in the fact that they couldnt deliver online play, and that it was basically GT3 but with more cars a little more polish, plus horribly horribly delayed)
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I can't wait for GT5.. although I should dust off GT4 and complete as much as I can first. But I want GT5 enough to drop whatever amount of money I can scrape together for a PS3.
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I disagree. I think the way DIRT handles it is a really good way, as in, you can smash the shit out of your car each race, you can blow the engine, you can have parts fly off, you can bend the frame so it doesnt drive straight, but then once the race is over, whether you win or lose, your cars fixed so youre never sitting there go "fuck, my cars broken, i cant play anymore"
If Gran Turismo implemented something like that, id be really happy. As is, for such a realistic game, theres a lot of cheap shit you can do that kind of ruins the challenge of learning how to drive the cars properly, like using another car as an insta-brake into corners, riding the cars/walls around corners to take it faster, and driving off the track to cut a corner in your car thats 1/2 an inch off the ground with ultra stiff suspension, at like 150mph. If shit like that actually could ruin your car, itd make you think twice about doing it, which i think would be better, and add to the challenge instead of taking away from it.
Hell, even if they cant licence some of the cars because the manufacturer doesnt want to show body damage to it, make it invisible, but still have a noticable effect on the driveability of the car.
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But a large part of focusing on driving is what happens if you don't. You can't have a realistic driving game without realistic consequences.
Ergo a driving game with no damage - no matter how realistic it handles - will not be driven realistically by gamers. And no spinning or slowing down accordingly does not count. There's a vast difference between retiring or just making up lost time over the next few laps. It does not matter how deep GT's driving physics get, it will be wasted because gamers will always abuse the lack of damage to their advantage.
You think it could be possiable that Poly hasn't got permission to do dmg modeling on 'all' the cars they plan to include in the game? I think it would be lame for only some of the cars to show damage while the others drive around w/o scratched paint.
I got Motorstorm for my dmg racer, just give me a quality GT5.
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No other racer has run in to the issue of not allowing a specific car to be damaged (the only instance I remember of car exclusion is Ferrari not allowing their cars be used in the Hot Pursuit modes in Need for Speed). If Polyphony is not allowed to damage the new release cars the auto industry has under wraps, that would be understandable, but should not affect the 99% of other cars in the game. Ergo no damage = not a realistic racer cause people will abuse the loophole in physics (er, see my last post!)
Haha.. your post just made me realise: Ironically, crashing your car in an over the top game like Motorstorm or Burnout gives you worse consequences than crashing in GT
I dont particularly care whether the damage models are car appropriate, Id just like to see a model implemented to stop the nonsense way you drive in GT games.
Need for Speed, Race Driver, Forza & PGR would like to have a word with you. I'm not talking fictional games here.
I've already explained it - You can't have a realistic driving game without realistic consequences. Gamers just end up skimming and bumping, exploiting the loophole. Doesn't matter how accurate the cars may handle.
[edit]You think I'm that naive that I couldn't distinguish a licensed game from a game with made-up brands? Seriously.
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But yeah, you can still use a lead car to improve your breaking in to a corner with no penalty
But speaking of the actual game, instead of having every thread about it turn into ranting about damage modeling :P, I think it's looking really good. I wasn't interested until I looked at some new footage. God damn, it's gorgeous, and the in-car views are some of the best I've seen. Is every vehicle getting an in-car view? If so, that's a lot of work they've put into this game, and I'm looking forward to having it in my hands.
Sorry I don't assume anything. I don't know you and I don't know what specific games you were talking about. There are a lot of racing games that show damage modeling, most of them have arcadish elements vs realistic.
Not all the Need for Speeds feel realistic, some of them have more arcadish physics. (you've got boost power)
I'm not up to date on the latest Need for Speeds, the last one I played was Underground (which didn't have dmg modeling) nor did Most Wanted on the GC version. I have sort of lost interest in the series so I don't have a clue as to what their doing with Carbon, ProStreet, etc.
PGR is also more of an arcade racer.
Pro Race Driver only had 42 licensed cars. Compared to how many they are including in GT?
GT is going to have different times of the day, inboard dash as the OP has stated, and is a looker, sexy stuff. As much as I would like to see damaged modeling, I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to have it, I also would like to see this game released in 08 and not be delayed another 1-3 years to add in dmg modeling. Theres always GT6 right?
They haven't even confirmed a US release, so it's not likely at the moment. A European version might pop up, but then, SCEE have been incredibly slack with their PSN updates.
Zeon: GT5 Prologue will NOT be free, I can guarantee you that much.
Dashui: It's couldn't care less. Sorry, pet peeve :P I agree with you though, I'll say GT5 is the best looking racer ever, hands down. That and the fact that GT does seem to have always had a nicer art style than Forza or PGR IMO. And with PGR4 supposedly hitting the capacity of DVD, it'll be interesting to see if Polyphony take advantage of Blu Ray and pack an obscene amount of textures in.
Everything theyve said has indicated it will be free. I also would guess against it being free, just because its so much of the game, but why second guess the developers?
And yes, all cars are supposed to have in-car cameras, from what ive read.
Honestly the only part im worried about with GT5 is there may be a lack of cars. I mean, we had 700 in GT4, can they top that with all the new stuff theyre adding? I hope so, only because there were still cars there were left out in GT4 (EF chassis Civic, for example) and there are some cars that i really, really want a chance to drive with the new updates (in car cameras, improved physics), like the Honda S600 and one of my real life cars, the CRX, but i honestly kind of feel like they might not add as many cars because of all the improvements. Will they really go through the trouble of accurately modeling the dashboard of cars released in 1968 and 1988, respectively, that arent still insanely popular in modern car culture? I sure hope so, but im not holding my breath.
Plus they havent confirmed very many cars yet either, which is kind of worrying. Even a year before GT4 released, we had a pretty large list of included cars. The list for GT5 right now looks like a Skyline convention, so i guess we're going to have 25+ skylines again this time around. Hopefully theyll still flesh out the other companies as well this time around.
Oh and, speaking of stuff we'd like to see added in this next game, id really like to see modding fleshed out a little more. Not in the neon lights and body kits kind of way, but some more options for upgrading your car, maybe full engine swaps and more brake upgrades, stuff like that. Also a paint shop would be nice this time around, if only for those super rare cars you have to bust your ass to win, only to find out you get the "puke/autumn green" varient. I went back and played some GT4 a few weeks ago, and i was kind of surprised as to how lacking the upgrade systems were. Its basically just different levels of upgrades, other than transmission and suspension tweaking, there really isnt much you can do other than just flat out spend money to make your car perform better (or worse, depending on if you go way too far off the deep end that the car becomes unusable). Seeing it fleshed out a little more with (optional) in depth tweaking would be nice.
Another nice feature would be downloadable cars and tracks, but i think theyve already said they have some sort of scheme for that. I remember some outrage about the game shipping with no tracks, and having to buy them all, but that seems to have blown over and it looks like the game will actually ship with a decent number of tracks, if whats confirmed for the Prologue and the lack of outrage on any GT specific forums ive looked at is any indication. This way atleast, if the roster or track list is lacking at release, theyll atleast have an option to add to it at a later date. Id be willing to pay for car packs or tracks if theyre reasonably priced, lets say =/<5 dollars.
Oh, and the prologue demo probably wont be releasing on the US PSN. The demos only supposed to be up on the JPN network until mid november. Honestly you might as well download the japanese version instead of waiting, especially because its pretty easy to play. The important menus (race, showroom, etc) are in english, the only japanese you have to figure out is on the car set up menu, and if youve played a GT title before, its pretty straight forward. Racing of course involves no knowledge of japanese, all onscreen gauges are either in english, or just numbers.
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I wouldn't be surprised if this had less than GT4, considering they've started from scratch again.
I just had a look at the official website and it states:
And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there's less cars in GT5 than there was in GT4. I'm also going to guess that we're not going to see motorbikes in it, though they appeared in some of the earliest screenshots.
PD has said in the past that they think that is ludicrous, and would only model car damage as it occurs, so your car would deform realistically and dynamically when you hit something, as opposed to just changing from the "undamaged" to the "dented" model.
Car damage from a performance standpoint has already made an entry in the GT series. GT2 had an option that would decrease your car's performance depending on how many impacts you had during a race. Here's hoping something similar can be implemented in GT5.
Also, auto manufacturers have put the biggest obstacle into the GT series' way in terms of damage modeling. When you have that many companies to deal with, it gets complicated. Ever wonder why your windshields don't break in the Forza games?
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I loved GT4.
If this game goes back on some of the things that I would call improvements then I'm less than enthused.
Some of those improvements for me being an improved sense of body roll, and a wider and more polished selection of tracks.
You're missing the point. It's less about cosmetic damage and more about actual damage to the mechanics of your car. In Forza: make that 100mph collision? you're not driving anywhere. GT: bounce off and keep on truckin'.
I think you're missing the point. The one where it's not possible to do real (read: not generic like other racing games) car damage on current hardware. Or maybe just the last paragraph.
To break it down, PD doesn't want to do cookie-cutter car damage, and even if they did, it doesn't matter, since auto manufacturers wouldn't allow it.
Saying "Forza has car damage so GT has no excuse" is incredibly short-sighted and ignores the entire picture. Forza has a pathetically paltry list of manufacturers featured compared to the average GT game. While you may be able to wheel and deal your way into car damage (minus things like windshields and tires deflating/falling off and numerous other restrictions) when you're only dealing with a few companies, when you have nearly every major automaker on the planet it becomes considerably more difficult.
On a side note, neither game accurately simulates what actually happens when you hit the wall at 100+mph.
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Cosmetic damage? All marques (including all main consumer a supercar brands) have damage in one game or another. That leaves the obscure ones like RUF or Koenigsegg. Videogames are the new Hotness. They use it as exposure. The opportunity to be in a game (albeit with or without damage) is as attractive to the manufacturers as it is to the devs. To sacrifice and integral part of what is a racing game because Venturi doesn't want their car scratched jeopardies authenticity. Sterilizes the experience.
Component Damage? CodeMasters had that down pretty good on the PSone, be it TOCA/Race Driver/Colin McRae. Individual and non-generic or cookie-cutter faults. And I bet it wouldn't take much to at least get them all on board with this feature even if they didn't want cosmetics touched.
Polyphony after 5 sequels and 10 years? Too hard/too much litigation/can't be accurate enough.
Does not compute.
so because it's impossible to do entirely real damage you should scrap it and make the game a kart racer, right?