A grind-heavy career mode and inconsistent visuals keep this otherwise fantastic driving simulation from finishing first.
Gran Turismo 5 is unconcerned with the progress made in the racing genre and video games at large in the six years since Gran Turismo 4 arrived on the PlayStation 2. Polyphony Digital’s newest racer has a scattered, grind-heavy career mode and inconsistent visuals, but the core driving experience is the closest you’ll get to driving nirvana on a console. The driving is so good that many of the annoyances with the way GT5 is built start to evaporate once you get your hands behind the wheel and start driving. Unfortunately, your patience might very well evaporate too whenever you have to deal with the game's cluttered interface.
I feel it's important to mention that I played GT5 primarily with a racing wheel. While the game is certainly playable with a controller, you'll begin to hit a wall on more technical courses once the cars get faster. The force feedback and information you're given through the wheel is excellent, and feels unique with each car. When you drive through a tight turn you’ll immediately know whether you’re in a front or rear engine car by the amount of over-steer that sets in as your wheel goes slack. Pavement, gravel, and grass all feel different and help indicate just what you can expect out of your next turn. This natural wheel grip sensation, combined with some zoom and shake effects in the modeled cockpit view as you brake and accelerate, really put Gran Turismo's driving on a pedestal when compared with just about any other racing game on the market.
The premium cockpits are gorgeous, but the weather effects are generally poor. That visceral realism isn't always consistent in the cars themselves. Although the back of GT5’s box mentions there are over 1000 vehicles available in the game, only 200 of those carry the "premium" tag, which means they include a modeled cockpit and extra detail to their exteriors. If you're not someone that likes to race inside the car, that may not be such a big deal--but even among the 800 standard cars, the exterior quality is uneven. The worst-looking of these feel like touched-up ports of cars from the PlayStation 2 era. For me, though, the premium cars were more than enough, and the only real grievance I have with the standard cars is that they make up the majority of your racing rivals in each race.
Damage modeling is poor, bordering on unnoticeable, and even at higher levels with premium cars, the largest of crashes will only cause minor dings and deformities. At the most, bumpers or hoods will dislodge and hang a bit loose, but for the most part the crashes in Gran Turismo 5 are mundane affairs that feel and sound more like cardboard boxes bouncing into each other. What is noticeable, though, is the cost you’ll have to pay for structural damage that isn't visually persistent on your car between races. Chasis repair on many of the high-powered cars will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Considering that you can buy a new car for that amount, it often leaves you wondering just what the hell Polyphony Digital was thinking when they decided to add damage into the game at all. While racing purists might not mind, the lack of consistent damage effects in GT5 takes you out of the realism that the cockpit and wheel combo so breathlessly creates.
This graphical inconsistency doesn't only exist with the cars but also with the tracks and the environment as well. The shadow and weather effects specifically seem extremely garish on top of otherwise clean and well laid-out courses. Shadows both in the car and outside have jaggy, aliased edges, and when combined with pixelated rain or snow effects, it'll make you want to jump out of that in-car view to something less in-your-face. Generally, though, the game looks sharp, and GT5 has some gorgeous night-time country driving that makes you consider your chosen car not for its speed, but for its headlight coverage. It looks especially nice when the game speeds up time so that dusk turns to night over the course of a race, and timed fireworks also add some fun to the nighttime sky. For the most part, the tracks in Gran Turismo 5 are fairly static, though incredibly detailed affairs. Almost all of the courses include unbreakable walls or extremely sturdy pencil fencing that feel like compromises in otherwise realistic locations.
The kart racing is more fun then you'd think. What Gran Turismo lacks in flourish it tries to compensate for with variety. You’ve got go-karts, American muscle, Japanese tuners, World Rally cars, NASCAR and everything in between. Only a Formula One license seems noticeably missing from the roster, but open-wheel cars are still there and become available once you get past level 20. A lot of the licensed racing is grouped into "special events," a section of your dashboard devoted towards training or goal-based racing. Some of these carry intro movies that explain a famous track or location you’re about to race in. For the most part they work well, but there are a couple stinkers. A dead-eyed and poorly animated Jeff Gordon, who introduces you to NASCAR, is a prime example. All that variety sometimes makes the game feel like it's been stretched too thin.
You’ll spend most of your time in A-Spec races, which are split up into various leagues from beginner to expert. You can also earn licenses by completing simple tasks such as bringing your car to a complete stop on time, or more difficult tasks, like completing a race without bumping into rival cars. Luckily most of them are not as necessary as in previous games. You’ll earn trophies in the license events, races, and special events, with gifted rewards available as you complete each full set of challenges. Experience points are also awarded and contribute to your level, which is used as a barrier for new events and cars. Around level 15, though, the leveling component becomes a serious grind. Each level takes a couple hours, and you’ll soon wish you could at least see what events come up later so you could plan your garage accordingly. Dropping half-a-million dollars on your favorite car sounds great, until you realize too late that it won’t be useful for your next dozen events.
As you move your way into more challenging races, you’ll soon learn that it’s not so much your driving skill that’s being tested as your ability to tune your car properly. You simply won’t be able to win certain cups without fiddling under the hood first. There’s not a whole lot of explanation to the tuning mechanics, and there’s no Forza-style auto-upgrade option to make things easy on yourself. Like most things in GT5, though, you’ll eventually figure it out and learn that under a clunky mess of menus is a flexible system for setting your car up however you want. Most of the upgrades are easy to comprehend--you pay your money and suddenly have a boost in your horsepower--but a lot of them can only be fully utilized if you manually move some dials. Eventually you learn these tuning systems too well, and since the majority of races don't include any sort of horsepower limit, it's very easy to enter races with overpowered cars and make the game a one-man race within the first 30 seconds. I spent most of the game playing this way, as the lackluster, wooden AI always seems to follow a set line without taking much thought for where your car is on the track. Though GT5 can get more challenging later on, most races are a test of personal endurance, not competition.
Soft racing wheels really help you grip the road. If manual tuning as a necessity to progression scares you, take heart in this: I personally know very little about what goes on under the hood of cars. If anything can be said about the lack of arcade functionality in GT’s career mode, it’s that you’ll eventually become a more informed and better driver because of it. Other sticking points for people coming from an arcade background are the lack of a rewind function and fairly poor driving lines. The absence of a rewind function, which has become a common mechanic in driving games over the last few years, is going to hurt novices most. While the early races are fairly short affairs, you won’t see many single events under eight minutes after level 16 or so. Eight minutes is a long time to keep your concentration up at over 100 MPH. Given that it takes hours to move a single level in the late game, and that you usually only earn XP for placing at the end of the race, things can get frustrating quickly.
It’s especially unfortunate then that you can’t gain XP in the online races to spice things up a bit. Although I never had any problems finding races through the game’s lobby system, it was almost impossible to figure out what the requirements were for each race I joined. If the host didn’t take the time to create a proper title, it meant I had to join the lobby first, then view a separate menu to get the requirements. From there I usually had a short time to tune one of my cars to qualify or select from one of the suggested arcade cars. Although you can use a limited amount of favorite cars from your garage, you can’t favorite separate load-outs. To be honest, the menu system all throughout GT5 is bad. Exiting out of anything almost always requires a confirmation or extra key-press, and unusually long load times for simple menus can sometimes dampen the fun.
The GT dashboard is cluttered and requires a lot of unnecessary prompts. Included as part of the dashboard is some social networking functionality that allows you to share rides, photos, and Twitter-style short messages with your friends. I don’t know why you’d want a walled message board for yourself just for GT5, but it’s there if you want to shout at people you know who are also playing the game. A gifting feature comes in handy when you need to send cars to another person, since some races require specific cars to complete and often people need to trade between accounts. The photo mode in the game lets you take still shots of any of your cars lined up in various locations that you unlock as you progress. It’s extremely well done and gives you a virtual DSLR to take pictures with where you can adjust ISO and focus manually.
There’s also an AI-driven B-Spec mode where you give commands to a driver that levels separately from yourself. Essentially you watch a race in movie mode and have the ability to tell the driver when to pace up and down, and when to try to pass another driver. If it sounds boring, that’s because it is. The only positive to the feature is that it’s a great way to earn early credits. Once you have a decent garage you can put your driver in an overpowered car and go have some lunch or something. Even without commands he’ll likely win the race, and you might receive a special car or two for placing in first.
Gran Turismo 5’s core problem is that the broad scope of all these game modes diminishes the polish of the general product. There's no denying the feel of the actual driving, but everything else that makes up the game feels tedious and half-baked. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but for people who value an authentic driving experience, enjoy a bit of difficulty in their games, and are willing to look past a multitude of minor flaws, GT5 could very well satisfy your driving needs for years.
GT5 is an arcadey driving game. All driving g ames on consoles are. The only actual racing simulators are found on the PC. And on a real actual racetrack.
PC elitist I assume? Why I agree that the best sims are on the PC, saying the GT5 is an arcade racing game is plain stupid.
Yeah I prefer Forza 3, just more fun, and everything is just much much better structured.
I feel GT games have always been improving graphically, which is awesome, but nothing else changes from game to game unfortunately and I think the formula is getting a bit dull at this stage, hence the 3 stars.
GT5 is the closest a group of friends who don't really own supercars can come to the real thing and race each other. It becomes fun because it's just button mashing, but a level of precision is required that would only really interest people who are -really- in to cars and like the thrill of a proper race.
Fair review, because GT5 doesn't appeal to everyone, it can't get a high score. Plus the menus and the music and the only play are gimped.
For those complaining about the review mentioning the rewind feature, let me just say that this is a video game... not just simulation. If it were just simulation, there would be no online mode and the career mode would just be split into different careers. But thats not the point. The point is the game should have some of the innovations that other games have made in the past to help other people enjoy the game. How would games like Madden and NBA2k be received if the only difficulty they came with was Super Star where you have to be on your toes and would lose most of the time? How about an RPG that would not let you save in the middle of a quest? Not battle, quest? So having to start a 10 minute race over because of one little mistake, yeah that would suck. Now what they could have done is included it but just like their other options on difficulty, if you wanted to keep it realistic, just turn it off so you can't use it during a race. That's it. Don't cry and say that it is unfair to judge the game for not having the rewind feature. Might as well complain about games having check points or a save any time feature. The rewind feature is all about keeping people from getting frustrated with a game and just dropping it. Because not everyone wants to be a master GT racer. Sometimes, we just want to drive a car, race and have fun.
Oh and for those curious if there is a grind in the game..
I have done every track, every cup, every special, every license I am capable of in the game baring a few silver/gold runs that are quite tricky, yet this is the situation right now, at rank 21, which in itself was a grind to reach.
You get gimped experience playing in lower series so the choices are two of these Like The Wind or either of two German car races. This is the quickest way, four minutes with load-times for 3564 points of experience and 70,000 credits.
Sooo let's do the math. Earned 3564 for my four minutes. Current: exp 14368 / 89064 Exp left to level: 74696
Number of Like The Wind races to do to level: 21 (rounded up) I have to drive and win it twenty-one times, spending something like 84 minutes with load times, to reach 22, and then I'm only going to have more alternative races to do to level. I love six-eight minutes around the Nürburgring but this is ridiculous. I've played MMOs since Dark Age of Camelot, I've multiboxed World of Warcraft, I know my grinds, and this is a shameful un-fun grind. PD need to take care of this in other ways than enabling experience and credit earnings through online races.. in a patch due "before christmas".
Somejerk, President of Bring On The Patch LTD
(edit: hahaha, rewind feature.. not having it teaches you your mistakes much better than letting you rewind, this is a better way of learning and hey, if you could rewind some of these license attempts - there would be NO challenge to the game. What next, someone's going to once again complain that the driving lines don't tell you the exact throttle/brake measurements you need to drive?)
I think this is a good review. It's well written and the score is reasonably backed up by the text. As someone who's spent a lot of time in Forza 3, the lack of a rewind feature is a huge detrimental factor for me (and I suspect for many others). Not because I used it all the time to "cheat" or anything, but because it actually made me a better driver a lot faster. After going off track at a specific turn, I could rewind and see what I could do to do it better. And next time, I didn't need to rewind, because I knew what I did wrong the first time and how to tackle the turn properly.
I also agree that GT5 seems unfocused and that there's so much weird going on in that game, from the (admittedly) little I've seen of it so far. I'm still going to buy it, because I need another car sim fix after Forza 3, but my expectations have been significantly lowered for this release after reading reviews (even those that gave it a good score) and user impressions.
Hmm. Can't say I'm surprised, though it's quite a blow for the Playstation people. To be honest, I hate this genre, but I thought GT5 would be a game that would help me change my perspective. But what's annoyed me is the whole 200 premium, 800+ not. It just seems pointless-why not then make 300 'premium' cars? It's still a fairly large amount of quantitious quality. Also has anybody noticed how whatever Kaosangel starts his multitude of thread about it gets 3 stars?
Ever since GT2 I've felt the games have had bad interfaces that were cluttered and confusing. The racing has always been excellent, but they simply don't know or care to know about UI over at Polyphony Digital.
In some ways I think the there is a certain aesthetic at work, or a method to some of the madness in the interface, but overall I think they just don't build this game with the UI in mind...it’s the cars for them. I could almost work up a grudging respect for them using an strange UI if I thought it was intentional, but I think it’s really just does come down to a total lack of care.
That is a sad thing to say, but I think the UI could magically set people on fire and they still won't care. For them 99% of making the game is cars & tracks...the rest of the game they don't care about.
Wow I was expecting some angry ass people up in here, but aside from the few sandy vaginas in the comments, it seems like everyone is acting like a civil human being, that and maybe Dave hit this one on the head. The Gran Turismo series always seemed to carry this stigma of it being more for the hardcore racing/car enthusiast/tuner crowd. If you're one of those, then I bet this game is fucking awesome. However if you just want to race some fuckin' cars (with a rewind), there are some better options out there.
I'm kind of bummed though with the lack of a KaosAngel reply but chances are the dude is probably too busy playing GT5 to really care about the review. Either that or he slit his wrists.
I wish it got 4 stars, but i can totally see 3 stars on this game after putting in 20 hours into it without even reading this review. The menus are pretty terrible, the racing is still fun, and even more fun with a wheel. Hopefully they keep patching it and making it better and better.
I have done every track, every cup, every special, every license I am capable of in the game baring a few silver/gold runs that are quite tricky, yet this is the situation right now, at rank 21, which in itself was a grind to reach.
I don't know if it is a bug with you game, but I'm already at lvl13, and I've only completed about 1/5 of special events and 1/3 of the licence events. I haven't touched A-spec and B-spec yet at all.
@Saltank:
Fair review, because GT5 doesn't appeal to everyone, it can't get a high score.
I hope you are wrong, because it would be a shame that if a game can't appeal to the masses, it can't get high scores.
@TheHBK: But the point of GT is that it's a super serious racing SIM, it shouldn't have a rewind feature. Its kind of unfair to hold that against it in the review, its like saying "Well GT5 dosen't have...hovercars! so..im gonna knock off a few points for that"
With that being said, 'twas a good review, about what i expected.
" @TheHBK: But the point of GT is that it's a super serious racing SIM, it shouldn't have a rewind feature. Its kind of unfair to hold that against it in the review, its like saying "Well GT5 dosen't have...hovercars! so..im gonna knock off a few points for that" With that being said, 'twas a good review, about what i expected. "
I just have to ask this: Why is it that GT is all about ultimate realism when the rewind feature is brought up, but realism suddenly becomes less important when people start talking about how damage should have been handled?
@ProfessorEss: I don't know, i haven't even played GT, so i can really speak on the damage model, but we all know how hard it is to be allowed to bang up real cars. Personally i feel that rewind is worse for serious racing sims in general, sure it makes the game easier in a way, but it also kinda takes some of the fun out of learning the tracks, knowing one wrong move can fuck up my whole race.
This is a well written review but personally I don't like the message it sends. Variety is much more important that any perceived lack of polish to me. Reviews like this encourage the COD syndrome. Same as last year just slightly tweaked. BLOPS has some great menus though.
" This is a well written review but personally I don't like the message it sends. Variety is much more important that any perceived lack of polish to me. Reviews like this encourage the COD syndrome. Same as last year just slightly tweaked. BLOPS has some great menus though. "
What you call variety others could call quantity, what you call polish others might refer to as quality.
So quantity over quality? Or quality over quantity?
Convincing arguments can be made for either but you'd have a tough time convincing me that "quality over quantity" is a bad message to send developers.
Figured it would get 3/5 after seeing some of the other reviews & press. Nice job Dave.
I really liked the first two GT games, but 3 started to go in a direction I didn't care for, and 4 just didn't grab me at all. GT5P felt like a re-hash of the PS2 games. :(
Watching the QL for this put me over the edge last week. I ordered a 250GB HDD and Forza 3 Ultimate Collection. So far, I'm loving it. I haven't played GT2 in years, but the vibe I get from Forza is reminding me a lot of that game. Very happy with it. I'll gamefly GT5 at some point, but I'm not in any hurry...
GT5 is an arcadey driving game. All driving g ames on consoles are. The only actual racing simulators are found on the PC. And on a real actual racetrack.
PC elitist I assume? Why I agree that the best sims are on the PC, saying the GT5 is an arcade racing game is plain stupid.
"
You assume wrongly. Any driving game on a console is going to end up arcadey. Note the 'y' at the end of arcade. Implies arcadiness rather than being full out arcade. What GT5 simulates is cars. Not driving and not racing. It does have racing however so yeah - an arcadey car simulator that has racing in it. GT5 is the MMO of the automotive console games.
" @Volts said: What you call variety others could call quantity, what you call polish others might refer to as quality. So quantity over quality? Or quality over quantity? Convincing arguments can be made for either but you'd have a tough time convincing me that "quality over quantity" is a bad message to send developers. "
In a general sense quality is more important than quantity. 3 hours of a great game > 60 of total garbage. What I'm referring to in this game though is the idea that adding all this content has made this a worse game. We're not talking about janky crap here just more or less minor things. Across all the reviews for this game the most nit picked problems are menus, lack of hand holding and minor graphic issues. I don't have an issue at all with the written portion of Dave's review I just don't think the score matches the text. Unfortunately because of how companies are view the importance of metacritic now I just see it as a bad message to give a mediocre score to a quality game because of some minor issues that may or may not have resulted from the larger amount of content.
" @TheHBK: But the point of GT is that it's a super serious racing SIM, it shouldn't have a rewind feature. Its kind of unfair to hold that against it in the review, its like saying "Well GT5 dosen't have...hovercars! so..im gonna knock off a few points for that" With that being said, 'twas a good review, about what i expected. "
I just have to ask this: Why is it that GT is all about ultimate realism when the rewind feature is brought up, but realism suddenly becomes less important when people start talking about how damage should have been handled? "
Sooo... it's a Gran Turismo game then? Never cared for the series personally, but if you're into it this sounds like it's pretty much more of the same.
GT5 is not a racing sim but a driving sim. To qualify as a race you have to have competitors. GT5 AI isn't a factor in any race I ran nor anyone else I've spoken to. Once I'm in the lead, less than one lap, it's me vs the track period. Even after level 20 the AI run in slots and never react to my car. Damage is a joke. Sorry they should have spent the time on the AI. The shadows suck and the road texture is bland. I like Forza's track textures with the skid marks (almost acting like a driving/braking line). Menus are some of the worst I have ever used. I'm still confused after all this time.
@ocdog45: I kinda agree, I mean. Obviously if a game is bad, they should review it and say as such, but a lot of things have come down to personal taste. and some of their more ambigious scores may end up as other people's goty.
That said, I don't come to Giant Bomb for the reviews, I come for the quick looks, which are much more useful to me than reviews anyway. I could watch a quick look of a game that the GB crew hates, but be able to tell that it's a good game for me. On the other hand, I could watch a QL of a game they are in love with and tell that I would absolutely hate it.
Quick Looks are great cause they can be impartial in a way that reviews never quite can, which is by no means the fault of the GB crew.
" @Volts said: What you call variety others could call quantity, what you call polish others might refer to as quality. So quantity over quality? Or quality over quantity? Convincing arguments can be made for either but you'd have a tough time convincing me that "quality over quantity" is a bad message to send developers. "
In a general sense quality is more important than quantity. 3 hours of a great game > 60 of total garbage. What I'm referring to in this game though is the idea that adding all this content has made this a worse game. We're not talking about janky crap here just more or less minor things. Across all the reviews for this game the most nit picked problems are menus, lack of hand holding and minor graphic issues. I don't have an issue at all with the written portion of Dave's review I just don't think the score matches the text. Unfortunately because of how companies are view the importance of metacritic now I just see it as a bad message to give a mediocre score to a quality game because of some minor issues that may or may not have resulted from the larger amount of content. "
Anything can make or break a game, and this is all based on opinion. Dave must have really had a bad time with the menus and believed that other people would also have a bad time with them if he chose to specifically target them when writing about the game.
Also, I think that based on the review his score is probably being too kind.
" I dont have a ps3 but this game may make me buy one :( "
You should, if you can afford it. I'm squarely an Xbox fan, but the PS3 has become a wonderful console. GT5 may not be as good as Forza, but I'm sure it's worth checking out. Even without GT5, the raw number of awesome exclusives for the PS3 just makes it a no-brainer at this point.
I don´t really get it. The menu is absolutely fine for me, the loading time is always only a few seconds, the graphics are sweet, the driving physics are extremely good. I am neither a racing fan nor a Sony boy but GT5 gets a 5/5 from me. Of course the standard cars look often really ass but I would give it a 5/5 still if they were missing at all.
Also a rewind feature would destroy the game completely, what pussy came up with that idea?
" Like I said about Dead Nation. They shouldn't reviews games they don't like. "
But how do they know if they like it or not if they don't put the time in. And, at that point it would be fiscally irresponsible to not publish a review of said title.
" @ocdog45: I kinda agree, I mean. Obviously if a game is bad, they should review it and say as such, but a lot of things have come down to personal taste. and some of their more ambigious scores may end up as other people's goty."
I think it's important to remember that GB has always stated their reviews are just the opinion of the reviewer - they aren't saying what a game is, just how they feel about it. They don't use some complex math equation to come up with their scores. It's all down to gut feel. Just because their reviews don't match up with the majority of critics (Brutal Legend, GT5, etc.) doesn't mean they shouldn't review those games.
@ocdog45: That doesn't even make sense. If they'd only review games that they liked, we'd see alot less reviews and all of them would get 4 or 5.
Just because a reviewer doesn't like a game that you like, it does NOT mean that you have to stop liking it. It all comes down to personal taste. If you've already bought it, and you're having fun with it, why care about a review?
I really liked this review. I feel I'm more aware now of what to expect of Gran Turismo 5 and, more importantly, why it's likely not for me. Still, I think I'll wait a while, maybe for a price drop or a store discount, because I'm still curious to check it out.
330 Comments