GamaGanda

The Gran Turismo series debuted in december 1997 and there are more than 61 mil. units sold to date. 13 years later we now have the fifth installment, which during its short shelf life of only two months has already managed to sell 5.5 mil. units, becoming the best-selling game for the PlayStation 3, surpassing titles from other great franchises like Uncharted, LBP, Motorstorm or CoD. Of course, this begs the question of “How the heck was this possible?”

When I got the game, I intended to start playing right away. Soon after installing the game, my PS3 broke. I only managed to get a new one during January, so I cannot say I’ve spent countless hours with the game, but I’ve tasted a little bit of everything. One thing’s for sure. Playing this title is a huge endeavour. It’s like a task you set for yourself on New Year’s Eve. There’s so much to explore and so much to do, that you don’t really need to play anything else for a long while, especially if you’re into racing games.

So lets start from the beginning. Installing this title is a painful decision if you’re eager to play. It took me more than one hour on both my dead 60GB phat and 160GB slim PS3. If you’re not willing to do it, then you should know that it will take longer to load everything and, oh man, this one like to load. Even browsing through menus feels so slow because of this, and I have the game installed on my hdd.

Next thing you’ll definitely notice upon accessing the game is the soundtrack. It’s jazz most of the time, although it changes to rock or other genres occasionally. I don’t generally like it, but I can live with it, especially when the rhythm varies a lot, which is GT5′s case. The main menu has four important sections, GT Mode, Arcade Mode, Course Maker and Gran Turismo TV. Right beside them you have the Manual section, the Options and a Save button. In the upper right-hand corner there’s also a News section where you can check all the new stuff from the devs.

The main sections of the game which interest you are the GT Mode and the Arcade Mode. Well, most of you will be interested in the first one, but if you’re a beginner and you don’t really know what’s going on in Gran Turismo, you can start by checking the second one. The GT Mode is the section where all the good stuff takes place. You’ll be prompted to design a driver, input some information and customize the look of this section. If you’re eager to play, these things will really make your life miserable, but at least you can skip some of them.

Your first step will be to acquire a car. There are two dealership sections, one for new cars and one for used ones. There’s a third one, the online collector’s dealership, but those cars are not only expensive, but exotic too. Getting a car allows you to enter A-Spec events, basically racing competitions where you’ll drive the car on certain tracks. You can also enter B-Spec events, which are also racing competitions but you won’t be driving any more. Instead, you’ll team up with a driver and direct him during the race by issueing commands. I’m not a fan, but entering this section with an Audi R8 allows you to dominate some of the beginner events.

For maintaining and tuning you cars, you have two sections at your disposal. The car maintenance & service section allows you wash your car, change the oil, paint your car, overhaul the engine and other tasks. The tuning shop is the cake of it all, as you can buy and install parts on your car. You can tweak pretty much everything, from the weight of the car, to the engine, exhaust, intake, transmission, drivetrain, suspenssion, as well as installing body kits. The game will tell you what each part does and how it will improve your car. As for the parts, you’ll have to spend some credits, as they’re not free.

As you advance through the game, you’ll earn experience and credits. The experience raises your level in either A-Spec or B-Spec events, allowing you to enter more interesting competitions and drive more powerful cars. It’s a simple system which works well and you never feel weak compared to the competition if you take your time and invest your credits in a good car. You can also get experience from other events, like the Special events or the Licenses. The Special events allow you to participate in carting races, NASCAR races, rally challenges and many more, while the Licenses basically teach you how to drive in different environments or situations. The Specials will get you lots of experience and credits, while Licenses only experience.

The GT Mode also includes a virtual photo booth for your cars where you can take professional shots in different environments, a practice section where you can access the tracks and perform free runs and drifts, as well as the community section. The online experience can be shared with a maximum of 16 other friends, as you can race and talk in rooms that you can search, join or create. While being online, the room owner can set different requirements for the race, so if you don’t have a car in your garage, you can use a standard one. As you can imagine, GT5 features hundreds of cars and they are divided into premium and standard ones. The premium cars feature an interior camera option as well as a detailed damage model. They say that about 20% of the cars in the game are premium, which should be around 200.

The Adventure mode is interesting for one reason. It allows you to play with someone else in split screen. Other than that, you can perform time or drift trials, as well as the classic single race. You have many tracks and cars at your disposal and if you wish to showcase the game to someone who has never played before, it could be a good place to start. Other than that, it’s useless. Fortunately, you cannot say that about the Course Maker. Yes, it’s very easy to build a track, but it’s rather hard to tweak it and make it fun to race. There are 7 presets available and your track can have up to 7 sections. You can change the time of day and the weather too. Each section of the track can have its own difficulty, as well as different road width or corner sharpness. You can then test the track, save it and even share it with friends. Last but not least, the Gran Turismo TV will serve you videos from some of the most important events and competitions.

Graphics wise the game is not that impressive. There are low quality shadows and the people cheering on the sides of the track are in fact sprites but do you think you can see those things when racing on Nurburgring with 300 km/h? I just love the cars. Their models have a very high polygon counts and that’s what matters. Oh wait, there’s something else. The sound of the engine. I really don’t know how 1000 cars sound like, but they seem pretty real to me. You can say the same thing about the driving and how the car handles itself on the track. Compared with some PC racing simulators, I’d say GT5 doesn’t feature the same handling, but it should be enough for most of the gamers out there. I think that a game, sim or not, should first be a game and then a shooter, a racer, a platformer or whatever genre you fancy right now.

As you can see, GT5 is more than a game. It’s an ongoing experience. I cannot really say I’ve reviewed the game. It’s huge task just to play it and I haven’t made it yet to the 24 hours Enduro races. I really hope you’ll get the game, play it and enjoy it as much as I did, so all I can tell you right now is “Good luck!”

9/10