If you ever had an interest in racing for real, chances are you are familiar with the Gran Turismo series. This franchise of games has continually pushed the lines of how close a simulation can imitate reality. That has been their mission since the first Gran Turismo game graced the original PlayStation all those years ago. Now decades later and 3 iterations of that Sony hardware, we finally get Gran Turismo 5, the true driving simulation experience in high definition. Polyphony Digital has worked for years to bring the expectations of their wildly loyal fan base to fruition and this latest entry in the franchise is by far the best by a mile. (HA see what I did there?)
So as you would expect, the main focus of the development time has been spent making the cars look, sound, and act like their real life counter parts. They took care to make sure that the cars they focused on the most really stand out as being the best imitation they could possibly be. And they are! The sound of the engine, the way the handle (I assume), everything about them just bleeds authentic experience. The new interior view allows you to see from the actual driving perspective complete with dashboard detail and actually working gauges. When you glance back to check your slip stream, you will see the detail spent on the back of the interior as well. This really helps sell the whole experience and if you are like me, you will want to make the jump from hood cam (which is still in there) to this view just to make your experience as real as possible. Not much else to say on this point. The cars are the focus of this game and it shows. Of course now I have to burst your bubble and tell you that not all the cars have this much detail.
Gran Turismo 5 features two different types of cars, what they call premium cars, (see above) and then standard cars. The game features over 1000 different cars but they are not all premium cars. Not by a long shot. The final number is like 200. That’s it. But those 200 sure are pretty. If you are driving one of the other 80%, your interior view consists of a really ugly dark black outline of what could be a dash. It’s hard to tell honestly. You do get a steering wheel, complete with hands, but you won’t really see it because it’s so dark and badly designed. I guess you could consider it fortunate that you get even that much but really when you brag about your number of cars, you really should have been forward about the way those cars break down. So any way you slice it that is a big letdown.
So let’s bring this back up to a positive note, the new leveling system. Look guys, I am a sucker for a leveling system. Something about seeing myself progress towards something and actually see experience points, I don’t know it just works for me. So imagine my surprise to see a leveling system, even one as simple as this, in GT5. I was amazed. Basically you get experience for every race you participate in. Whether you get A-Spec points for racing yourself, or B-Spec, which returns in full force, for directing your own driving team, the leveling system is great. It is mainly used to limit your open events, harder events take a higher level to enter. The best implementation of the leveling system however is in the B-Spec mode. This separate level governs how many drivers you can have on your team and what events they can enter. But get this, each driver on your team has their own level and gains experience with ever race they compete in. And they actually develop their driving skill as they level up! I know, amazing! What an awesome idea! Every driver improves in spurts where they are at the top of the game, they are not at the top but still competent, and then they have days where they are just off their game altogether. Racing a driver on a day like that and he will be more likely to make mistakes. And it gets even crazier! As they progress through their levels, they will reach a point in their career where they are at the height of their skill. Just like in real life. And then as they age, they start slipping until they get to a point where they are taking away from their driving skill as they level up instead of adding to it. You know like when a football player gets too old for the game and has to retire. When this happens you just retire them and start a new recruit in their place. This is by far the most surprisingly complex and in my opinion the best new feature in the game. Simply amazing!
Now you know what comes next. I have to bring us back down. The actual GT Life, as it’s called in the game is kind of bland. When other games have done a career mode so much better, Gran Turismo included (talking about the career mode in 4 here) the lack of anything really substantial is just kind of a bummer. I for one thought the whole system of going around the world in 4 was really neat and I was expecting something even more deep this time around. So when I got into it, I was incredibly disappointed to see something on par with the one in GT3. I mean I understand that certain things have to be arranged in a certain way. Even Dirt 3 manages to at least make the career seem more realistic with their set up. They still have the traditional list of races but its arranged to simulate a driver’s trailer. (Its actually pretty neat!) Gran Turismo 5’s lack of anything substantial or meaningful in the way of a career mode presentation is quite a missed opportunity. But hey, I guess when you put most of your effort in the driving experience, other areas have to suffer.
The only other point to touch on that comes to mind is the serious loading issue. I opted to install the massive 9 gig game data file to reduce to load times but you could have fooled me. If this is the reduced time, I would hate to see what it was like before I installed it. The loading times between the career window and the race itself is too long and to make it worse, each opponent has to load individually so then you are waiting another minute after you load the track to actually start the race. In fact there is a noticeably long load between pretty much everything, which is I both understand but hate at the same time. I still remember the promises before the PS3 came out that was promised less loading and perhaps no loading at all. Though some games have reduced their load screens with streaming, GT hasn’t and it’s a bummer there isn’t really anything that can be done about that.
But hey in spite of all that, the game is still fantastic. It is the best, most authentic racing experience on the PS3 and I if I might be so bold, the best racing game around. The cars, even the standard ones, still look amazing, sound fantastic, and all handle uniquely. The tracks and surrounding environments are beautiful and this all really wraps this up into the best racing package money can buy. On top of having freaking kart racing and NASCAR, the massive list of features such as 3D support (who cares?), GT PSP connectivity, custom soundtrack, track editor, full online community, et cetera, et cetera, you really have a hard time not justify picking this up if you are a fan of racing. I suppose I should specify. This game is for racing fans. Not for fans of Fast and Furious. That fake racing is not here. But people who like some real European racing, you can’t pass this one up.