User Review : Gran Turismo 5

Simulation Glory for Automotive Gaming Enthusiasts!

The wait is over for the 5th installment of Gran Turismo 5. The game experienced its first official delay in its japan release and one delay in the North America release.

First of all is the graphics. The graphics of the game is sure the best at its genre, car modelings are brilliant, high count of polygon, unmatched lighting, and excellent interior modeling but sadly this only applied to the premium cars. The standard cars are almost a complete rip-off from the game's fourth installment, Gran Turismo 4. The standard cars doesn't have cockpit views and the car modeling is more like high resolution-low polygon count cars, but some standard cars look surprisingly good as the premium cars at replay modes. The environment in the game also have issues, the landscapes are bland and usage of a lot of "2-D" trees are still in the game but when you race in the game, you won't really recognize those. There are also a lot of upside in the environment in other more tracks, the city tracks are excellently accurate and some more famous real world racetracks especially the Nurburgring. 1080p support sure displays the best of Gran Turismo 5, but sadly there are framerate issues that it struggles to maintain 60 fps and it drops around 45 fps but its barely noticeable for the naked eye. Don't also forget to check the weather effects, it is so awesome.

The sounds in the game have been improved from the previous installment, but not a top quality. Some cars have inaccurate exhaust sounds. A very welcoming feature of Gran Turismo 5 is that you can set your custom playlist for race background music. Playing custom menu background music is available via update.

The biggest strength of the game is its physics. The game holds the most realistic driving physics on console games, it is far different from the "anti-drift" physics of Gran Turismo 4. Entrance and exit in every corner has to be precise in blending your braking, turning and accelerate as you expect in real-life. AI has been the issue of previous Gran Turismo installments and it still exist in Gran Turismo 5, the AI has been refined to be more human-like, but still the AI occasionally bumps you like you not there. Especially, the AI drives slower than real human drivers, like braking very early and limiting their foot on the gas pedal in straights.

GT Life is now the new GT mode. Like from Gran Turismo 4, you will still have the A-spec and B-spec. Main Events are still present and divided by five divisions, which are Beginner, Intermediate, Professional, Expert, and Extreme. Dealerships only sell Premium cars and Standard cars can be acquired from prizes and from used car dealership. Special events are introduced to the player later in the game. One of the biggest addition of the game is the Level-up system, this ensures you that you will be better and even more as you rank up. In races, the maximum amount of cars has been raised to 16 from 6.

B-spec is back from Gran Turismo 4, in Gran Turismo 5, the B-spec of the game was renewed. You can have maximum of 5 drivers and train them to be better drivers. Your drivers majorly has 3 aspect of skills, the speed (how fast your driver drives around the track), strength (the stamina of the driver), and the mental strength (how well your driver manages his driving in near exhausted state). Driving pace is a new feature in B-spec, at default, your driver's pace will be at the middle of the cool and hot driving pace at the start of the race, setting his pace at cool will make him do no mistake at all in the race but he will run slow, set the pace to hot then your driver will drive faster but will have more chance to make errors (such as over-spin at corner exits). At full strength (stamina), your driver will be able to handle "hot" pace quite well, then at low, your driver will have inability to drive fast. At low strength, the mental strength comes in, it is like the secondary stamina on which it is only affected when below half of the stamina and also on very complex tracks.

Car customization has been improved, but not jaw-dropping. You can now install different paints, wheel paints, front, front extension, side and rear body spoilers but this is only available for premium cars, standard cars can only have customized rear wing spoiler, even customization of wheels are for premium cars only. Another good thing is that you can turn your car into a race car, but the amount of cars that you can turn into a race car is very underwhelming.

Credit grinding is still in the game on which it is already frustrating, before you enter the next category of race, the cars required to be on the next level needs to be bought, and grinding of credits needs to be done multiple times from previous races won.

Damage Modeling has been the biggest demand for the franchise. The damage modeling only appears realistically on level 20 on A-spec but damage modeling is at the least on standard cars, the more you rank-up, the more realistic damage modeling appears. Another disappointing with the damage feature is that it is only cosmetic. Mechanical damage on arcade, practice and multiplayer mode is added via online update.

Gran Turismo also scopes various types of motorsport which are go kart, Nascar, Formula 1, Super GT, European Touring, Le Mans, WRC and drifting, but disappointingly the game actually scopes all of them only a little. Its like you can only use small amount of certain types of race cars from different motorsports on a race tracks but no implementation of the real motorsports rules.

Weather change is a dramatic addition to the game, the change of weather in the race is breath taking, the rain effects on the cockpit view of your premium car are so overwhelming that makes you very alive also because of the slippery road and wanting to go to pit immediately and change rain tires.Not only the game has Weather change, but also day/night shift. The disappointing thing about these 2 features are it is only limited to few tracks.

Online is another feature that is new to Gran Turismo. You can give gifts to your friends, but disappointingly you can only send one car per day but multiple times in sending items. Online play are a little laggy but still playable. Matchmaking is lacking refinement, even it had matchmaking via update of the game, you still can't filter what type of cars you can only use in the race, the only matchmaking options you have are only base on HP or tires which is frustrating if you only want to have production cars in your race but others are still using race cars.

Summary:

Gran Turismo 5 is a top level simulator, but sadly being game it isn't.

On the game part (8/10)

AI refinement are deeply needed, implementation of damage needs still needs to be improved, all cars to be premium cars if possible. More depth to GT life. Fix prize car system (they give you only standard cars after long races which isn't rewarding). More cars just like japanese cars. Improve shadows. Remove credits grinding system. Online lag and lack of refined menu system needs to be resolved.

16 players in one track with that detailed graphics is so great. Various seletion of cars.
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On the simulator part (10/10)

The physics is top notch. Graphics of the game makes you feel reality in your eyes. Car Tuning is great, especially suspension. Excellent sense of speed. Accurate force feedback.

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Gran Turismo 5...with its flaws, feels like only a preview of the "REAL" Gran Turismo for, hopefully, the PS3, which is Gran Turismo 6.