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This thread has been linked to the game 'Gran Turismo 5: Prologue'.
It seems strange playing a demo of something that, in itself, is really only a demo of a game, but Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is in many ways more than just a demo of what Gran Turismo 5 will be. The demo was released to the Japanese PSN store on Saturday 20th October (you can sign up to the Japanese store by using any Japanese address) and will be available until 11th November.
But before I give you my impressions, let me explain what this ‘Prologue’ series is about. The last Prologue game, based on GT4 was infamous for supposedly displaying the basics of what will become the next ‘proper’ Gran Turismo game; eg Graphics and Handling, but not actually ending up anything like the full game. With GT 5 Prologue, there was a far greater attempt to produce the same feel that the full GT 5 will have. The Prologue game will come on Blu-ray and as a download, with 5 tracks and over 50 cars. It will also have a full 16-player online game included. So it’s still a demo, in a way, of the full GT 5, but has enough meat on it’s oily bones to be a game in itself.
Back to the demo, then. What we get here is 7 playable cars and 1 track, Suzuka. More cars have been promised and 2 more have been made available as part of the Tokyo Motor Show this week, though I’ve not yet looked to see if they were playable yet. The 7 initial cars are the Nissan GT-R, the Lexus IS-F, Mazda Atenza, the Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR, Daihatsu OFC-1, and the BMW 135i.
The game starts with a lovely animation of your car being lovingly checked by helmeted staff. The menu allows you to race, choose your car, check out GT-TV and customise settings. GT-TV is a new idea that allows you to access full TV programmes related to the cars. Top Gear will be one of the featured programmes when the game comes out here and they’ll even include the Top Gear test track in the full game. However, for the purpose of this demo, the GT-TV function wasn’t working.
Getting into a game is just a matter of choosing a car then clicking on the race icon. A few options allow you to choose your laps etc before getting in to the race proper. What finally meets you is a stunning bunch of car models and some of the best scenery to ever grace a racing game. Even on SD televisions this is hard to beat, but having the chance to see it running in HD is unbelievable. The game runs at full 1080p 60fps, which is pretty much as good as you’ll get. It outperforms Forza, it’s nearest rival, and even PGR4 in the graphics department. Light effects just have to be seen to be believed.
The race gave me a chance to check out the handling. Now, I’m no car expert, but I have played the previous Gran Turismo games and I can safely say that the handling is the best yet. It’s pretty much perfect. Sounds are limited to the soundtrack and the purring of the car’s engine, which, I guess, is probably pretty accurate too. I don’t make a habit of listening to highly tuned engines (hey, I’m not Jeremy Clarkson!).
But it’s watching the replay that really makes you understand how far the game has come. The cars all look so real and the track so detailed, then you realise, playing the track again, that the actual game looks pretty much exactly the same as the replay!
Ok, it still has faults. There’s absolutely no damage and you still can’t stop a game mid-play and restart after a bad start the first time around, which is pretty annoying. But based on this demo, the game itself is going to pip every other racing game to the post.
But before I give you my impressions, let me explain what this ‘Prologue’ series is about. The last Prologue game, based on GT4 was infamous for supposedly displaying the basics of what will become the next ‘proper’ Gran Turismo game; eg Graphics and Handling, but not actually ending up anything like the full game. With GT 5 Prologue, there was a far greater attempt to produce the same feel that the full GT 5 will have. The Prologue game will come on Blu-ray and as a download, with 5 tracks and over 50 cars. It will also have a full 16-player online game included. So it’s still a demo, in a way, of the full GT 5, but has enough meat on it’s oily bones to be a game in itself.
Back to the demo, then. What we get here is 7 playable cars and 1 track, Suzuka. More cars have been promised and 2 more have been made available as part of the Tokyo Motor Show this week, though I’ve not yet looked to see if they were playable yet. The 7 initial cars are the Nissan GT-R, the Lexus IS-F, Mazda Atenza, the Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR, Daihatsu OFC-1, and the BMW 135i.
The game starts with a lovely animation of your car being lovingly checked by helmeted staff. The menu allows you to race, choose your car, check out GT-TV and customise settings. GT-TV is a new idea that allows you to access full TV programmes related to the cars. Top Gear will be one of the featured programmes when the game comes out here and they’ll even include the Top Gear test track in the full game. However, for the purpose of this demo, the GT-TV function wasn’t working.
Getting into a game is just a matter of choosing a car then clicking on the race icon. A few options allow you to choose your laps etc before getting in to the race proper. What finally meets you is a stunning bunch of car models and some of the best scenery to ever grace a racing game. Even on SD televisions this is hard to beat, but having the chance to see it running in HD is unbelievable. The game runs at full 1080p 60fps, which is pretty much as good as you’ll get. It outperforms Forza, it’s nearest rival, and even PGR4 in the graphics department. Light effects just have to be seen to be believed.
The race gave me a chance to check out the handling. Now, I’m no car expert, but I have played the previous Gran Turismo games and I can safely say that the handling is the best yet. It’s pretty much perfect. Sounds are limited to the soundtrack and the purring of the car’s engine, which, I guess, is probably pretty accurate too. I don’t make a habit of listening to highly tuned engines (hey, I’m not Jeremy Clarkson!).
But it’s watching the replay that really makes you understand how far the game has come. The cars all look so real and the track so detailed, then you realise, playing the track again, that the actual game looks pretty much exactly the same as the replay!
Ok, it still has faults. There’s absolutely no damage and you still can’t stop a game mid-play and restart after a bad start the first time around, which is pretty annoying. But based on this demo, the game itself is going to pip every other racing game to the post.
Theres a 5 1 theres 2 much they are all rubbish the best one was ........... 4
£279.99 (many places online)
Well, they're £299 now if you don't mind the lack of Backward Compatibility!
I want a PS3 :(
It seems strange playing a demo of something that, in itself, is really only a demo of a game, but Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is in many ways more than just a demo of what Gran Turismo 5 will be. The demo was released to the Japanese PSN store on Saturday 20th October (you can sign up to the Japanese store by using any Japanese address) and will be available until 11th November.
But before I give you my impressions, let me explain what this ‘Prologue’ series is about. The last Prologue game, based on GT4 was infamous for supposedly displaying the basics of what will become the next ‘proper’ Gran Turismo game; eg Graphics and Handling, but not actually ending up anything like the full game. With GT 5 Prologue, there was a far greater attempt to produce the same feel that the full GT 5 will have. The Prologue game will come on Blu-ray and as a download, with 5 tracks and over 50 cars. It will also have a full 16-player online game included. So it’s still a demo, in a way, of the full GT 5, but has enough meat on it’s oily bones to be a game in itself.
Back to the demo, then. What we get here is 7 playable cars and 1 track, Suzuka. More cars have been promised and 2 more have been made available as part of the Tokyo Motor Show this week, though I’ve not yet looked to see if they were playable yet. The 7 initial cars are the Nissan GT-R, the Lexus IS-F, Mazda Atenza, the Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR, Daihatsu OFC-1, and the BMW 135i.
The game starts with a lovely animation of your car being lovingly checked by helmeted staff. The menu allows you to race, choose your car, check out GT-TV and customise settings. GT-TV is a new idea that allows you to access full TV programmes related to the cars. Top Gear will be one of the featured programmes when the game comes out here and they’ll even include the Top Gear test track in the full game. However, for the purpose of this demo, the GT-TV function wasn’t working.
Getting into a game is just a matter of choosing a car then clicking on the race icon. A few options allow you to choose your laps etc before getting in to the race proper. What finally meets you is a stunning bunch of car models and some of the best scenery to ever grace a racing game. Even on SD televisions this is hard to beat, but having the chance to see it running in HD is unbelievable. The game runs at full 1080p 60fps, which is pretty much as good as you’ll get. It outperforms Forza, it’s nearest rival, and even PGR4 in the graphics department. Light effects just have to be seen to be believed.
The race gave me a chance to check out the handling. Now, I’m no car expert, but I have played the previous Gran Turismo games and I can safely say that the handling is the best yet. It’s pretty much perfect. Sounds are limited to the soundtrack and the purring of the car’s engine, which, I guess, is probably pretty accurate too. I don’t make a habit of listening to highly tuned engines (hey, I’m not Jeremy Clarkson!).
But it’s watching the replay that really makes you understand how far the game has come. The cars all look so real and the track so detailed, then you realise, playing the track again, that the actual game looks pretty much exactly the same as the replay!
Ok, it still has faults. There’s absolutely no damage and you still can’t stop a game mid-play and restart after a bad start the first time around, which is pretty annoying. But based on this demo, the game itself is going to pip every other racing game to the post.
But before I give you my impressions, let me explain what this ‘Prologue’ series is about. The last Prologue game, based on GT4 was infamous for supposedly displaying the basics of what will become the next ‘proper’ Gran Turismo game; eg Graphics and Handling, but not actually ending up anything like the full game. With GT 5 Prologue, there was a far greater attempt to produce the same feel that the full GT 5 will have. The Prologue game will come on Blu-ray and as a download, with 5 tracks and over 50 cars. It will also have a full 16-player online game included. So it’s still a demo, in a way, of the full GT 5, but has enough meat on it’s oily bones to be a game in itself.
Back to the demo, then. What we get here is 7 playable cars and 1 track, Suzuka. More cars have been promised and 2 more have been made available as part of the Tokyo Motor Show this week, though I’ve not yet looked to see if they were playable yet. The 7 initial cars are the Nissan GT-R, the Lexus IS-F, Mazda Atenza, the Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR, Daihatsu OFC-1, and the BMW 135i.
The game starts with a lovely animation of your car being lovingly checked by helmeted staff. The menu allows you to race, choose your car, check out GT-TV and customise settings. GT-TV is a new idea that allows you to access full TV programmes related to the cars. Top Gear will be one of the featured programmes when the game comes out here and they’ll even include the Top Gear test track in the full game. However, for the purpose of this demo, the GT-TV function wasn’t working.
Getting into a game is just a matter of choosing a car then clicking on the race icon. A few options allow you to choose your laps etc before getting in to the race proper. What finally meets you is a stunning bunch of car models and some of the best scenery to ever grace a racing game. Even on SD televisions this is hard to beat, but having the chance to see it running in HD is unbelievable. The game runs at full 1080p 60fps, which is pretty much as good as you’ll get. It outperforms Forza, it’s nearest rival, and even PGR4 in the graphics department. Light effects just have to be seen to be believed.
The race gave me a chance to check out the handling. Now, I’m no car expert, but I have played the previous Gran Turismo games and I can safely say that the handling is the best yet. It’s pretty much perfect. Sounds are limited to the soundtrack and the purring of the car’s engine, which, I guess, is probably pretty accurate too. I don’t make a habit of listening to highly tuned engines (hey, I’m not Jeremy Clarkson!).
But it’s watching the replay that really makes you understand how far the game has come. The cars all look so real and the track so detailed, then you realise, playing the track again, that the actual game looks pretty much exactly the same as the replay!
Ok, it still has faults. There’s absolutely no damage and you still can’t stop a game mid-play and restart after a bad start the first time around, which is pretty annoying. But based on this demo, the game itself is going to pip every other racing game to the post.