Gran Turismo 5

by Darren Lee Taylor - 2008/03/30 1:34pm

Although stamped as a heavy duty demo of things to come, Prologue has always teased us with it's motorised beauty and starkling grimace, bodyshine brilliance and speedy corners through the immense power of the Playstation 3; packing in all of the usual GT content that makes many a racing fan spill their pants, and it's with the release of this miniature miasmic measure of simplicity and style that will wet the appetite of many a hardcore gamer.

Although first unveiled at a backroom conference in sunny San Diego in 2005, Prologue was greeted with much snarling and grunting from journalists and petrolheads alike, creating a backbreaker of a wave of negativity and unsurpassing blowback at the party stand of Polyphonal Digital. As is always the case with triple A-grade performance titles, such details about anything of the gameplay, resolutions, specifications and formats can create a simple buzz of electricity eminate from every pour of a sweaty gameplayer, and it was the same with GT Prologue.

In every sense of the word this is still the penultimate racing experience, dripping with style and gloss, with high definition glory that will make your screen curl up in a heated pile of twisted molten metal. A racing line so finely drawn, that even as a starter course before the main event set for 2009, this is still the ultimate simulator. The engines roar and the tyres spin as your rustic, robotic, rendered, realistic jet of flame bursts from your fingertips as your chosen vehicle flies frorm the starting grid in a pit of smoke and dust. GT has nhever looked so good, and never handled so well. Each of the 71 available vehicles, from Mini Coopers S' to Audi R8's, to Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce's, Jaguars and Subura Impreza's, the game has them all. For sporting fans, there are even a fair collection of real juice-gusling motorised behomoths for you to spend your accumulated credits on, and belive me, they will be well spent.

The first thing that is notably excepted, is the fact that this a simpler, easier GT experience from previous installments, making winning races and coming ahead of the pack that much more straightforward, with rewards becoming more and more prevalent throughout. You will have attained nearly a third of the games cars and unlockables within a day or two of solid play, but the decision to spend your hard earned credits on every machine available in the dealership window, or save for the ultimate 2007 Formula 1 racing car driven by Raikkonnen to victory in the championship last season to simply leave the competition in the dust is always an option that is readibly present throughout the very short career/event mode.

The event mode sets out three difficulty categories for you to race too in singleplayer mode, A being the most challenging, and lending you to spend your cash on singular race vehicles that are only permitted for several races and special missions only. There are also chances to unlock prize cars in the other tow classes, C and B, but these proove nothing spectacular in comparison to other road ragers available. The events mode is a distraction from the main aspect of the game, and that's perfecting the limited 6 tracks with pure racing times and lines, to be able to beat the very best that the world of GT offers.

GT Prologue offers a fully-fledged online experience, meeting and greeting other GT owners on one of the tracks you have worked so hard to perfect in event and arcade mode on your home screen. This is your chance to hit the leaderboards with a devestating blow to the top 10 positions with your skill and acquired map knowledge of each and every bend. The sun rises and sets over the sumptous backgrounds as you hurtle along at 200mph with the red blotted sunlight patching its way through the interior of your car, a new viewpoint available in GT Prologue, much favoured by many that have tried and tested each style of play. Being able to see the driver in your car, his/her hands on the wheel of your prize possesion as you drift and steer around fairly straightforward track layouts is simply amazing, and looks stunning in the right lighting.

Although each race is relatively short, bar a few long lap races towards the end, Prologue offers much in the way of several replayablity options, including recording lap times and replays, so you can show off online and watch other racers outperform you on your favourite track, it really does have everything catered for online.

The negatives can be fired directly at Sony's servers however at the time this review was being written. Not only were races really lagged and bogged down by graphical glitches and severe server problems, they also managed to kick people out of races mid-drive, causing records and data to become corrupted for people that reported issues. With documented ghost cars and pixellated gravel churning out of the exhaust of your competition, many elements of this mode reamined broken and in need of an update. Not only is this a disappointing experience for many GT players looking to further their challenges online, it also is unacceptable for the amount of time Polyphonal have had on this title, regardless of the amount of players online at the same time.

Saying all of that however, this is far outweighed by the absolute realism and scale of the force and drive behind the games engine. This is most present in the games install and update times from the PSN network, and as such, takes a little while longer than expected to fire up. After this initial setup however, all loading times become insignificant and irrelevant, making the game smooth and easy to navigate under the bonnett of its beauty and epic performance.

This is a real driving simulator for people that take to the road to enjoy driving, enjoy competing, and enjoy the sudden anguish at being beaten for the sixteenth time on the same corner because of a simple power mechanic or physical issue..incredible, and well worth the asking price for value. Watch out for a much improved version of GT 5 coming in 2009 with possible smash, dent and deformation included at last.