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Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
The King of all driving sims returns with this taster for the upcoming Gran Turismo 5. It’ll set you back just under £20 for the disc or £25 to download, which to be honest should be the other way around.
Extras? In Europe? But of course!
If you got over excited and imported a copy of the game from Japan, prepare to kick yourself. Hard.
Against the rule of tradition, European gamers are to get the enhanced version. That’s right the European GT5 Prologue will have loads more features than the import. We’re not talking a couple of extra cars and new music tracks either.
More like an extra 30 cars! Including the World Championship winning red Formula 1 Ferrari F2007. Sony says it’s like having a “God Mode.” Get in!
Want to push each car to its limit? Well now you can as the High Speed Ring returns, just for us! Plus the drift mode from the concept demo makes a return, rewarding you points for sliding round corners with precision.
The Main Game
You start off with very little credits (the game's currency) so you have to buy a dirt-cheap rotter. Don’t despair it’s not too long before you can buy something half decent.
There are three leagues with ten events each, A, B and C. Starting off in C, some races will let you use any car, while others may ask you to use a specific model. And boy do they mean specific! If you buy an 07 Lancer instead of a 05 Lancer by mistake you’ll have to earn more money to buy the other one too as you can’t get a refund!
Some races will start you off in the middle of the starting grid while some will start you right at the back. There are Time Attack trials where you may have to do laps for ten minutes to try and record the highest time. As long as you finish in the top three for each event in a league you'll be allowed to take part in higher league events.
If you can’t seem to win an event, see what car keeps winning it and save up for it. You'll probably beat the whole field by quarter of a lap now.
Multiplayer
Two player split-screen mode has returned, an option painfully absent from many great online PS3 titles. This IS included despite the box saying it’s only one player, it’s in the first update you are offered the first time you play.
Online
Finally Gran Turismo has a proper online mode. Up to 16 players can race on any of the tracks. When it works properly it's great fun. But it's having a few problems at the moment. Cars appear to disappear and reappear all over the place. Sometimes one will reappear in the same space you're in which ends badly for both of you.
So for now, while it gets sorted you may be better off competing in the time trials. Every car has its own league table for each track and your time is uploaded to the table almost instantly. Knocking off a second or two off your best time could send you up hundreds of places!
There's always something...
So half price should net you half the full game yeah? No. You get 60 cars (not bad) and 6 tracks (shocking).
It's all a bit slow and dull to start with while you have to ride around in a hatchback for the first few races and the excitement is low. If playing Burnout is like eating too many sweets, this part of the game feels like going to the dentists.
There are a few other negative points that hopefully will be fixed by the time the full game rolls out. There’s still no car damage, so if you hit another car expect it to bounce off like a bumper car at a fairground, it even sounds the same.
The music isn’t great, you can adjust the volume but not the tracklisting for during the races. The biggest audio crime is the pretentious piano lounge music for the home menu. Utterly horrid.
The menus are a little slow to navigate, especially when shopping for a new car and there isn't any option to test-drive them before buying, so be careful with your credits.
The tuning options are very limited (by Gran Turismo’s own high standards). You can adjust a few driving aids but don’t expect to be able to fiddle around with gear ratios and the like. Pre-release we were led to believe that you would be able to change the driving aids mid-race, this hasn’t happened as yet.
As yet, because downloadable updates are a big part of the game, so this is something that could be included at anytime.
But hey. There’s way more good than bad
If you can get over the above points, then you’re going to love it. The graphics are stunning, especially if you have a 1080p TV. The cars look incredible outside and inside as all the interiors are accurately modelled too.
The in-car view works incredibly well and adds a real sense of speed to the series for the first time. If you’re using a left-hand drive car the map obscures the mirror a little, but it's quite forgivable. It’s a great feeling hearing your tyres squeal as you slide around a corner, your car sideways, hoping you're going to straighten out in time. It’s even better doing it on the last corner in 2nd place and your momentum gives you the edge to nose ahead of the leader for the checkered flag.
Yes, we’re still talking about a Gran Turismo game. While always technically impressive the series has never been that exciting. Until now.
Feel free to upload replays online of your best races with the replay system which really show off the games graphics, it's a shame you can't fast-forward them though, especially if you want to check out a final corner move.
Become the Stig
A great new feature is the ‘racing line’ that shows the best line and braking points, which helps you learn the track and makes the whole game a bit less intimidating for non-experts.
Try and keep to the blue line and use your brakes when the line goes red. Some corners will also indicate the recommended mph you should be at for that point. It works really well but you can still discover a better line yourself sometimes that matches your driving style. And yes, the line changes depended what car you’re driving.
The game is very short so this is for those of you that can’t wait to play the full game; others may feel a bit short-changed.
The developers must be getting close to their final vision now that they have the technology to put it all together. So by the time the full game rolls out there should be more tuning options and car damage. Don’t be surprised if it misses its late September release date, but that might be a good thing if it means only releasing it when the online mode is ready.
Overall 8/10
Developer: Polyphony Digital
Publisher: Sony
Genre: Racing sim
Age: 3+
Platforms: PS3
