Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Comments by Tom Bramwell

Been playing the Jap version and it's still GT i.e. car porn. Handling is ok, AI slightly improved but still pretty dumb compared to Forza2, tire squeeling noise is annoying, subtle wind noises, or lack of, when drafting is nice. 1080p still results in jaggies, FFS Sony enable FSAA. Rumble support is present but may as well not be. Tracks look alright but too clinical. Nice lighting in places however. 6/10

@Madlax.... i think you need to engage youre brain before you but txt down. Hype dosnt make a good game. Make a good game and then you will get good reviews. Throwing money at reviewers would just give good reviews to shit games that people would then go out and buy and then have to take a loss in there pockets when they have to trade garbage in. I was looking forward to actualy being able to purchase a game for my PS3 that looks promiseing but to be honest i think i will just carry on with PGR4 and Forza for my raceing needs for now. Maybe the full release will be better.

I am excited! *v* Will this game spark PS3 sales?

@Darren: do you think the visuals in Forza could have been a cost of the realism?


I think it's a compromise and that's the direction they chose. Gt5 the other way (though it also doesn't have to deal with the huge number of layers added by the decal editor in Forza 2 - a fantastic feature that too).

@RandolphScott.

"And why (pray) is it unacceptable to drop framerate? Or should that be unexpectable?"

You're as daft as the other guy. He said excepted, not accepted, not expected. He's saying, that for the majority of the time, the game runs at 60fps, but occasionally drops a frame or two. He offers absolutely no opinion as to whether anyone should expect, or accept that. He merely observes that most of the time it runs at 60fps.

Pretty decent and accurate - from what I can tell - review. Which is nice, especially after a few hideous scores dished out (I'm still trying to forget how Eurogamer could rate Lost 7... I mean, seriously, that's like Gamespot bad).

Also glad that split-screen got a mention. Most people these days only car about online play, but for me split-screen pisses all over it, and so I appreciate it when reviewers let people like me know how good it is, and if the game supports it.

Anyway, if/when I get a PS3 (the inclusion of rumble in controllers could clench it) I'm sure this game will be a definite buy.

I just have one question. How the fuck does GT5 lack personality, while other games in the same genre doesn't? What the fuck is this "personality" in Forza 2 or PGR4 that you can't find in GT5?

@Rev. Stuart Campbell

THANK GOD! AT LAST A RACING GAME WHERE WE CAN ADJUST THE CAMBER ANGLES!

=====================

There are plenty of reasons to be excited, but that's not one of them. :-) You could adjust camber angles in 2004 with Forza 1 and in 2006 with Forza 2.

Considerably pissed off to find out the PAL and US versions will have more features and content since I bought the J version, living in Japan and all.

Fuck you Sony.

EG: "Full" 1080p is 1920x1080, not 1280x720 verically upscaled to 1280x1080. you're losing 1.5x the resolution!

plus:

forza2 let you put lots of positive camber on the wheels, making drifting very very easy :)

"Are you talking about Halo 3 again..?"

That 10/10 game?, the criticaly aclaimed one ?...er..., no, I wasn't. But it would be fun if Bungie had pull a stunt like GT5: Prologue - "Halo 3: Start Finishing the fight"

@JackB: I'm sure he means on the PS3, as camber I think could be adjusted already in GT1. You'll not even want me to quote the year that was released. ;)

16 cars on track, cockpit view, those are definitely things that are a big step forward here. By the way, is it me or have the in-car view shadows been improved? By the way, I'm not sure yet of the full picture, but the AI in GT5 Prologue is better than some people here give it credit for. It's very much aware of whether you are driving next to it or not, even in a turn, and will do its best (and mostly succeed) to avoid you, even to the point that if you move towards it on a straight, it'll rather have two tries on or over the edge of the track than crash into you. In Forza 1 and 2 I've been crashed by the AI tapping my rear from the side a tonne of times.

For the Japanese version (which I have too by the way), it will be interesting to see if they get downloadable upgrades. The PAL version certainly is a huge step up from the Japanese version already currently though, with the extra track (though I'd have preferred a different one), the extra cars (at least 20 more, of which 3 ferraris, of which one an F1 car :D) and the tuning options that have turned out to be a lot more advanced than I expected them to be, and the return of drifting events and leaderboards.

It will be interesting to see if the US version has progressed further and will launch more online play support. After all, it needs fewer language options, so there could be a few months development between it and the PAL version. I'm sure the PAL version will get more online options later through an update, just as the JP version got online through an update on Christmas rather than at release day.

More ignorant cuntery from Campbell, GT had adjustable camber angles back in 1998. I thought he'd thoroughly researched all of this stuff back when he'd decided spod gamers playing Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy 7 were death-worthy scum who were going to destroy gaming? God forbid anyone like something the cut-price celebrity prick doesn't approve of.

I see gaming is still going, so obviously there have been no more GT or FF games... no, it must be that the manufacturers managed to stave off the death of industry by cutting the prices of all games to £20, as I seem to remeber hearing was vital to the future of the industry.

As for the Forza fans, I'm glad you've learned to accept methadone, but stop trying to win over those of us who enjoy the real thing, I get less annoyed by evangelical Christians than the self-deluding rationale of people deperate to prove they're having a better time than I am.

That said, why the hell can Polyphony still not get online right? 3 years since they chickened out of putting it in GT4, and they were supposedly working on it since GT3 came out in 2001. Still, nice to see they finally managed to make one of these in between games that isn't a total rip-off.

If you can change configurations on the fly, does this mean that the fastest lap times will now not go to those who can tune the best, but instead those who can tune AND switch between settings while racing? Remove downforce for straight, full downforce for corner, remove downforce for straight, etc. etc. etc. :(

Yeah, leave PGR 4 out of this. It falls into neither the Arcade or Simulation bracket and instead occupies a strange in-between offering only Geometry Wars: Waves as entertainment for your hard-earned cash.

in a weeks time, my 360 will have a PS3 companion! love the GT series, perfect game for hardcore car nuts this will do nicely untill GT5 comes out in 09

"More ignorant cuntery from Campbell, GT had adjustable camber angles back in 1998. I thought he'd thoroughly researched all of this stuff back when he'd decided spod gamers playing Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy 7 were death-worthy scum who were going to destroy gaming? "

More than one button or takes longer than an hour to bomb through start-to-end==terrible spod game as far as Cambell is concerned. It's the reviewer's disease, that love of simplicity.

Doesn't stop GT5 being marked directly at fanbois though. WTF does this give you that Forza didn't last year? Apart from upscaled 1080?

Bungie (or rather M$) did pull that stunt, it was called the Halo 3 Beta, that you had to buy a full priced game to get access to. And betas have end dates, at least GT5:P will last forever...

"More than one button or takes longer than an hour to bomb through start-to-end==terrible spod game as far as Cambell is concerned. It's the reviewer's disease, that love of simplicity. "

Seriously, just no.

*Spuffs all over Stu's face*.

Shame there's no weather, it adds enormously to PGR4 when you can race a track in 6 or 7 different conditions. GT's physics certainly ought to be up to simulating aquaplaning across standing water or 4-wheel drifts on snow or ice. In fact, there were wet versions of R5 and R11 before, weren't there?

"Bungie (or rather M$) did pull that stunt, it was called the Halo 3 Beta, that you had to buy a full priced game to get access to"

A game that had a place among the best in last years list. In my case, for example, never used the code, but sure did enjoy Crackdown.

Yeah, Crackdown is better than 95% of the PS3's line-up.

edit: hmm, tad incendiery, let me qualify that by saying that it's also better than 95% of the 360's line-up too.

miiiguel, stop trolling and fuck off. Seriously, you don't even own a PS3 yet are in every comments section about PS3 games.

"miiiguel, stop trolling and fuck off. Seriously, you don't even own a PS3 yet are in every comments section about PS3 games."
Is there any rule that states who can and can't coment in whatever ?, didn't know, mr. Guardian of the Temple (punk's not dead version).

actually, i thought crackdown was a bit pants. apart from in coop.

"Seriously, just no.

*Spuffs all over Stu's face*."

Oh don't get me wrong, I still love Stuart Campbell with a disturbing intensity, I just completely disagree with him on games these days.

GT5 prologue is already a success in europe, 1 million pre-orders according to a sony PR and still going. makes you wonder how much GT5 will sell.

looks like the few trolls '/or marketeers' in this section are in the minority.

Madlax, please see my comments in the EG news article on that particular misinformation.

Well, PS3 owners are a bit hard up for games, aren't they? 1m preorders for a demo lol etc etc

@Xiphos - The PS3 doesn't have enough memory to render GT5 Prologue at 1920x1080 so that is presumably the reason for the bizarre 1280x1080 rendering resolution it uses which also lacks any anti-aliasing (as that would use up even more memory). It would seem to me that the game is best played at 1280x720p which does have 2X AA I believe and letting your HDTV do the upscaling to 1080p. On my Sony HDTV, the Japanese GT5 Prologue demo definitely looked better at 720p than 1080p.

@Garulon

It's not about loving the plucky Scot, it's about him being completely spot on. I play games to have fun, and although I do disagree with a lot of the things he says, his love of "simplicity" as you put it, is entirely justified. Why should we have to sit through hours of shite before the fun begins? Why can't games just be fun full stop? I'm not dead against putting a bit of time in if it's gonna be worth it, but a lot of games simply aren't.

edit: But I get the feeling that those sort of opinions are wasted in here, where a full-blown argument about polygons, resolutions and pixels has broken out about a fucking driving game. Does anybody here care about how much fun racing around the track is, or are you more bothered about pulling your mums away from watching Neighbours, pointing at the screen and saying "Look, mum! It's just like watching real cars race around on the telly!".

@darren:

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.

so it's not a memory issue.

"It would seem to me that the game is best played at 1280x720p which does have 2X AA I believe and letting your HDTV do the upscaling to 1080p. On my Sony HDTV, the Japanese GT5 Prologue demo definitely looked better at 720p than 1080p."

actually, its 4xAA according to some of the B3D guys.

"edit: But I get the feeling that those sort of opinions are wasted in here, where a full-blown argument about polygons, resolutions and pixels has broken out about a fucking driving game."

Was this a driving game? I always assumed it was something PS3 owners used as "evidence" as to how powerful their machine is. I certainly never had any fun, ever, in any GT game I've played as the "driving model" may be supa-realistic but when actually racing they all seemed to handle like a particulalry recalctricant shopping trolley.

@Darren "@Xiphos - The PS3 doesn't have enough memory to render GT5 Prologue at 1920x1080 so that is presumably the reason for the bizarre 1280x1080 rendering resolution"

I'm not sure that's the case - is the PS3 horizontally scaling at scanout, like with it's fake 960x1080p?

"But I get the feeling that those sort of opinions are wasted in here, where a full-blown argument about polygons, resolutions and pixels has broken out about a fucking driving game. Does anybody here care about how much fun racing around the track is, or are you more bothered about pulling your mums away from watching Neighbours, pointing at the screen and saying "Look, mum! It's just like watching real cars race around on the telly!""

What your looking for is Burnout paradise not a Driving simulator like Gran turismo. remember to get the PS3 version.

"And if 1080P is being used to sell the shitty-looking (in my opinion) GT5 and the same shit that Sony and Polyphony always do with this kind of thing, after this amount of time, they just lost a buyer. "

"I'm not sure that's the case - is the PS3 horizontally scaling at scanout, like with it's fake 960x1080p?"

you 2 seem too obsessed with resolutions, and base your entire verdict of a game on it.

now....can you both tell me what was Halo 3 native resolution ? and what was Halo 3 framerate ? and did the game manage to maintain that framerate ? and more importantly what was Eurogamer,s final score with all these factors taken into account ?

and finally...what did you think of Halo 3 taking these factors into consideration ? ;)

Burnout Paradise fails to deliver on fun, as well.

@Garulon - I was only taking an educated guess but I'd imagine that having two 1920x1080 framebuffers (one being displayed, one being drawn) would be quite demanding on the PS3's 256 MB of graphical memory, especially as detailed textures also have to be stored in there too. That's why the number of "true" 1920x1080 rendered games is fairly small on the PS3 and Xbox 360 but they tend to be graphically simple games like Virtua Tennis 3, NBA Street Homecourt and FIFA Street 3 for example not complex games like GT5 Prologue. That's why owning a 1080p HDTV for games is a waste of time in this generation IMO, it's only worth buying one if you plan on watching Sky HD or Blu-ray movies.

All the tech speak is going over my head :-(

The cars in Forza2 are shiny, the cars in GT are even more shiny........thats all we need to know!

One thing I will say, if the handling is the same as GT-HD, as good as it was, I have to say that Forza did feel alot better in my opinion gameplay wise!

Besides, if you can't put 'YOU ARE IN 2ND' on the back of your rear bumper, there really is no point!!!!

"Bungie (or rather M$) did pull that stunt, it was called the Halo 3 Beta, that you had to buy a full priced game to get access to. And betas have end dates, at least GT5:P will last forever..."

Actually, you didn't have to buy Crackdown to get into the Halo 3 beta.

It would be awesome if a full extra game was coming bundled with GT5 Prologue, though, even if it was as "pants" as Crackdown.

I never thought I'd see the day -- a racing game review where they use REAL GAMEPLAY SCREENSHOTS!

Not artistically-captured press shots that don't show you a damn thing about how they game will look on your screen when playing it. But real screenshots!

I'm amazed!

And yet... I don't have a PS3 and wouldn't buy this boring soulless tedium even if I did.

Haha...Darren, why did you delete your 2nd post about Halo 3 ? did you feel guilty touching something considered by many fanatics a Taboo ? ;)

Disappointing, but not surprising.

I'm enthusiastic about GT5 proper. I'm more interested now in GRID/Midnight Club, to entertain the thought of paying for a GT5 preview.

"That's why owning a 1080p HDTV for games is a waste of time in this generation IMO, it's only worth buying one if you plan on watching Sky HD or Blu-ray movies."

It also comes in rather handy when navigating the PSN store... ;)

@Madlax - I deleted it because I felt it was off-topic, that's all, but I stand by everything I wrote.... good game, shite graphics. ;)

So, Forza's still the best eh... Plol S3.

FORZA 2 ALL THE WAY

My ignore list is getting bigger by the day!

i'm looking forward to this, but I won't hide the fact I wish PGR4 was available on the PS3 too (or something very similar) it's just a very 'fun' game to play and look at unlike GT which looks amazing but is as always a tad clinical.

Who said I was a ps3 fanboy? nah I love racing games on all systems but I now only have a ps3... could do with some PS3 competition to GT though a bit more arcadey but not as crap as stuff like juiced 2 etc


as for 'soul' I believe FORZA 2 also LACKS it just as much as GT, I played it loads on the 360 but it never excited me beyond it's 'car nerd' possibilities. PGR was much better viscerally.

Maybe they should drop the 60fps and make it look/feel as good as PGR4@30fps because that still felt slick and fast, but simheads want the 60fps and less detail (and jaggies/bland scenery that was part of Forza2 moreso than GT5p)

This will be as dull as all the other GTs. "Oh but look how pretty it is" and "look how much has been simulated".

So much time and effort spent on one game and it's the same as the last one.

B.O.R.I.N.G.