Reviews// Gran Turismo 5

Gran Turismo 5 even caters for people who don’t want to drive a car at all. Through the B-spec events you can develop your own racing driver(s) who takes your place behind the wheel.

There is an illusion of control from the pit wall as you can issue four different comments (slow down, speed up, overtake, and maintain speed) to get the best out of your driver during each race. On the plus side you can generate money and unlock cars through these events. Personally though, I found it very dull watching someone else drive. I’d much rather do it myself.

I am not The Stig
Because Kazunori Yamauchi (Gran Tursimo director and creator) is a huge fan of the show, the Top Gear Test Track forms part of every license test and gets a special event all to its own.

Whilst the track itself is not inherently spectacular, situated within a big and fairly featureless aerodrome, I was looking forward to driving it for myself. However, as with many things in Gran Turismo 5, first impressions are not at all good. I was forced to drive around the track in slow-ass Volkswagen SambaBus '62. Worse still, I had to race against other slow-ass SambaBuses that collectively produce the most boring race I’ve ever driven in my gaming life.

Touch one of the many red cones, drive slightly off the track or bump another van and you get disqualified and have to start the entire race again. This is sure-fire way to kill people’s enthusiasm. I did discover a shortcut of sorts to the Hammerhead corner that allowed me to overtake about three cars every lap and that didn’t get me disqualified. The Stig would not be impressed, I’m sure.

If you had visions, like me, of testing out a menagerie of supercars around the Top Gear Test Track then you need to unlock the track first by winning in the SambaBus race. This is much easier said than done, trust me. Gaahhhh! Life is too short for this shit. I’ll die of boredom first!

A few more niggles
Generally the foliage that surrounds most of the tracks looks like it was ripped straight from the PlayStation 2 Gran Turismo games (i.e. a bit rough looking). Many tracks suffer from appalling graphical pop-up, with huge sections blocking on right in front of you.

The rally stages in particular suffer most, with giant sweeping vistas of snow and ice appearing from nowhere. You will spend almost the entire game using one (normal view) of the four driving views available. The other views are practically a complete waste of time and effort. That includes the interior view, which although interesting and pretty to look at in the premium cars, does make tracks feel that they are an unusually long way away from you. This is not a feeling I get in a real car.

You really need a driving wheel controller to post a genuinely quick time on many of the tracks. I dismally failed one of the Jeff Gordon (who looks like a Thunderbird puppet in the game) NASCAR challenges because the original PlayStation 3 controller wasn’t sensitive enough. There was no way in hell I was ever going to thread my NASCAR through a tiny corridor of track between the wall and some cones around a bend at high speed. The merest tap on the D-pad or analog stick resulted in a collision with either the wall or the cones which disqualified me.

Standards
The standard cars, which comprise the vast majority (~80%) of the 1,000+ cars in Gran Turismo 5 have been poorly upgraded from previous Gran Turismo games and feature some shoddy graphics. When you compare them with the ultra detailed and truly stunning premium cars, the standard cars look really awful. Gran Turismo 5 would have been a great game with just with the premium cars.

And finally, why do you have to click “OK” to get past the, “Please don’t switch off your console whilst ....blah, blah, blah” message? This stops you from setting the game loading and doing something else technique. Whilst this is not a major thing, it does add that little annoyance that we all could do without.

Nearing the chequered flag
If there ever were a game where the term “less is more” rings true then Gran Turismo 5 is it. The amount of cars included borders on the obsessive and raises the question: “Is building another Nissan car to add the other 15 a worthwhile exercise?”. The pursuit of a gargantuan car collection is at the expense of many of the basic elements of a decent game: reasonable loadings times, well designed menus / interface and decent graphics.

Gran Turismo 5 has the unique ability to look both truly stunning and bloody awful at the same time. The juxtaposition of stunningly detailed premium cars (inside and out) against a backdrop of beautiful tracks with mind-bogglingly dumb driver AI and hideous graphical pop-up out is all very puzzling. Polyphony Digital are guilty of neglecting the whole Gran Turismo user experience at the expense of adding an unnecessary amount of cars.

Multi-player
As with many things in life, the first time you attempt something you don’t always get it right. Gran Turismo 5 is the first game in the series to feature multi-player. In keeping with the rest of the game it’s not exactly bursting with cutting edge design and functionality.