Gran Turismo 5

So Gran Turismo 5 has finnaly arrived but some people are complaing about it doesn't worth the waiting time... Well beside that I made some observations in-game and prepare yourselves for probably the longest review I ever made


Driving Physics

Most realistic car handling physics on console platforms? No doubt. Are they absolutely correct on every single car? Not really. For an obvious example, compared with its real life counterpart Lotus Elise 111R '04 (Premium) in Top Gear Test Track Challenge drives like a different car. Why so? Because Top Gear (UK) in one episode tested exactly the same car, and both Jeremy Clarkson and The Stig praised its remarkable handling instead of the current GT5's "floating" one. (Might have something to do with tyres…)

To my surprise, the online multiplayer has its different sets of driving physics. In general, with exactly the same car the multiplayer one is slightly more oversteer. Although it can be fixed by tuning the car, this should not have happened in the first place.

Rally driving has been improved, but is still far from being called realistic. I think the problem might be Japanese people are more interested in Tarmac Rally Racing rather than dirt and snow ones, which reflected Phonypoly Digital's decision or experience as most of the staff are Japanese. You may think after 12 years (since GT2), they would hire some experienced Western developers or ask them for advices.


Car Modelling and Selection

Yes, GT5 has more than 1000 cars, but about 50% of them are Japanese cars and only about 20% of them are Premium. So what's the different between Standard and Premium?

Standard cars: Low body modelling (ranging from GT4 quality to sub-GT5 quality), some of them look uglier than they were in GT4 due to HD up-scaling. Low damage system (only scratches and minor body shaping). No Cockpit Camera view or any in-car camera view.

Premium cars: High body modelling (but there're still some differences, race cars generally are much more detailed than production cars and some everyday production cars look less realistic than high-market production cars). High damage system (but only race cars have much more detailed damages). Cockpit Camera view, detailed interior, working dashboard (lights up at night), shifting motions (gear changing), etc. Advanced lighting, full/low beam headlight, much brighter than Standard cars' headlight, much more detailed backlight.

When in a race every car is Standard, you probably think you are playing a PS2 era game if the track is low detailed as well (that will be discussed later).

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is a Standard car…yeah, I know this issue must have been brought up thousands of times (if not millions) by now. GT5's Standard/Premium decision is unbelievable and unreasonable. One Toyota Prius is Premium, yeah you heard me right, and there're other non-sport cars get Premium treatment as well which should have been given to more Le Mans Prototype race cars or well-known sport cars. Then 56% out of 1000+ cars are Japanese and most of them are directly ported from GT4; and you get 50+ different era/version of Nissan Skyline/GT-R cars (by GTPlanet.net), that's 5% or 1/20 out of all cars. The long development made GT5 significantly lacks up-to-date new cars, and Porsche is out of question again, not to mention the exclusion of Koenigsegg (famous Swedish supercar manufacturer). While finally Ferrari has made its way to Gran Turismo series, the ultimate Ferrari FXX is not included.

I can keep going on about GT5's car modelling/selection, but you get the picture: too few new cars, too many ugly Standard cars, unreasonable Standard/Premium treatment, and too many Japanese cars (I like some Japanese cars, but this is all too much).


Damage System

You mean GT5 has damage system? Yeah, or sort of. I'm currently Level 32 (A-Spec, Level 33 B-Spec), and yet to discover any noticeable car damages. For example, in Extreme Series - NASCAR Daytona, I got pit by AI (that will be discussed later) and then got hit multiple times by incoming cars at 300+KPH of speed, and the result? Just some scratches and minor body shaping (nothing change inside the car, no interior damage), then throttle on and keep going as normal exactly like previous GT games. You would think that kind of accident should have put you out of race immediately along with other damaged AI cars. Nope, they keep running and you suffer the defeat. You need to hit your Premium car (any) multiple times at 200+KPH directly into a wall to get some decent body damages, which in real world situation your car will be totally destroyed on first impact. There's no excuse for this lame damage system since other games have already done more realistically, e.g. Colin McRae DiRT series. What about promised mechanical damages? Not in GT Mode (Offline Career mode), so far online and arcade (and Practice mode as well) only. This is just another example showing a problem that should not have existed in the first place. Why the online multiplayer gets different sets of physics engine? I honestly don't know.

Apart from unrealistic damages, there's another problem - Glue Effect. 1) AI cars seem to have been glued on the track, you can hardly pit them as if they are suddenly as heavy as tanks or lorries/trucks; 2) When you hit track objects like wall barriers, your car is literally glued onto them; and since there's no realistic damage, you car doesn't normally bounce off on impact, instead, your car only comes off when the speed is reduced enough.


Tracks

When you think there should be no quality difference this time, unfortunately there're. Generally speaking, City Tracks are most detailed, and they look quite fascinated; World Circuits are still not too bad, but they have those GT4 era looks sometimes even while you're racing; Original Circuits, some are good, some not so (they look almost like they were in GT4); Fixed Snow/Dirt Tracks, they're fine, you can even say almost as good as City Tracks (except those obvious 2D crowds and low-rec trees); The Top Gear Test Track, well let's just say not good enough; Worst of all are the randomly generated dirt/snow tracks, they look awfully unreal and take the sim driving feeling out of water.

Only a handful of tracks have the new Weather and Day/Night shifting features. The raining effects are currently buggy, the rain drops will make car exterior appear jaggy (especially while you're following another car). The headlights are too bright in raining situation (especially while you're following another car, makes cockpit cam too blurry to drive), and are too dark on some night tracks (especially the randomly generated night tarmac tracks). Tyre smoke, dirt dust and snow dust will make cars' exterior jaggy as well which look ugly in replay footages.

Since Phonypoly Digital did use some GT4's tracks without too many changes, why not use them all? I have no idea why the Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Seattle and all other fantastic tracks been left out. GT5's total track numbers and places are far from enough as current generation racing game; we get new ones and lost old good ones.


AI System

Well, this is a painful section with the history of GT series all the time. In short, the AI drivers are on "rail" mostly. They don't behave like regular real word professional drivers, and there are no difficulty settings in career mode to make them "smarter" or "dumper". Even using same level/power cars you can still beat AI drivers with ease (for hardcore gamers or experienced racing game players). Thus the intense driving can only be experienced by using lesser power cars; however, you will then face another problem - AI pit manoeuvres. The sad thing is that its no because AI is acting aggressively but mindlessly following race lines at all costs. Worse even, after the pitting and lose control your car will then get rammed by incoming AI cars until you're out of their driving lines or they get slow down enough and you can move on. Only on one track you can't beat AI drivers easily with same level/power cars - Daytona Superspeedway. That's because of the overpowered streamlining/drag effect, as AI cars can drag you up and pit you out (U-Turns).

Phonypoly Digital obviously didn't put much effort to improve AI system, nor have they actually put any serious thoughts into it. You're still facing god-like AI drivers if you don't use proper cars to compete, since they almost never make mistakes. (B-Spec will be discussed later)


Level System and Licence System

Race Events are locked up by the new levelling system instead of traditional Licence Tests. Everyone begins at level 0, and the level cap is currently set at 40.

Levelling 1-10: Very fast, if you have done all the Licence tests (mostly Gold and Silver medals), Special Events (mostly Gold and Silver medals) and win most race events.

Levelling 11-25: Still not too bad, if you keep doing the Special Events (mostly Gold and Silver medals) and win every possible race events.

As for casual gamers, the levelling process may involve lots of grinding works, and they're not fun to do at all.

Levelling 26-40: Well, grinding works for everyone; because the level gap grows enormously in number.

B-Spec levelling will involve more grinding works due to longer race event and lesser XP gain.

The grinding works would not have happened if GT5 keeps using the traditional Licence Lock system.

Since GT5 abandoned the licence lock system its predecessors used, it now becomes just another "Special Event". It might present some challenges if you want to gold them all; otherwise most people do it due to XP and prize cars.


The Stand Alone B-Spec

The sum up: doubled play time (or even tripled) with reduced rewards, and lots of boring and frustrated experience. However, there are two positive reasons to "play" (more like watching all the way…) - Trophies and prize cars (e.g. Pagani Zonda R, Toyota 7 Race Car, and Audi R8 LMS).

You manage the Pace of your driver, and Pit command later on. You should dismiss the Auto-Pit function as it can get you to lose in an Endurance event due to AI drivers pitting every lap after certain time past. Your management skills will only be tested when you get your AI drivers to use similar powered car as to other AIs, and most of the time this would result in swearing at your TV screen or banging your head to the wall. On the other hand, when given a vastly overpowered car, your incompetent AI drivers suddenly know how to race and win on their own.

The poor AI system is displayed with its every single design flaw in B-Spec you can find in GT5. To this point, there're a lot videos on YouTube have shown various problems of GT5's AI, so I just point out some that cannot be avoided during normal gameplay: AI drivers are known to hit the downhill chicane in Côte d'Azur, especially the one driving 2J Race Car; AI drivers are also known to spin out at the last chicane of Nürburgring GP, especially in Formula Gran Turismo Championship event.

Why the other AI rivals seemed never to make any mistakes? Well, they're the same A-Spec AIs with slightly reduced pace and armed with re-generated Physical & Mental Strength. Thus, for people who like GT4's B-Spec (part of A-Spec itself), they might find GT5's separated B-Spec mode is kind of pointless.


Race Events and Rewarding System

The race events are quite short and small compared to GT4 ones, even with the stand alone B-Spec. In just 6 weeks of playing, I managed a 97% overall finished, with some lengthy endurance races left. With the poorly designed reward system (too little credits gain, and mostly awful prize cars which you can only get for one time) and the huge level gap after Lv. 25, there isn't much replay value of early events as they don't provide much XP or money gain. The Endurance Series (unlocked when you reach Level 25) reward too few credits compared to the time you spend on them. For example, the tiresome 4H Nürburgring Nordschleife (layout V) only rewards me about half million credits; the same 4 hours if I spend grinding the American Indy-500 track would get me more than 6 million credits (patch v1.05).

Most prize cars are Standard, including the Special Events and Licence Tests. Some of them are really ugly with blocky textures and jaggy lines. It's good that PD does not intend to hide negative side of GT5, or did they forget? Some of them are so pointless that you would never want to see them again after receiving them; care to drive some low power historic shopping cars? Moreover, more than 50% of the prize cars are "priceless", which means they have no value for selling that you can only throw them out of your garage.

In all, want to get credits and buy your favourite expensive cars? Grind works of you go. Want to level up so you can unlock high level events? Grind works of you go. Want to unlock the free Red Bull X2010 (called X1 before patch v1.05) at B-Spec Lv. 35? More grind works of you go. Want to buy those crazy Cr. 20,000,000 cars? Much more grind works of you go…


Go-Kart, NASCAR, WRC and Top Gear Test Track

Go-Kart, to my surprise, is quite enjoyable than I expected. The Kart has a driving physics of its own which may need some time to get used to. I would like to replay the event but since the XP and credits can be gained only once, there's no point doing them all over again. PD should have planned more events for Kart racing, preferably in A-Spec/B-Spec.

Despite not being a NASCAR fan, I found NASCAR cars are quite interesting to drive. They're not as easy to drive as they look on TV that people normally think you just need to "turn left". However, there're more can be done with the NASCAR licence in GT5, e.g. real rules and longer season events.

WRC, a mostly wasted licence. Not a single WRC registered rally track is presented in GT5, and lots of legendary rally cars are just Standard quality. As mentioned before, the rally physics is utterly disappointing. If remember right, even GT4 has more convincing rally race events and tracks. Want some serious rally races? I'm sorry but you will be better off with Colin McRae series.

Top Gear Test Track, yet another mostly wasted licence. After all those fancy advertisements, what you finally get is three odd overtake events. You cannot do a standing start (grip start) on this track anywhere in the game. Yup, want to compare your time with Top Gear's Power Lap? No way. At least get some epic rival events, e.g. EVO vs. IMPREZA, Audi vs. BMW vs. Benz, or Corvette ZR1 vs. Viper SRT-10 vs. Ford GT. No nothing, it seems as if PD added this so-called Top Gear event at the very last minute.


Seasonal Events, Online Market Place and other updates

Patch v1.05 brings us the Seasonal Events with Bonus Races, Drift Trials and Time Trials. Only Bonus Races will reward you with extra XP and credits. (No prize car, unfortunately…), the other two have online leader-board to keep up people's spirit.

At first, the Bonus Races have quite strict rules to limit your cars; then came the 3rd update to remove all the regulations which now you can win with ease by overpowered cars. As same as the Special Events, all the XP and credits can be won only once that removes the replay value.

The Online Market Place finally can get most people back to finish the Formula Gran Turismo Championship, which was hard to do so due to the extremely rare car Formula Gran Turismo itself. However, people will now realise that they have more grind works to deal with to get 5 million credits.

The last patch fixed many minor issues such as replay functions, wheel compatibilities, and mechanical damage for practice mode. However, there're still a lot of things left to deal with to make GT5 closer to a finish version.


Some Final Words

After a near three thousand words "essay", there're still many issues left undiscussed. Gran Turismo 5 will success commercially as it has already sold more than 5 millions in 6 weeks, according to SONY. However, it will never reach the height that GT3 achieved with PS2 (15 million sales), nor the GT4's wide popularity.