Gran Turismo 5.....was it worth the wait?

[hashiriya1]

This pic shows how nice the Z32 still looks after all these years. One of the best designs of a Japanese car.

[EvilRyu2099]

Ok, this is going to sound nitpicky and a bit graphics whore-ish. But I finally played the demo of GT5 at a Target store kiosk the other night when something happened graphically that really turned me off on this game.

For the demo run, I decided to pick the Ferrari Enzo car since I love Ferrari's and it's listed as a premium car, so that meant that I could try playing the game in the new cockpit mode, which was supposed to look ultra-realistic and all that.

Anyway, I started a race and began cycling through all the different camera modes as I'm driving around the track just to get an idea of what the new game looks like compared to the previous games on PS2.. when all of a sudden I lost control of the car and began sliding against the wall in the third-person, "behind the car" view. And when I did that I noticed that the passenger side mirror was actually "disappearing" right into the wall as if this were an early 3D racing game on the PS1 or Sega Saturn!

Honest to God, after all these years of waiting I thought that was so lame that I just dropped the controller and walked away. I mean, it's bad enough that there was no scraping effect of my car sliding against one of the walls of the race track at high speed, but to actually see part of the car disappear into the wall as if it were a Gran Turismo game on the PS1 seemed ridiculous to me.

I know a lot of people have complained about the lack of damage. But that's horrible for a game of this magnitude.

I find it funny.. I've must have put 40+ hours so far and I've never seen a glitch so blatant.. Also I'm noticing as I level up I'm getting damage in all cars, and the effects seems more noticeable.. This is all before level 20 too, which I'm very close to atm.. There is also grinding and scraping followed by sparks... In fact, I'm noticing paint damage as well.. At level 40, your damage also determines your cars performance and is full blown.. I actually agree with this implementation simply because it makes the game harder as you progress...

[Weekend_Warrior]

Ok, this is going to sound nitpicky and a bit graphics whore-ish. But I finally played the demo of GT5 at a Target store kiosk the other night when something happened graphically that really turned me off on this game.

For the demo run, I decided to pick the Ferrari Enzo car since I love Ferrari's and it's listed as a premium car, so that meant that I could try playing the game in the new cockpit mode, which was supposed to look ultra-realistic and all that.

Anyway, I started a race and began cycling through all the different camera modes as I'm driving around the track just to get an idea of what the new game looks like compared to the previous games on PS2.. when all of a sudden I lost control of the car and began sliding against the wall in the third-person, "behind the car" view. And when I did that I noticed that the passenger side mirror was actually "disappearing" right into the wall as if this were an early 3D racing game on the PS1 or Sega Saturn!

Honest to God, after all these years of waiting I thought that was so lame that I just dropped the controller and walked away. I mean, it's bad enough that there was no scraping effect of my car sliding against one of the walls of the race track at high speed, but to actually see part of the car disappear into the wall as if it were a Gran Turismo game on the PS1 seemed ridiculous to me.

I know a lot of people have complained about the lack of damage. But that's horrible for a game of this magnitude.

I find it funny.. I've must have put 40+ hours so far and I've never seen a glitch so blatant.. Also I'm noticing as I level up I'm getting damage in all cars, and the effects seems more noticeable.. This is all before level 20 too, which I'm very close to atm.. There is also grinding and scraping followed by sparks... In fact, I'm noticing paint damage as well.. At level 40, your damage also determines your cars performance and is full blown.. I actually agree with this implementation simply because it makes the game harder as you progress...

Hmm interesting

[Weekend_Warrior]

No offense, but what should the developers have done about it. really. think about it.

Um, fix it? They had almost six years to work on it.

[Wim_Senna]

I think it's brilliant. I'v been playing GT for 12 years now and the only thing I regret is that it all became so complex in GT mode, but otherwise it's absolutely brilliant.

But technically it's not perfect Some slowdown and flicker here and there, nothing dramatic, but a powerhouse like the PS3 should be able to manage this. Sloppy programming maybe?

[Niode]

I think it's brilliant. I'v been playing GT for 12 years now and the only thing I regret is that it all became so complex in GT mode, but otherwise it's absolutely brilliant.

But technically it's not perfect Some slowdown and flicker here and there, nothing dramatic, but a powerhouse like the PS3 should be able to manage this. Sloppy programming maybe?

Nope, the PS3 isn't as powerful as Sony hype it up to be. Just take a look at any number of the tech analysis articles on Digital Foundry. Devs really are squeezing as much out of the system as they can. It's main Achilles heal is the fixed 256MB Video Ram and the poor graphics card compared to the flexible RAM system (IE 512MB for the entire machine, can be assigned to CPU/GPU in whatever ratio the devs need) in the 360. The PS3 does certain things better but alpha transparencies are really poor on the PS3, hence the weather effects looking utterly crap in GT5. Seriously, it looks awful.

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/arti ... a1.jpg.jpg

It looks even worse in motion.

Fill rate is also limited hence the sparse track side ornaments. Take a look at the comparison between Ninja Gaiden 2 and Sigma 2, half as many enemies on screen due to poorer fill rate, pixel shader effects look better on the PS3 due to the superior pixel shader on the nvidia card.

[t0yrobo]

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/arti ... a1.jpg.jpg

Oh yuck. I'm all for talking shit about Sony for all their prerelease PS3 bs, and for GT STILL having awful menus, and not living up to it's out of control hype. But that's just kinda sad. I feel bad for the developers that they had to release the game like that, they probably knew that they couldn't get away with not having weather effects so they had to settle on whatever worked.

In fact I feel bad for the people who spent so much on PS3s at release in anticipation of this game too(I know a couple). I'm sure the game isn't nearly as bad as some people make it seem, but like the PS3, it's just a bit of a mess in general.

[msimplay]

Nope, the PS3 isn't as powerful as Sony hype it up to be.

They spent 5 or so years trying to get the best out of it and yes it looks good plays good just not as good as the hype.

I guess that is the bottom line but I already knew that when I seen the specs in comparison to the 360 many articles to say that the consoles are very evenly matched with both having advantages and disadvantages in certain areas.
I have to say however Bluray is one factor where it does overshadow the 360 but this could easily overcome through multiple discs and upcoming quad layer DVD's.

Someone mentioned Sony having the Bluray patent as a disadvantage to Microsoft but I don't really see it as such Microsoft would just create their own storage disc to suit if it came down to it as many have in the past.

[Niode]

Nope, the PS3 isn't as powerful as Sony hype it up to be.

I guess that is the bottom line but I already knew that when I seen the specs in comparison to the 360 many articles to say that the consoles are very evenly matched with both having advantages and disadvantages in certain areas.
I have to say however Bluray is one factor where it does overshadow the 360 but this could easily overcome through multiple discs and upcoming quad layer DVD's.

Pretty much what I'm getting at. Some amazing things can be achieved with the hardware but only by very highly skilled devs. Just look at Uncharted 2, Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 3. A lot of what makes those games look amazing is down to very clever design rather than sheer grunt. Likewise the 360 has it's own share of great looking titles such as Gears of War 2, Halo Reach, Forza Motorsport, Viva Pinata etc. At the end of the day they're both running practically identical specs. They're both 6 core machines (the Cell is 8 core, but one core is disabled to increase yields at manufacture, and the 7th is reserved entirely for the hypervisor and is off limits to the developers), running the same generation graphics cards, same amount of total system RAM. The only real difference is one is OpenGL based and one is DirectX based.

[EvilRyu2099]

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/arti ... a1.jpg.jpg

Oh yuck. I'm all for talking shit about Sony for all their prerelease PS3 bs, and for GT STILL having awful menus, and not living up to it's out of control hype. But that's just kinda sad. I feel bad for the developers that they had to release the game like that, they probably knew that they couldn't get away with not having weather effects so they had to settle on whatever worked.

In fact I feel bad for the people who spent so much on PS3s at release in anticipation of this game too(I know a couple). I'm sure the game isn't nearly as bad as some people make it seem, but like the PS3, it's just a bit of a mess in general.

A mess are you kidding me? It had it's faults at launch, but you can't say it's a mess anymore... It's improved tenfold... In fact it's made such a good recovery, many financial analysts believe it could outsell 360 in the next year or two..