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This thread has been linked to the game 'Gran Turismo 5'.
Gran Turismo. The name sends a shiver down the neck of many Sony stalwarts. It’s known for being the most accurate driving simulator on home console, and rightly so. 1000 odd cars, all modelled, carefully designed and even tested in real life to get engine sounds. The sheer amount of detail, time and effort that went in to ensuring each car was as accurate as possible is staggering.
So why, then, does it feel like the menu system was created by an infinite number of monkeys that broke in from the studio next door after being bored of writing the works of Shakespeare? Why does the online racing feel like it was designed for people who don’t want a friends list? And why (oh why) is THAT Jazz music stuck at the start of the intro where a perfectly good rock song should have been?
But first things first. Inserting the disc in the PS3, you still need to suffer through a tedious and lengthy install. Ok, you don’t HAVE to choose the full install, but the time spent waiting between races if you don’t is far more painful. With many games an install and update is a necessity, it gives you time to make a cup of tea, prepare a seat and get comfy. With Gran Turismo 5 it gives you time to go to China and get the tea leaves first.
But then you finally make it in to the game. All seems well, that intro with the plinky plonky sound of someone completely inebriated playing a piano plays out and you get to choose a car. If you can. You see, the menu system wants to make it as difficult for you as possible. Want to change car? Click on the truck, then another place, then somewhere else, which wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t have to change car every few races so that you can actually take part in that race.
Once you’re on the track, though, the feeling changes. Here is where the bread and butter of the game went. Here is where thousands of hours of intense scrutiny worked their way into providing cars that feel almost real. Here is where you race. The sense of speed, feeling of turbulence, and friction against the road surface all work as they should, no mean feat in a game. But then Gran Turismo 5 isn’t really a game. I’ll let that sink in. That’s right, it isn’t a game. Ok, it has online races (more on that in a minute), it has times to beat and trials to complete, but under it all this game is a serious simulator. It has no time for games. If it was in the army it would be a po faced sergeant major with a big moustache, who everyone thinks might be over the hill until he beats all the new recruits over the marine course and then barks at them to hurry up.
But it does, occasionally, try to lighten up. Go Karts, not those lawnmower engine powered seats of death so loved by drunken groups of boys on a day trip, but proper Karts, allow you to experience a far different feeling of handling to a car. One false move and you’re doing a figure of eight faster than a contestant of Dancing On Ice. It’s great fun and almost a game in itself. In fact, if this was released as a stand-alone PSN download then it would get plenty of praise without even having another game tacked on to it.
There is also the much-talked-about Top Gear Test Track. No, it doesn’t have the presenters (more’s the pity, what I wouldn’t pay to hear Clarkson and co commentating on my driving) but the track is all there. Unfortunately, the first time you come across it you’re asked to race camper vans that feel more like bricks with wheels. Many might argue that this is very Top Gear. Many would be wrong. We want a Veyron or a kit car or, if we do have camper vans, we want them to be on fire.
Then there’s the visuals. The graphics on the advert weren’t lying, some of Gran Turismo 5 does look like that, it’s almost like watching or playing real footage. Almost. When you start, though, you wonder what the fuss was about. This is because the Polyphonic Digital team didn’t want to fully render all the old cars using the new rendering system. Now don’t get me wrong, they still look damn good, but they just don’t shine like the later cars and once you unlock the damage modelling, you’ll find that some cars just don’t have damage available either. Oh, that’s right, you need to UNLOCK the damage modelling. Is it me, or is that just madness? It’s like Luke Skywalker getting to the Thermal Exhaust Port on the Death Star and being told that he needs to fly round a few times because the proton torpedoes weren’t quite ready yet.
Trackside scenery is just as bad, while it all looks crisp and as high definition as you could hope for, the occasional 2 dimensional tree will rear its head (or sometimes a whole 2D forest). I’ve thought about this and I have an idea. Maybe, in their bid for accuracy, the team came across a bunch of cardboard trees dotted around many of the race tracks and wanted to go for 100% accuracy. I’m not completely sure, but that does sound like the best explanation, because everything else, from the heat vapour on the road to the blinding light as you exit a tunnel, seems so perfect.
Online didn’t start well. It wasn’t implemented on the disc so a download was required. Fantastic start. The servers then broke for about 3 days while I was busy hoping to show a friend of mine that, yes, a Mini could overtake a Mercedes. When they came back online I couldn’t get a race. In the end I gave up and still to this day have only had one single race online against someone who I didn’t know.
Right, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself; ‘ok, so this is the end of the review. He’s now going to say that Gran Turismo 5 is greater than the sum of its parts and that all the wonky stuff and fiddly monkey-made menus are just a sideshow to the main game.’. Well, first of all stop telling me what to write. This is my review, not yours. Secondly, I’d just like to say that, yes, you’re right. Damn you. Stack everything up in a mathematical formula and you’d come out with some sort of warning against ever playing the game, but experience the racing, sheer concentration on detail and the requirement to be at the top of your game to have a chance of beating your rivals and you have something quite remarkable. Gran Turismo 5 shouldn’t work, but it does. If I was the Pope I’d pronounce it a miracle.
9/10
So why, then, does it feel like the menu system was created by an infinite number of monkeys that broke in from the studio next door after being bored of writing the works of Shakespeare? Why does the online racing feel like it was designed for people who don’t want a friends list? And why (oh why) is THAT Jazz music stuck at the start of the intro where a perfectly good rock song should have been?
But first things first. Inserting the disc in the PS3, you still need to suffer through a tedious and lengthy install. Ok, you don’t HAVE to choose the full install, but the time spent waiting between races if you don’t is far more painful. With many games an install and update is a necessity, it gives you time to make a cup of tea, prepare a seat and get comfy. With Gran Turismo 5 it gives you time to go to China and get the tea leaves first.
But then you finally make it in to the game. All seems well, that intro with the plinky plonky sound of someone completely inebriated playing a piano plays out and you get to choose a car. If you can. You see, the menu system wants to make it as difficult for you as possible. Want to change car? Click on the truck, then another place, then somewhere else, which wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t have to change car every few races so that you can actually take part in that race.
Once you’re on the track, though, the feeling changes. Here is where the bread and butter of the game went. Here is where thousands of hours of intense scrutiny worked their way into providing cars that feel almost real. Here is where you race. The sense of speed, feeling of turbulence, and friction against the road surface all work as they should, no mean feat in a game. But then Gran Turismo 5 isn’t really a game. I’ll let that sink in. That’s right, it isn’t a game. Ok, it has online races (more on that in a minute), it has times to beat and trials to complete, but under it all this game is a serious simulator. It has no time for games. If it was in the army it would be a po faced sergeant major with a big moustache, who everyone thinks might be over the hill until he beats all the new recruits over the marine course and then barks at them to hurry up.
But it does, occasionally, try to lighten up. Go Karts, not those lawnmower engine powered seats of death so loved by drunken groups of boys on a day trip, but proper Karts, allow you to experience a far different feeling of handling to a car. One false move and you’re doing a figure of eight faster than a contestant of Dancing On Ice. It’s great fun and almost a game in itself. In fact, if this was released as a stand-alone PSN download then it would get plenty of praise without even having another game tacked on to it.
There is also the much-talked-about Top Gear Test Track. No, it doesn’t have the presenters (more’s the pity, what I wouldn’t pay to hear Clarkson and co commentating on my driving) but the track is all there. Unfortunately, the first time you come across it you’re asked to race camper vans that feel more like bricks with wheels. Many might argue that this is very Top Gear. Many would be wrong. We want a Veyron or a kit car or, if we do have camper vans, we want them to be on fire.
Then there’s the visuals. The graphics on the advert weren’t lying, some of Gran Turismo 5 does look like that, it’s almost like watching or playing real footage. Almost. When you start, though, you wonder what the fuss was about. This is because the Polyphonic Digital team didn’t want to fully render all the old cars using the new rendering system. Now don’t get me wrong, they still look damn good, but they just don’t shine like the later cars and once you unlock the damage modelling, you’ll find that some cars just don’t have damage available either. Oh, that’s right, you need to UNLOCK the damage modelling. Is it me, or is that just madness? It’s like Luke Skywalker getting to the Thermal Exhaust Port on the Death Star and being told that he needs to fly round a few times because the proton torpedoes weren’t quite ready yet.
Trackside scenery is just as bad, while it all looks crisp and as high definition as you could hope for, the occasional 2 dimensional tree will rear its head (or sometimes a whole 2D forest). I’ve thought about this and I have an idea. Maybe, in their bid for accuracy, the team came across a bunch of cardboard trees dotted around many of the race tracks and wanted to go for 100% accuracy. I’m not completely sure, but that does sound like the best explanation, because everything else, from the heat vapour on the road to the blinding light as you exit a tunnel, seems so perfect.
Online didn’t start well. It wasn’t implemented on the disc so a download was required. Fantastic start. The servers then broke for about 3 days while I was busy hoping to show a friend of mine that, yes, a Mini could overtake a Mercedes. When they came back online I couldn’t get a race. In the end I gave up and still to this day have only had one single race online against someone who I didn’t know.
Right, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself; ‘ok, so this is the end of the review. He’s now going to say that Gran Turismo 5 is greater than the sum of its parts and that all the wonky stuff and fiddly monkey-made menus are just a sideshow to the main game.’. Well, first of all stop telling me what to write. This is my review, not yours. Secondly, I’d just like to say that, yes, you’re right. Damn you. Stack everything up in a mathematical formula and you’d come out with some sort of warning against ever playing the game, but experience the racing, sheer concentration on detail and the requirement to be at the top of your game to have a chance of beating your rivals and you have something quite remarkable. Gran Turismo 5 shouldn’t work, but it does. If I was the Pope I’d pronounce it a miracle.
9/10
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Gran Turismo. The name sends a shiver down the neck of many Sony stalwarts. It’s known for being the most accurate driving simulator on home console, and rightly so. 1000 odd cars, all modelled, carefully designed and even tested in real life to get engine sounds. The sheer amount of detail, time and effort that went in to ensuring each car was as accurate as possible is staggering.
So why, then, does it feel like the menu system was created by an infinite number of monkeys that broke in from the studio next door after being bored of writing the works of Shakespeare? Why does the online racing feel like it was designed for people who don’t want a friends list? And why (oh why) is THAT Jazz music stuck at the start of the intro where a perfectly good rock song should have been?
But first things first. Inserting the disc in the PS3, you still need to suffer through a tedious and lengthy install. Ok, you don’t HAVE to choose the full install, but the time spent waiting between races if you don’t is far more painful. With many games an install and update is a necessity, it gives you time to make a cup of tea, prepare a seat and get comfy. With Gran Turismo 5 it gives you time to go to China and get the tea leaves first.
But then you finally make it in to the game. All seems well, that intro with the plinky plonky sound of someone completely inebriated playing a piano plays out and you get to choose a car. If you can. You see, the menu system wants to make it as difficult for you as possible. Want to change car? Click on the truck, then another place, then somewhere else, which wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t have to change car every few races so that you can actually take part in that race.
Once you’re on the track, though, the feeling changes. Here is where the bread and butter of the game went. Here is where thousands of hours of intense scrutiny worked their way into providing cars that feel almost real. Here is where you race. The sense of speed, feeling of turbulence, and friction against the road surface all work as they should, no mean feat in a game. But then Gran Turismo 5 isn’t really a game. I’ll let that sink in. That’s right, it isn’t a game. Ok, it has online races (more on that in a minute), it has times to beat and trials to complete, but under it all this game is a serious simulator. It has no time for games. If it was in the army it would be a po faced sergeant major with a big moustache, who everyone thinks might be over the hill until he beats all the new recruits over the marine course and then barks at them to hurry up.
But it does, occasionally, try to lighten up. Go Karts, not those lawnmower engine powered seats of death so loved by drunken groups of boys on a day trip, but proper Karts, allow you to experience a far different feeling of handling to a car. One false move and you’re doing a figure of eight faster than a contestant of Dancing On Ice. It’s great fun and almost a game in itself. In fact, if this was released as a stand-alone PSN download then it would get plenty of praise without even having another game tacked on to it.
There is also the much-talked-about Top Gear Test Track. No, it doesn’t have the presenters (more’s the pity, what I wouldn’t pay to hear Clarkson and co commentating on my driving) but the track is all there. Unfortunately, the first time you come across it you’re asked to race camper vans that feel more like bricks with wheels. Many might argue that this is very Top Gear. Many would be wrong. We want a Veyron or a kit car or, if we do have camper vans, we want them to be on fire.
Then there’s the visuals. The graphics on the advert weren’t lying, some of Gran Turismo 5 does look like that, it’s almost like watching or playing real footage. Almost. When you start, though, you wonder what the fuss was about. This is because the Polyphonic Digital team didn’t want to fully render all the old cars using the new rendering system. Now don’t get me wrong, they still look damn good, but they just don’t shine like the later cars and once you unlock the damage modelling, you’ll find that some cars just don’t have damage available either. Oh, that’s right, you need to UNLOCK the damage modelling. Is it me, or is that just madness? It’s like Luke Skywalker getting to the Thermal Exhaust Port on the Death Star and being told that he needs to fly round a few times because the proton torpedoes weren’t quite ready yet.
Trackside scenery is just as bad, while it all looks crisp and as high definition as you could hope for, the occasional 2 dimensional tree will rear its head (or sometimes a whole 2D forest). I’ve thought about this and I have an idea. Maybe, in their bid for accuracy, the team came across a bunch of cardboard trees dotted around many of the race tracks and wanted to go for 100% accuracy. I’m not completely sure, but that does sound like the best explanation, because everything else, from the heat vapour on the road to the blinding light as you exit a tunnel, seems so perfect.
Online didn’t start well. It wasn’t implemented on the disc so a download was required. Fantastic start. The servers then broke for about 3 days while I was busy hoping to show a friend of mine that, yes, a Mini could overtake a Mercedes. When they came back online I couldn’t get a race. In the end I gave up and still to this day have only had one single race online against someone who I didn’t know.
Right, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself; ‘ok, so this is the end of the review. He’s now going to say that Gran Turismo 5 is greater than the sum of its parts and that all the wonky stuff and fiddly monkey-made menus are just a sideshow to the main game.’. Well, first of all stop telling me what to write. This is my review, not yours. Secondly, I’d just like to say that, yes, you’re right. Damn you. Stack everything up in a mathematical formula and you’d come out with some sort of warning against ever playing the game, but experience the racing, sheer concentration on detail and the requirement to be at the top of your game to have a chance of beating your rivals and you have something quite remarkable. Gran Turismo 5 shouldn’t work, but it does. If I was the Pope I’d pronounce it a miracle.
9/10
So why, then, does it feel like the menu system was created by an infinite number of monkeys that broke in from the studio next door after being bored of writing the works of Shakespeare? Why does the online racing feel like it was designed for people who don’t want a friends list? And why (oh why) is THAT Jazz music stuck at the start of the intro where a perfectly good rock song should have been?
But first things first. Inserting the disc in the PS3, you still need to suffer through a tedious and lengthy install. Ok, you don’t HAVE to choose the full install, but the time spent waiting between races if you don’t is far more painful. With many games an install and update is a necessity, it gives you time to make a cup of tea, prepare a seat and get comfy. With Gran Turismo 5 it gives you time to go to China and get the tea leaves first.
But then you finally make it in to the game. All seems well, that intro with the plinky plonky sound of someone completely inebriated playing a piano plays out and you get to choose a car. If you can. You see, the menu system wants to make it as difficult for you as possible. Want to change car? Click on the truck, then another place, then somewhere else, which wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t have to change car every few races so that you can actually take part in that race.
Once you’re on the track, though, the feeling changes. Here is where the bread and butter of the game went. Here is where thousands of hours of intense scrutiny worked their way into providing cars that feel almost real. Here is where you race. The sense of speed, feeling of turbulence, and friction against the road surface all work as they should, no mean feat in a game. But then Gran Turismo 5 isn’t really a game. I’ll let that sink in. That’s right, it isn’t a game. Ok, it has online races (more on that in a minute), it has times to beat and trials to complete, but under it all this game is a serious simulator. It has no time for games. If it was in the army it would be a po faced sergeant major with a big moustache, who everyone thinks might be over the hill until he beats all the new recruits over the marine course and then barks at them to hurry up.
But it does, occasionally, try to lighten up. Go Karts, not those lawnmower engine powered seats of death so loved by drunken groups of boys on a day trip, but proper Karts, allow you to experience a far different feeling of handling to a car. One false move and you’re doing a figure of eight faster than a contestant of Dancing On Ice. It’s great fun and almost a game in itself. In fact, if this was released as a stand-alone PSN download then it would get plenty of praise without even having another game tacked on to it.
There is also the much-talked-about Top Gear Test Track. No, it doesn’t have the presenters (more’s the pity, what I wouldn’t pay to hear Clarkson and co commentating on my driving) but the track is all there. Unfortunately, the first time you come across it you’re asked to race camper vans that feel more like bricks with wheels. Many might argue that this is very Top Gear. Many would be wrong. We want a Veyron or a kit car or, if we do have camper vans, we want them to be on fire.
Then there’s the visuals. The graphics on the advert weren’t lying, some of Gran Turismo 5 does look like that, it’s almost like watching or playing real footage. Almost. When you start, though, you wonder what the fuss was about. This is because the Polyphonic Digital team didn’t want to fully render all the old cars using the new rendering system. Now don’t get me wrong, they still look damn good, but they just don’t shine like the later cars and once you unlock the damage modelling, you’ll find that some cars just don’t have damage available either. Oh, that’s right, you need to UNLOCK the damage modelling. Is it me, or is that just madness? It’s like Luke Skywalker getting to the Thermal Exhaust Port on the Death Star and being told that he needs to fly round a few times because the proton torpedoes weren’t quite ready yet.
Trackside scenery is just as bad, while it all looks crisp and as high definition as you could hope for, the occasional 2 dimensional tree will rear its head (or sometimes a whole 2D forest). I’ve thought about this and I have an idea. Maybe, in their bid for accuracy, the team came across a bunch of cardboard trees dotted around many of the race tracks and wanted to go for 100% accuracy. I’m not completely sure, but that does sound like the best explanation, because everything else, from the heat vapour on the road to the blinding light as you exit a tunnel, seems so perfect.
Online didn’t start well. It wasn’t implemented on the disc so a download was required. Fantastic start. The servers then broke for about 3 days while I was busy hoping to show a friend of mine that, yes, a Mini could overtake a Mercedes. When they came back online I couldn’t get a race. In the end I gave up and still to this day have only had one single race online against someone who I didn’t know.
Right, I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself; ‘ok, so this is the end of the review. He’s now going to say that Gran Turismo 5 is greater than the sum of its parts and that all the wonky stuff and fiddly monkey-made menus are just a sideshow to the main game.’. Well, first of all stop telling me what to write. This is my review, not yours. Secondly, I’d just like to say that, yes, you’re right. Damn you. Stack everything up in a mathematical formula and you’d come out with some sort of warning against ever playing the game, but experience the racing, sheer concentration on detail and the requirement to be at the top of your game to have a chance of beating your rivals and you have something quite remarkable. Gran Turismo 5 shouldn’t work, but it does. If I was the Pope I’d pronounce it a miracle.
9/10