Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Comments by Tom Bramwell

@darren

with regards to previous statement about ps3 framebuffer:

you only need 7.8mb of vram to render a single screen at 1080p with 32bit colour. that's why the 360 has 10meg vram.

double-buffered it goes up to 15.6mb.

there is more than enough vram to store everything in.

STIMULATE don't SIMULATE YO!

i think the best handling game ever was toca on the ps2
i bought a steering wheel for it and never touched a joypad for racing again!
(apart from mario kart)
its expensive buying all these damn wheels for every machine thou
will have to buy another one when the full GT5 comes out!
i wont touch it without one!

er, whats up with the multiplayer? Ok, I get its not a full game but how (in 2008 don't forget) is this not sorted yet on PS3? I'm hoping the full version is going to be good enough to tempt me into getting a PS3 but a glorified demo isn't the way to go IMO.

This looks awful, what's going on? I'm glad I don't like racing games that much.

So, to conclude...

- AI is apparently still no better
- Game still feels empty, lifeless and, well, dull
- Not a great deal of cars or tracks
- Still no kind of damage system of any sort whatsoever

On the plus side we have pretty graphics, and we (as in gamers) will no doubt lap it up...and then wonder why so many poor games get released...and mock the Wii.

Funny, I'd say the Wii is the best indicator that graphics and people who buy games based on graphics are not responsible for poor games.

What happened to the graphics????

I'd like to think that if SCEE invited Scawen Roberts to port Live for Speed over to PS3, it'd steal a good number of gamers from this half-assed effort.

It desperately needs a realistic physics engine. In the current build you can't even perform steering-neutral doughnuts.

@ mkreku

are you kidding me? have you ever played a multiplayer game of Halo 3? have you sir?.. ever floated a plasma grenade perfectly on to a passing Warthog (the flag carrier in the passenger side perhaps) with crossed fingers... the perfect physics and lush colour palette laden explosives stroking your gaming fanny as the Warthog is blown to Kingdom Come over a cliff's edge, the occupants twirling into the abyss, rueing the day they met you online...
Halo 3 rocks. End Of.

@Escape

So so true. I'm absolutely amazed Sony or Microsoft haven't come along and traded a fat bag of money for Live For Speed's physics engine. It's one of the best in the business and a bedroom effort that puts these big teams working on Forza and GT to shame.

I know they're all working towards different goals but LFS is playable(ish) with a gamepad, even just bunging it on PSN would be a result.

Looks like bloody good value for money. Looking forward to next weekend.

And the online, well, the older get the less of an issue online is, but it sounds OK to me. Easily pleased I guess.

If I did have a PS3 I would buy this for sure. However, I bought an Xbox360 (after always being Sony) due to being impressed with the online service and choice of games. The PS3 was lagging behind, and I think it still is to an extent. This of course can change.

Secretly I had hoped that this would be a step up from Forza2 (which I still enjoy greatly if only for the multiplayer these days) but I dont see that here at all. Perhaps expecting it to be a big leap was my foolishness rearing its head ;) Maybe the full game will have a lot more to entice me (I dont just mean more of everything it has currently), I dont know.

Personally I think its mental that Polyphony take so long to get their games out. You can be sure they will have had dev kits long before most other devs and yet they still havent given us PS3 GT. Sony releasing a GT demo bundle is a sad state too.

Forza2 is great, its handling is an impressive blend of pick up and play/realism (with all aides off its great fun learning to control powerful cars). It did take me a little while to get to grips with it after playing all the GT titles, but I have to say I like it so much more than any of the previous racing games I've played (including on PC too). I dont like PGR4, too Arcadey for me.

Forza2 can look quite bland and also has no soul! But it doesnt matter when you are playing and having fun.

"Drift Trial is what kept us picking away at Gran Turismo HD Concept for so long, throwing the back out around Eiger Nordwand and watching videos of scarily dedicated Japanese gamers doing the same thing more effectively on YouTube and trying to copy them."

Why did you not just use the videos you could access in the game of the top runs?

I was just at Gametrailer and watched the video comparing Forza 2 and GT:HD. Forza pales in comparison to the GT. It's a sad thing when something that look so cartooney can garner a 9/10. Burnout Paradise looks about 10 times better while GT about a 100.

"It's a sad thing when something that look so cartooney can garner a 9/10."

Gee, maybe some people value areas other than graphics for a racer. But I guess for some people, graphics will always mean *everything* for games, with all other aspects being secondary. ;)

Just the same, there are areas graphically where Forza is better and areas where GT is better.

@escape:

you can do steering neutral doughnuts. perhaps you were just too scared to turn off all assists and put the simulation tyres on the car. and use a rwd car.

@doragor:

yes, i used to do that. the warthog doesn't blow up like that anymore. perhaps you were thinking of halo2?

halo3 was a bit pants. but then again, i suppose it's just not everyone's cup of tea. i don't really enjoy generic alien shooter number 194032.
@yaz: forza2 never blew me away graphically. gt5 does.

"@yaz: forza2 never blew me away graphically. gt5 does."

And seasidebaz, *neither* game blows me away graphically, but I can see the good and not so good within the visuals of each, and as I've said, it's not just about graphics.

for both games, you're basically driving around a track but if the track looks atrocious (ie. forza 2) it takes one of the most important component of a driving simulator, realism and for that a great graphic is essential. At one point (prior to purchasing my PS3), I did consider Xbox 360 mainly because Forza 2 is tenfold better that GT4 graphically but after playing GT:HD, I decided otherwise. Forza is not a bad game but at the end of the day, it's a not GT. There's a reason why for example Top Gear would associate itself with GT as oppose to Forza 2. And then there's the name.

So... This is all very entertaining reading...

What I want to know is: How does it play? Is there a good sense of speed and does it feel like you're in control of a car? Also -seeing as the Gran Turismo series was always a showcase for the graphical capabilities of the various playstations- are the graphics as impressive or more impressive than the current best graphics on the PS3. Has anyone (apart from the reviewers) played the PAL version, or are we still waxing lyrical?

I think it's hilarious that anyone is comparing a full game to what is effectively a 'large demo'. Forza 2 was a great game -but it wasn't perfect. I expect great things from GT5, though I'm sure it won't be perfect either. As for PGR? It's a different game -it's not in direct competition.

I really don't understand all the Forza 2 bashing, especially from those who claim GT5 has better environments. GT5 has two weaknesses, relatively weaker physics, and poorer environments. It's strengths are slightly prettier cars, better lighting, and a more gritty colour palette. Forza 2 has car models almost as good, if not as good, as GT5, and it's environments are much more detailed. Forza 2's biggest failing is that they thought gamers would prefer a vibrant, colourful, almost cartoon like look to a hard edged gritty realism, and so built that almost cel shaded look into the visuals. That's a real shame, as in some ways it does detract from the immersion and has led many to discount it's visuals without really looking at it. Hopefully Forza 3 will move towards a more realistic colour palette more fitting for a sim racer. That said, it is still my favourite racer on any platform. I do, however, have a soft spot for the more friendly GT series so have GT5P on pre-order too. If you are a petrol head you should love both. It's impossible not to see the haters of one over the other as nothing more than fanboys that need adding to the ignore list.

@ seasidebaz

No, I'm thinking of Halo 3. Yesterday I witnessed a Warthog being stuck by a grenade and then blown about 40 or 50 feet directly up into the air while on fire. I can upload the clip to my file share if you like.
I can also upload a clip of me sticking a Warthog and it being blown over a cliff.

@mrboogedy - if you've played the japanese GT5P free demo then you know how it feels. If you haven't, then go try it. It feels slightly deeper than the previous GT's on the PS3, slightly more weighty, though many cars still understeer like barges - hopefully PAL's quicktune will resolve that. It feels a lot easier to be fast around the track in GT5 than in Forza 2. On the flip side, it seems to bite your hand off if you put the tail out in comparison to GT:HD and Forza 2... in an almost canned sharp twitch in one direction then the other, then a 180. It affects some cars more than others... I found the BMW 135 to be a delicious drive. It is easer to race nose to tail (against the CPU) in GT5P than Forza 2 for some reason.

@doragor:

i didn't know that was still possible :) i know that with halo2 you used to be able to stack grenades, just never saw it done on halo3 :D

back on topic: i agree with zerolight, hdconcept was a lot like a shiny version of gt4. but the jp prologue demo was definately a lot weightier, and having played hdconcept to death found that the subtle handling changed caused me to rethink how i was driving in the prologue demo (found myself spinning out a lot after misjudging a corner...)

"for both games, you're basically driving around a track but if the track looks atrocious (ie. forza 2) it takes one of the most important component of a driving simulator, realism and for that a great graphic is essential. At one point (prior to purchasing my PS3), I did consider Xbox 360 mainly because Forza 2 is tenfold better that GT4 graphically but after playing GT:HD, I decided otherwise. Forza is not a bad game but at the end of the day, it's a not GT. There's a reason why for example Top Gear would associate itself with GT as oppose to Forza 2. And then there's the name."

I don't think track detail is as important to a good racing game as you make out. I'd also disagree that Forza2's take on the graphical look is poor. It's very clean, but nothing to shout about - But I say again and again, it makes no difference to me when racing around and having a lot of fun!

"Forza is not a bad game but at the end of the day, it's a not GT" - You say it as though GT is somehow vastly superior to Forza. I don't see that at all. I think you are perhaps playing on GT's great history somewhat.

"There's a reason why for example Top Gear would associate itself with GT as oppose to Forza 2" - Maybe the fact Sony asked for the association? Bit of a gimmick if you ask me. The best thing about it is use of the test track :D

At the end of the day I am primarily interested in the physics (read feeling of driving) above and beyond anything. Next, for me at least, comes online play, cars and tracks then graphics and extras :) I thought the paint feature in Forza was something I'd never use but as been pointed out here it's great fun writing stuff on your car such as 'You suck' and on the other side of the car 'So does your dad'. Yes, childish I know.

For GT not to have damage (not a massive thing but Polyphonys excuse of not being allowed is bull) is a downer for me. Poor online implementation (should be better in the future) and supposedly weaker sensation of driving combine to leave me feeling cold. I've loved the GT series for a long, long time but for a while have felt it's not going anywhere in particular.

The Forza team came out of nowhere and made two great racing titles. Polyphony have had a big head start and yet they still havent released a full game for a system they have untold development support for. Hmm.

damage is apparently allowed now. just no car flipping. and if adding damage means the game gets put back another year or two, i can live without it. i try not to crash in a racing game anyway :D

Staggered release = Probably because it's taking an eon to produce this much 1080p content...

On the PS blog, there's some screenshots of the 2007 F1 Ferrari also included in the game if you earn 2M credits!

2M credits is a bargin for a F1 car, in GT4 you couldn't get a le-mans car for that.

@zerolight

You seem to have spectacularly failed to understand my post.

I don't actually get all the fuss over GT5s visuals, does this really look that good? Maybe I'm missing the 'untapped' power or something but this looks no better than PGR4 or even Forza imo...

All this talk about "soul" in a racing sim LOL. Excepting Mario Cart and all those sideways-baseball-caps "street" racers, it's pretty much a moot point. So if you're looking for "soul" Mario Cart is shipping for Wii shortly. :) I'd be happy w/ Forza 2 with weather effects, a wider variety of track and weather conditions, more convincing force feedback (the press seems to think its OK, but I can hardly tell its on half the time) and perhaps anti-aliasing. Forza's still got my favorite car handling, and damage modeling is a must in a proper sim.

As for "soul" and graphics, I'm not especially impressed with either (GT5 or Forza 2). I mean, Forza2 is perfectly adequate, but on first play I was surprised at how similar it looks to Forza 1.

Isn't it Mario Kart? ;)

Weather for racing games - absolutely - I wish Forza had this feature. If GT had it I might buy a PS3 :P I'm really hoping Forza3 takes a step forward and includes this, it'll really mix the gameplay up for I personally dont need a load of tracks but I do like some variation in a race upon a circuit a lot of people are likely to know.

Cool!
On preorder, but i think i will down load it too.

"(not a massive thing but Polyphonys excuse of not being allowed is bull)"

Last thing I heard was that it will be included eventually (but might be outdated by now) though not in Prologue. One of Polyphony's excuses for not implementing it earlier was that the damage modelling would be so complex (due to their high quality standards).

Hopefully it will go in the full version for sure then. High quality standards? Hmm. I think they have high standards but I wouldn't have thought this would be a serious issue around damage.

"Weather for racing games - absolutely - I wish Forza had this feature. If GT had it I might buy a PS3 :P"

If you don't already have it, at least give PGR4 a rental. I have never liked the series, but as soon as I set up a custom race and put a very fast car in the rain, PGR4 had me grinning ear to ear. Totally different feel, but worth checking out.

Tried the demo - Really didn't like it (and never got on with PGR in the past). I can see why its got a good following, but it just isn't my cup of tea :(

@seasidebaz - "@darren

with regards to previous statement about ps3 framebuffer:

you only need 7.8mb of vram to render a single screen at 1080p with 32bit colour. that's why the 360 has 10meg vram.

double-buffered it goes up to 15.6mb.

there is more than enough vram to store everything in."

Including high-definition textures?

But if memory isn't an issue then why isn't GT5 Prologue rendered at 1920x1080? I suppose it's possible that the limitation is imposed by the 60 fps framerate, i.e. the PS3 isn't powerful enough to render a game with GT5 Prologue's highly detailed visuals at a 1920x1080 resolution 60 times a second, only at 1280x1080...

"High quality standards? Hmm. I think they have high standards but I wouldn't have thought this would be a serious issue around damage."

Apparently Polyphony doesn’t want to create a simple damage model with ‘canned’ damage indicators. The damage simulation would need to be as accurate as the car models, physics model, etc. There was not enough power in the PS2 to accurately do this was their excuse with GT4. You’d expect that PS3 will have enough power, unless they spent most of its power on improving the graphics and physics model…

"Apparently Polyphony doesn’t want to create a simple damage model with ‘canned’ damage indicators. The damage simulation would need to be as accurate as the car models, physics model, etc. There was not enough power in the PS2 to accurately do this was their excuse with GT4. You’d expect that PS3 will have enough power, unless they spent most of its power on improving the graphics and physics model…"

At the end of the day its sensation of realism that matters, not uber authenticity. If I believe the car I'm driving to accurately portray the effects of having a damaged/overheated/whatever left-front brake disc then they have succeeded in 'simulating' reality from a gamers point of view. This is easy enough to do for the machine, just a bit more time consuming for the development team.

I dont know how in-depth Forza simulates these things, but the car behaves in a way I believe to be realistic and it, when you have damage on, adds greatly to the realism.

"At the end of the day its sensation of realism that matters, not uber authenticity."

Agreed, but we're not Japanese... ;)

How do you know? ;)

@ Darren: What's this about 1280x1080?

AFAIK, GT5P visuals are at 1080p - That is 1920x1080 at 60fps.

Is there another definition of 1080p?

I wish Eurogamer would compare this game to GT4 Prolouge and not the full gt4, A Lot of people do that and it annoys me. This was never designed to be a huge product more of a sampler, just as GT4 Prolouge was.

The origional GT4 prolouge had 64 cars and 46 tests for you to complete and was designed as a taster.

The reason they do things like this is so they can listen to feedback by users and know were to improve things when the full product turns up. I mean just look at how perfect GT4 turned out . They got a lot of feedack from GT4 prlouge.

And this game is available for 17.99 on amazon. ridiculous money.
And Me and my pals have been playing the Online mode for ages and have lots of fun with it. never had problems with lag or anything.

Eurogamer upset me some times with reviews like this. Often it seems they only spend 10 mins playing the game and review it from there.

"The reason they do things like this is so they can listen to feedback by users and know were to improve things when the full product turns up. I mean just look at how perfect GT4 turned out"

Says who? If anything I believe Polyphony to be completely hidden from their fans compared to some other studios. I think these 'tasters' come out because they take ages to make a game and Sony pressures them into releasing something (because lets face it, GT is a massive title for PS3 and would create a surge in sales).

"Tried the demo - Really didn't like it (and never got on with PGR in the past). I can see why its got a good following, but it just isn't my cup of tea :("

Can't believe I'm championing PGR4 now LOL, I always hated the PGR series myself. But I will say this - give it a rental and set up some custom races for yourself. You might be surprised. I *still* haven't been able to get into the career mode because it starts off so very dull, so I can imagine where the demo might not have grabbed you right off either.

"I dont know how in-depth Forza simulates these things, but the car behaves in a way I believe to be realistic and it, when you have damage on, adds greatly to the realism."

But then there is this: PGR4 has no damage modeling, which is a serious negative IMO.

JDub wrote: "AFAIK, GT5P visuals are at 1080p - That is 1920x1080 at 60fps."

http://thoughthead.com/89

:)

@darren:

yeah, the actual framebuffers only need 15.6mb for double buffering at 1080p. the actual storage of textures, models etc goes is also in vram, or in the case of the 360, system ram. the actual drawing requires very little memory though.

it's probably the actual rendering technique that's the performance hit, as to keep up 60fps would require a stupidly optimised rendering engine, and until developers work out the intricacies of parallel programming it just isn't going to happen.

good attempt though, polyphony, i won't be throwing out my 720p set for a while yet though ;-)

edit: and @yaz: great link! i didn't know cod4 ran at such a low res!

and what's with the 360 and having games running at reduced aa? the xbox gives you 4xmsaa with no performance hit whatsoever as it's handled in the vram!

The VRAM on the xbox 360 doesn't give you free 4xmsaa, the 8MB is too small to fit that level in it, you can get 2x at a push even then though you take a slight performance hit. There is no such thing as free anything in computing, you always have to make a sacrifice.