Autocar - First for car news and reviews

What is it?

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is, despite its name, the eighth incarnation of Polyphony Digital’s iconic racing series for Sony’s various PlayStations. Given that GT4 Mobile, the long-awaited version for the portable PSP handheld console, has seemingly been scrapped, GT5: Prologue is effectively the first new product in four years from Polyphony and its lead producer, Kazunori Yamauchi.

It’s the first GT game to have been designed from scratch for the PlayStation 3, and...Read the full article

Agree it needs a damage model, but apparently the car manufacturers will never allow it. Shame really. Would be great fun seeing how a Veyron rolls at 250mph.

Glad to see Ferrari are in this time.. Turismo usually gets round the Porsche exclusion with RUF versions but I'm amazed Porsche don't want to be associated with the finest racer game on the planet! Graphics look fantastic, hope the 'feel' and experience is in the same league.

What nonsense. If you want decent driving/racing sims, a PC is the only way to go.

For detail, try GT legends on a high end PC, it is stunning.

For racing accuracy, to a terrifyingly anal extent, try the GTR and GTR2 games from Simbin.

These are just glossy showrooms and if the developers spent less on licensing the all the cars and more on gameplay, they'd be so much better.

Having said that, I can't vouch for GT5, but GT4 et al were rubbish.

Looks brilliant, I can't wait to play it, the previous 4 iterations were all epic, improving on each generation, this series stands head and shoulders above all others.

I've played GT Legends, GTR, GTR2 and rFactor, and love them all. Are they more accurate than GT5? Well, the fact that they have damage models is a good start... However, they are all purely racing games, motorSPORT simulations. If you compare GT5 with the PC's road car racing game - something like Need for Speed or Test Drive - it walks all over any of them.

I think you're being a tad cruel to GT5 and the PS3 here, too. A high-end PC is, let's say, £600 and above.  You'll be able to pick up GT5 and a PS3 in the one box for around half that amount. And you can play it in the living room, too; I have about six computers in my household, but I wouldn't want any of them anywhere near my sofa....

In any case, what's wrong with a bit of automotive porn? ;-)

John
 

I think you've been a bit harsh on Gran Turismo. I have a recing driver friend who has competed in a number of cars on most UK tracks, and he seems to think that GT4 is the most accurate game he has every played, especially with regards to the car setup.

GT Legends and rFactor are great, but that doesn't have to take anything away from GT5

I hold a world record in GT4, for fastest 0-400 meters in a production car, 7.634 seconds

http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r131/louisxiv42/?action=view&current=MVI_0517.flv

and have the played the game extensively. It is as it says on the box, a driving simulator, other car games don't even try to say they are a simulator. There is just so many settings on a car to change, that is what sets the game above the rest. Although I am excited by this prologue, it is still not enough reason to buy a ps3. I think I'll wait for the full version to come out. But, I might spend a few days playing it for free in an electronics store.

1/ GT Legends, GTR, GTR2 and rFactor run at 1080p with antialiasing 4x and anisotropic filtering 4x (so better than PS3), on my 400 euros computer (£315) 2/ No damage = no sim. how can you call this a simulation when all you need to do to win is push the other cars off track ? this makes GT5P a SOLO driving simulator at best. 3/ Said PC games are open for modding by players communities, meaning we get FREE addons... how about the full 1955 F1 season, 1988 Le Mans, old-school Group B rally, D1 drifting series, Superkarts, rallycross, VW Funcup, ALMS and many many more ? 4/ Does GT5(P) support TrackIR devices ? (the point of view in the game follows your head's movement) Or extensive online championship customization ? Does it easily (natively) display on 3 monitors ? Or even allow you to design your own aerodynamic parts, with realistic downforce & drag, then fit and set them up for your favourite car ? The GT franchise is just that: a shiny, feel-good, solo, non-racing simulator with very good driving physics, pushed by the Massive marketing power of Sony Entertainment Ltd., to make huge money. There is some passion in there, but only a laughably small amount when compared to rFactor, for example. Sounds like racing your 800bhp cruise,pose and straight drag Mustang against my Lotus Elise GT1... ;)

Ddjo:

how can you call this a simulation when all you need to do to win is push the other cars off track ?

 

they're trying to correct this by penalising cars who bump too much by reducing their power temporarily.

i played GT5 Prologue for an hour or so on friday night.  it was pretty, can't deny the graphics are good, that said, once you're into the game you sorta take it for granted and it loses the wow factor.

as for actual gameplay, i found it very similar to GT4.  I was using the GT4 pro steering wheel and that worked well.  with all the driver aids on, it actually seemed a bit easier, even driving a notoriously tail happy DC5 (intergra type r).

sound was a disappointment, the cars we drove which were a DC5, WRX and Suzuki Cappuchino all sounded pretty much the same!  

all in all, it was very good, but no real advance over GT4 apart from the graphics. In fact after an hour of 2 player shenanigans, we went back to Pro Evo 8 and kept playing that till 3am!

 

If there is a damage model, I hope it's switchable. I'd rather not have one.

I don't know about you lot, but around the Nurburgring on GT4 I tend to have one or two offs per lap that would, in reality, break a wheel/the suspension/some bodywork/me, yet only cost a few seconds on the game.

Besides, the AI of other cars isn't so good that they don't run into you, which would make it pretty unfair too.

If I had to re-start a race every time I had a minor nerf (and if the damage model is accurate, that's what would happen), I'd get nowhere. My PS2 would get somewhere, mind -- lobbed through a closed window into the front garden, most likely.

 

 

A damage model is coming in the near future, probably as a downloadable content addition. There are plenty of recent interviews with the developer stating that he has only a few more manufacturers to come on-line. This is all a bit smoke and mirrors to be honest, as there are damage models in most of the other main competitive titles. You can see some of these interviews on the GT5 channel.