Gran Turismo 5 single player review

"When you are racing you forget about the little problems and just enjoy it"

Overview

The best word to sum up Gran Turismo 5 is inconsistent. It is a game that shows its stunning side as much as it shows its ugly rear-end. After years of waiting you can not blame the public for expecting the greatest motorsport game of all time but whether it delivers the hype I am still unclear about. In all honesty it is a great game and it will offer many hours of game play but certain points make me question the perfection of ‘the real racing simulator.’

Graphics

As is expected in this current generation of games the first thing to strike you (as with most games) is the graphics. An instant judgment is usually made about how sharp, realistic and stunning the graphics are but for the first time I have found my mind changing constantly. It is an underlying theme within the game, inconsistency. At first you choose your first car for under 20,000 credits but not matter which car you pick you will find that the detail on the car is actually not brilliant. Whilst it is not comparable with PS2 (obviously) it is certainly no Forza 3, the same can be said for the environment. But suddenly when you choose a better car the graphics change, more detail is put in and a cockpit option becomes available. The fact that a cockpit is not available in all cars is just lazy. Some of the tracks; Rome, London and Madrid to name a few are simply stunning and I could stare at them all day. This part of the game, in terms of graphics, is much better than Forza. It is a shame that not all the graphics have the same effort put in. I realise that the top gear test track (awesome addition by the way) is not the most impressive place but I am sure the textures could look better and some more details could be put in to liven the track up..

Gameplay

The only consistently brilliant part of this game is the handling system. There has never been a game that feels as realistic as Gran Turismo 5. Breaking feels twitchy and dangerous as it should, at the end of the day you are racing general use road cars! The physics system again is the best I have seen in a driving game. Accelerate too early or quickly and loose your rear-end , brake heavily and feel the cars weight shunt to the front of the car. It simply can not be faulted. But then that horrible inconsistency rises to attention once again, the damage system. The damage is poor to say the best. Again if you are in the lower classed car the damage is non existent and even when you are in a higher classed car the damage level is low. High speed shunts could be t-cut out but at least, I suppose, there is a damage system.

A.I

The AI is OK. They are often like zombies just following you around the track taking exactly the same line every lap with the same gap in between each car. This is OK if you are a beginner at driving games but for pro’s like my self this AI system is extremely monotonous. They are very easy to pass and put up no defence, only when you make a mistake will they overtake you. I combat the easiness of this game by turning all assists off and racing in manual, it’s no fix but it helps. I also suggest using only stock cars when racing do not update your car with turbo etc. if you want a challenge. The most fun I have had was in one of the worst cars on the grid and trying to win.

Sound

Sound is very important to me in games. It is one part that helps fully immerses you in the game but unfortunately for Gran Turismo 5 it is were inconsistency shows up once again. I will start on a high. The soundtrack is very good when racing, it is as if they took my itunes library and used it for my racing experience. Brilliant drum and bass tracks accompany a great racing experience, there is nothing like hammering a car around a track with some fast passed music. But in the menus it is as if the music has been taken from a bad 80’s movie which to be honest is pretty trade mark of the Gran Turismo series and so is not really a bad point. Where the sound lets itself down is on track. Whilst the car engine sounds are pretty good, they are not quite that of Forza 3.  But above all the biggest problem is contact, whenever you make contact with another vehicle it is exactly the same sound! I have never been in a car accident in real life but I imagine it would sound different every time I make contact. This is only a small gripe and does not take much away from the game but again it shows Polyphony’s laziness.

 

General

The inclusion of NASCAR and Rallying is a welcomed addition to the franchise. The rallying is hard to master but when you have it feels great. The selection of Rally cars all make you feel like hammering it around a circuit or dirt road. I am not a fan of NASCAR and this game is not going to turn me but it certainly was worth putting in especially if they want to reach another audience in America. The go-karting is pretty good although taking it away would not take anything away from the gaming experience. The menus are another problem for me, they are strangely laid out and cluttered and you seem to spend quite a while in them. One last problem I have is with the loading, I have not yet installed the massive 8GB to my hard drive (I wanted to play straight away) but after only playing for a while I have realised I will have to install it soon. The loading times are quite excruciating but I am sure this will be helped when I get round to installing it to my hard drive.

Conclusion

This is the best racing game out at the moment and I feel it will stay there until the next Gran Turismo comes out. It lacks the consistency of Forza and the effort of F1 2010 but it takes the best points of both games, shoves in a 1000+ haul of cars and makes the best driving game out there. The graphic problem can be ignored when racing at 100MPH and the sound also is unimportant if you are a fair racer and do not hit your fellow competitors. This is a game that all motorsport fans must have and the inclusion of two Ferrari F1 cars and the design of Adrian Newie and 2011 F1 world Champion Sebastian Vettel’s X1 are reasons alone for F1 fans to buy the game (even though I am yet to drive any of the above). At the end of the day this racing game is best where it matters, out on track and when you are racing you forget about the little problems and just enjoy it.

8.5/10

Posted by Sean Russell - Follow him on twitter @SeanRussellF1.

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