Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

You only need to read a few forum posts to think that the word ‘Prologue’ means ‘demo’. It doesn’t obviously, but that doesn’t stop many uninformed people complaining about having to pay for a demo. Were they complaining that the online version from the PSN store is more expensive than the retail version in most places, they would have a point. I understand the reason why they’ve set the RRP of both the same but I don’t agree with it and I don’t think it sends out a very positive message for the future. But complaints about RRP’s aside, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is more than a demo. It has more longevity than most full-priced titles, weighing in at around 10-12 hours to complete the single-player campaign, and offers enough cars and tracks to keep things varied, whilst allowing for familiarity. So Prologue > Demo.

But the quality of GT5 Prologue in places is very reminiscent of a game in early production. For instance the interface is very convoluted and unintuitive with multiple layers having to be navigated through just to change a car for a specific race. When a race finishes there’s no option to go to the next available race compatible with the car you have chosen. Even buying cars becomes an arduous task, with no easy way to view or compare all cars available for your budget. This is bad enough now, but if this remains in the full version, when there are likely to be hundreds of cars available, it could quickly become a much bigger issue.

There are also a number of other issues that plague GT5 Prologue. The online component of the game is, without a doubt, the worst online experience I’ve had in a racing game since the days of dial-up connections (and even then some of those performed better). Lag is the first major issue, with cars juddering all over the track and sometimes even mysteriously receiving a speed boost that sends them faster than the speed of light 20 yards or so up the track. Then there’s the online matchmaking, which is the most archaic and restrictive system that I have experienced in many years. Rather than being able to invite people from your existing PS3 friends list, you only have the option to participate in races against random people. On top of this, while there are a number of different preset races to participate in, there is a lack of any customisation in terms of what cars you want people to be able to use, how many laps, skill level etc.

The biggest problem with the online mode though, and one that has left it almost unplayable for people that actually want to race, is the lack of any damage system resulting in people quickly turning all of the races into Destruction Derby affairs. Having become used to the excellent online modes in Forza 2 and Project Gotham Racing, playing GT5 Prologue was a step backwards. Within seconds of crossing the starting line I had been wiped out and sent flying into a barrier. Thinking that it was just one particularly bitter player I quickly got the car back on the track and tried to catch up with the pack. After I’d successfully navigated the first corner I was presented with what could only be described as a ‘melee’, with cars deliberately flying into each other and using each other to break at the next corner. I finished the race in 4th, but on every occasion where I attempted to cleanly pass a rival car, I was rammed and then used as a brake in the next corner. All other races continued in this way, with only a maximum of two or three people out of a total of 12 in each race trying to race sensibly. If somebody ended up being too far behind to catch up, they invariably turned the car around and drove the wrong way around the track instead. Most races also resulted in the majority of the cars hugging the outside walls and using them to get round corners quicker (the game does include penalties for ‘wall collisions’ but invariably fails to apply them). Kazunori has promised to address these issues and more in an update later in the year, but should a brand new game, especially one with such a high profile as GT5 Prologue, really require an update to prevent its online component from playing like a game from the 56.6 dial-up era?

Away from online GT5 Prologue does take a turn for the better, but it’s a turn with many bumps along the way. The AI has finally been improved and rival cars will now overtake each other and sometimes make unforced errors, but they’re still not up to the AI available in other racers. They will still quite happily attempt to knock you off of the racing line when entering a turn, will quite happily rear-end you when they’ve had time to brake or to swerve around you and tend to drive around the track with no personality whatsoever. The AI cars also seem to be equipped with an invisible force-field, as nudges that send other cars flying online have no effect on the AI cars. For those of you that can’t stand braking you can also still use the rival cars as ‘brakes’ with very little loss of speed to your car, at least until the latter races when three-second penalties occur for using such methods (but also penalise being bumped from behind by another car when you had no say in the matter).

There are a total of four classes to play through (C, B, A & S), with S requiring a huge amount of skill to complete. Once C, B & A have been completed a Quick Tune feature is unlocked that enables you to tweak your car setups. Adjusting weight ratios, camber angles, gear rations and the ride height of your car is easily done and can shave seconds off of your previous best lap times. You can even make real-time adjustments to some of these settings during races by assigning buttons on your Sixaxis or wheel. While we’re on the subject of a wheel, GT5 Prologue is definitely much easier to play with one, due to the Sixaxis being a little too sensitive. I managed to immediately knock three seconds off of my best lap time around Eiger Nordwand with the Sixaxis when I changed to a wheel, without even breaking a sweat. Tracks can also be raced in Arcade mode, either alone or via split-screen multiplayer, with the latter performing very well with no additional frame-rate dips than you would normally encounter when playing alone.

Visually GT5 Prologue is gorgeous, if a little too clean and clinical and sometimes inconsistent. All cars are exquisitely detailed and show Kazunori’s love for cars, but trackside detail varies wildly in quality. Whereas Eiger Nordwand features a moving crowd fully rendered in 3D, complete with gorgeous mountainous scenery, other tracks feature 2D cardboard cut-out crowds and very little trackside detail. Overall though, and aside from the odd piece of tearing and rare frame-rate dips, there’s very little to complain about which bodes well for GT5.

What doesn’t bode so well are the tracks themselves. Eiger Nordwand, the track available in the Gran Turismo HD Concept download, is a joy to drive around. However every other track in the game, including the visually amazing Piccadilly, are a bit of a bore. Road undulations seem non-existent (or at least don’t have as much effect on the car as they should), corners are too easy to take and the tracks are a little too short in distance.

Kazunori Yamauchi has recently been quoted as saying that he doesn’t play other games in the genre; well perhaps he should. Perhaps he should witness for himself their sense of speed, how exciting they are to play, how much damage (and proper visible damage at that) adds to the gameplay experience, how good the AI can be and witness how other developers handle online play. Perhaps then we wouldn’t have an exceptional technical demo that struggles as a game. Dedicated fans (and in some cases apologists) of the series will no doubt disagree with that last statement. For some GT5 Prologue is everything they wanted. But there appears to be as many people that are voicing their concern over how archaic the series is now starting to feel when compared to its rivals.

Gran Turismo lacks soul. It’s still a good game and there’s enough content there to warrant the price but in some ways it is like playing a PS1 game with PS3 visuals. Why do we still have rolling starts, why can’t we have grid starts? Why are we waiting for online features that have been available for ages now in other games, such as private sessions and friends invites? Why doesn’t the game heavily penalise people that ram others? Why, when I need to buy at least three cars to complete a license, do you make me continually re-play the same unchallenging races over and over again just to achieve enough money to purchase the cars required? Why does the autosave feature take so long to save? Why do I have to navigate through multiple layers just to choose a different race? How can the difficulty level fluctuate so wildly between races in the same class? It’s as though Kazunori has spent too long frolicking with the car manufacturers and less time actually improving the features that have needed improving since Gran Turismo 2.

I’m hoping that GT5 is as good as it has the potential to be, but for it to be so Kazunori and his team need to step out of the dark ages, play with their competitors products and learn from them. At the moment though I would recommend waiting a couple of months for Race Driver: Grid. Early signs are that that delivers a Forza-like experience with exceptional AI, superb online play and everything else that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue really should have delivered but ultimately failed to. That is not to say GT5 Prologue isn’t enjoyable because it is, despite all of its foibles. But there are arguably better examples of the genre available on other consoles and a rival to its PS3 crown only a couple of months away.

*Please note: We reviewed the disc version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and were both surprised and concerned to see that it took up 6gb of our hard drive space through a mandatory install and patch download. The patch also failed seven times and took 1 hour 21 minutes to download on a 3mb connection. Coupled with the install of the game and then the patch, it took us nearly 2 hours before we could even start to play the game. If these are going to become the standard sizes of mandatory hard drive installs and patches are going to become this longwinded and problematic, it’s a frightening prospect for PS3 owners that want accessible gaming and more than a handful of games in their collection.

Our rating

7/10