Does GT5 have an identity crisis?

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Betty_Swallocks

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First of all I want to make it clear that this is not a whinge, a complaint or a gripe. I've more than got my moneys worth out of this game and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Having said that, what is GT5 for?

It is billed as the "Real Driving Simulator" but if that is what it is why is it that I can only drive on race tracks? And why is it that the only way to progress in the game is by winning races? That's not simulation. I would have thought a simulation would have a free roam mode where I could go anywhere.

So is it a racing game? Well I guess it is partially but there are better ones out there. I was at a lan party last weekend and was playing GTR Evolution on the PC and it struck me how much more realistic the feeling of driving was than GT5.

Also if it is primarily a racing game why are so many of the cars useless for racing? Unless you're going to do a one make race who in their right mind is going to enter a Subaru 360 for example against anything faster than a bicycle? That car (and many others) belong in a simulator but where is the simulator part of the game to use them in?
 
It's a game for petrol heads. It's never really been a serious racing game, otherwise they would make the AI even half-believable.
 
It's more of a split personality.

On the one hand, GT5 wants to be about car collecting, I guess. About admiring cars for what they are, looking at them, taking photos of them and washing and waxing them.
On the other hand, it needs to be more than a virtual stamp collection, so there's the racing part.

As a result, you're stuck somewhere between a sunday drive and a track day, which, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing, if it found a good balance between its 'ingredients'.
 
Really, I thought gt5 had problems, because it was stuck in the middle, and it still is a little bit. But there are only two games out there and that is gts and forza 3. Forza 3 customization is the best there is, but gt5 physics are so much better though. A real enthusiasts have both games.
 
That isn't something specific to GT5, but the entire GT series. I do think it's a less than perfect situation. I think GT would be a much better game if more attention was spent on racing rules and qualification and similar areas. A fun part of the game is taking also sorts of cars for a spin on a variety of tracks, yes, but the racing portion is also very important. Yet that area of the game is pretty lacklustre. Mind you, I think Forza suffers from the same problem, with a similar lack of decent racing rules, qualification, track day experience, etc.

For me personally GT5 is the best driving/racing/car game out there, but there's still so much room for improvement in the racing area that could take the game to another level altogether. In that sense, yes I agree it has an identity crisis.
 
Luminis
It's more of a split personality.

On the one hand, GT5 wants to be about car collecting, I guess. About admiring cars for what they are, looking at them, taking photos of them and washing and waxing them.
On the other hand, it needs to be more than a virtual stamp collection, so there's the racing part.

As a result, you're stuck somewhere between a sunday drive and a track day, which, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing, if it found a good balance between its 'ingredients'.
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Very, very well said.
 
No it does not. It's a sim-oriented console game that does the best it can to incorporate the joy that can be experienced from all types of performance driving -- The Real Driving Simulator.
 
TeddyBear-420
Did he give up on this? i would love to have a free roam
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The game is lifeless, I don't know where you would free roam anyways, the way GT5 is made, free roam will be limited, no doubt about that. A free roam in my book is Grand Theft Auto (the 4th one especially), you can ride for HOURS and the city feels alive, that's what missing in GT5, heck, there's more life in Mario Kart than GT.

It's ironic that, for a game that comes from Japan, the country where you can buy a teddy bear in a "coke machine" on the street, where you see robots on tv that gives you seizures and other kinds of extremely weird and cool stuff, the game feels so empty.

In all honesty, I took NFS Shift 1 for a spin and I raced online... man, my heart was racing as well, I was nervous from start to finish but in GT5, I feel nothing, unless I'm racing karts... go figure.
 
In my opinion, GT5 should have been a revolution. Instead they got into a pissing contest with Turn 10 and tried to cram in as much content as they possibly could and what we ended up with was a game that does a lot of things poorly.

Gran Turismo has always excelled when it comes to driving, but to take GT5 to the next level they really needed to revolutionize racing. AI, qualifying, damage, pit stops, racing rules, all of these things needed to be brilliant for GT5 to be anything but a prettier version of GT4. Sadly, PD failed spectacularly :(
 
I remember a multiplayer racing online game called drift city / skid rush.
it has cities with traffic, stories, and quests (deliver something under x time, chase bad guys, spy on something, escort someone quickly without crashing x times, etc), well I hope the next GT6 will include this kinda thing..
 
Dodzzz
I remember a multiplayer racing online game called drift city / skid rush.
it has cities with traffic, stories, and quests (deliver something under x time, chase bad guys, spy on something, escort someone quickly without crashing x times, etc), well I hope the next GT6 will include this kinda thing..
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Sounds like NFS: Underground. Or Fast and the Furious. Dunno, but street racing and sim games don't mix well, in my opinion.
 
It's a driving simulation ONLY in terms of the realistic physical aspects of the car, such as power, handling, and looks of the car. That is its bread and butter. Every other aspect of the game, such as racing, customization, freedeom, competitive multiplayer, etc is only secondary and not specialized like other games.

The racing aspect is not strong like the iRacing or Simbin games, the career mode isn't as indepth as F1 2010, and it's not free roaming where you can cruise around like Test drive Unlimited. PD didn't want its game to be like that.

As far as identity crisis goes, i disagree with that. If anything, GT5 has stuck too close to its predessors in terms of gameplay and core principles of what a driving simultator is. It's identity is clearly defined and that is why it continues to sell well to people that can appreciate it while also drawing critiscms for being narrow minded in its approach.
 
My daily routine for gt isn't racing. I just take a car I like at the moment and i give it a spin at ring and it is since GT2 i think. Game part is just for first weeks after buying to keep you/me occupied.

And this is the part where every GT shines, the superior feel of driving a car that it's not real but it gives you fraction of feeling like other people experience IRL.

Do I ever will have a chance to drive XJ220 ? Probably not in a lifetime but with advancing gaming, graphic, new 3D maybe some VRs we can be as close as we can without going out of our houses or speending big money.

As of mather of "identity crisis" this thread is all about, In my opinion Gran turismo simply evolved to something else. Other than just a game.

Game for me is just a game, When you end it it is done. Probably few more weeks in online and you simply put it on shelf.

With GT4 i spend more than 1000h not racing, just driving at nring aimless with cars like ac cobra doing 80-100 Km/h to point where i really need to go there IRL. It's not that far from my home (Poland).

I think every one of people here have their own personal standpoint to this matter. I'm here @ gtplanet for many years (earlier as guest) and i saw many kind of people here. Some have fine sport cars like M3 and still like play their M3 counter part in GT and they still find it fun. Some have Lotus and still find it fun playing lotus in their GT.

Why i'm saying this ? Because as far as i remember GT for those people was all about taking your car that you have IRL and play with it. That is why there were cars like Fiat Panda, Honda Midget, Looots of Civics, Looots of skylines etc. For many people dream cars aren't always bunch of Ferraris and Lambos but cars like my dream car Renualt Clio V6. As we remember first 4 parts old GT didn't even have Ferrari or LAmborgini and still there is no Porshe.

Find me any racing game that was that successful without being all about supercars like first NFS.

So all this summed up gave me this: GT at its core is fine and it still evolving to provide us better feel of cars, immersion and it still generates new fans of motorsport. And that is what matter.

And i'm still amazed that Kaz do things like modeling Miura bertone prototype. He actually could give us an any other miura but no he found it at festival and moddeled it. He is car freak more that probably any other game developers. Probably he could use some random Miura and more polish game part but after few weeks of gaming what is rest from GT is simulation part. And in the end Kaz knew better that cars themsefs are more important than anything else :)

Edit:

As for simulation part. I think Kaz need evolution not a revolution. I mean he is a sly fox that start game from casual racing and add next milestones to making his game simulator.

I think he could do almost iRacing quality physic model with his budget but going from GT4 to iRacing is like diving in icy cold water. So he just warmed up water a bit and he train people to like simultion part. With next GT's he will cool this water more and more still having strong fanbase :)
 
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CarreraGT
In my opinion, GT5 should have been a revolution. Instead they got into a pissing contest with Turn 10 and tried to cram in as much content as they possibly could and what we ended up with was a game that does a lot of things poorly.

Gran Turismo has always excelled when it comes to driving, but to take GT5 to the next level they really needed to revolutionize racing. AI, qualifying, damage, pit stops, racing rules, all of these things needed to be brilliant for GT5 to be anything but a prettier version of GT4. Sadly, PD failed spectacularly :(
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Absolutely spot on mate, couldn't have said it better myself. That's why I ran this poll: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=180736#post4838633


mkygod
It's a driving simulation ONLY in terms of the realistic physical aspects of the car, such as power, handling, and looks of the car. That is its bread and butter. Every other aspect of the game, such as racing, customization, freedeom, competitive multiplayer, etc is only secondary and not specialized like other games.
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That's too true, the very thing that GT claims to be: "The Real Driving Simulator" is pretty much all it does well. Seeing as most people wanna race in it they should change it to: "The Real Racing Simulator", shift the focus from just driving to realistic racing & add 'insane realism' to that aspect of the game. Just my opinion, really don't like all this RPG talk & Pokemon nonsense, it's just not what most people want out of GT5 & it's arrogant of PD to head in a direction only a minority of fans will appreciate.
 
I would rather say, it's a genre of it's own. The first two games tried to be the first serious simulators on a console, but the poor power limited the actual result that lead to GT1 and GT2, a car collection game with a good gameplay. But the result was so astounding that PD still sticks to same formula. This same formula was copied in Forza and works there aswell.
The name real Race Sim is missleading now, that is true, because we now have the raw processing power to boost games like iracing, that come as close as possible to a serious simulator.
 
CarreraGT
Gran Turismo has always excelled when it comes to driving,
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Perkel
And this is the part where every GT shines, the superior feel of driving a car that it's not real but it gives you fraction of feeling like other people experience IRL.
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I'm not sure how anyone can say the previous games had anywhere near good physics.

On topic, I'd say it has a slight identity crisis. If it's a car collecting game, race cars should not be part of it. Since they are, it is part racing game, but a very piss poor showing of racing. What we have here for example is a game with almost every Super GT car in it, but no real Super GT racing series.

As for photo-mode and such, why is that part of a "driving simulator"? Please, someone tell me what in the world that has to do with DRIVING!!!!! Nothing, end of. That is the car collecting part and lets be honest here, we have this thing called the internet and if I want to look at cars in an "encyclopedia" way, I can already do that without Gran Turismo. At least when I look up the LP640 in wikipedia, the description doesnt keep repeating LP460. :rolleyes: GT is not even a good car encyclopedia...
 
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GT5 is certaintly not a racing simulation, we all know that the races in GT5 are nothing like real life. But it is a driving simulation, with racing as a big part of it. I don't know why that has to be complicated. The simulation lies in the driving experience, which with some things set aside is very good.

GTR Evo (not played this one really, but i played GTR2 a LOT, it was my first pc sim) - Physics are good but in many ways are flawed, GTR2 especially feels alot harder than driving a real car, its a lot harder than driving iRacing or NetKar (the 2 top realistic commercial sims) becuase while it does some things right, it cannot deal with other things properly. Personally i don't think the physics in the GTR games is better than GT5, perhaps in the faster cars it is (especially the formula ones), an area where GT5 is weak, but with slower cars and road cars GT5 is pretty damn good.


If it was a true driving, with aimed driving not racing sim then yes you would have a free roam (and kaz has stated he wants this), but before that it is about the quality of the driving experience and collecting and tuning cars, and i think that in all things in life you must compromise, and GT5 is a healthy compromise, the tracks are top quality and result in much higher quality racing than some fictional street races would.

We all know the results of a game that focuses on massive free roaming (the free roam world takes a massive ammount of work to complete), Test Drive Unlimited/2 does this. They have sacrificed though with less cars, lower quality models and driving physics that are very primitive. it is very hard and very expensive and time consuming to have to put everything in, there has to be compromise somewhere.

GT5 compromise is with standard cars, needing to patch in features after release, a shorter track list than hoped, not being able to include the "Free roam" test drive style world, AI that is slower and less intelligent than some people would hope. But with it comes the highest quality premium car models, very high quality tracks, high quality physics and a general well polished game.

TDU2 - Ambitious as they were they created a massive free roam world, very well done, but compromise they had was in - Less and lower quality cars, lower quality sounds, many half measure features, very unstable and rocky launch with most multiplayer functionality still not working properly, tracks in game are very weak and low quality, physics are some of the worst in the business, bad functionality with different controller types such as wheels, very buggy gameplay. - Such a massive project that they could never get it out on time and have it all working properly, the massive world and the ambitions of the game were too high.

TDU2 is an example of why i am glad that GT5 did not go too ambitious, and remain with the general "quality over quantity" comprompises.


The GT franchise is the biggest and best selling racing game franchise, so they obviously are doing something right.
 
My best friend has played for first time last saturday night...
He is WII user, so he has 0 experiencie with "simulation" racing games. His impression was that GT5 is arcade, the slow cars are slow motion racers, the fast cars are unbeatable.

I'm still thinking about that words :P
 
jaycee_xr3
My best friend has played for first time last saturday night...
He is WII user, so he has 0 experiencie with "simulation" racing games. His impression was that GT5 is arcade, the slow cars are slow motion racers, the fast cars are unbeatable.

I'm still thinking about that words :P
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F355 Challenge is arcade, and its also a simulation, one of the best simulations of its time.


Work that one out. GT5 is a simulation in that it attempts to simulate all the effects of driving a car. Oversteer, understeer, weight transfer, braking and accelerating, tyre traction and tyre heat, aerodynamics and drag, gravity. every part of a car is simulated.

Now whether it has done things right or in a way that most accurately reprisents real life is a different matter, but right or wrong it is a simulation.



There are simulators that back in the day were considered the best, the most realistic (GP Legends?) - Yet by todays standards they are absolutely nothing like the current sims, and in hindsight you might look back and think... to be honest those were some very unrealistic simulations... But they were still attempting to simulate.

They were still simulations.
 
Bigbazz
But with it comes the highest quality premium car models, very high quality tracks, high quality physics and a general well polished game.

TDU2 is an example of why i am glad that GT5 did not go too ambitious, and remain with the general "quality over quantity" comprompises.
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May I ask what you were smoking when you made these two comments?

GT5 is clearly an example of a non-polished game that indeed suffers from quantity over quality.

Features listed on the box not appearing until patch 1.06, save game bug related to one of the games features, worst shadows I have ever seen, more screen tearing than you can shake a stick at, various unrealistic tuning options (I'm still trying to figure out how the Lambo brand spoiler I put on my LP640 is adjustable downforce...), etc, etc, etc, etc.

Majority of the cars being standard model and not quality premium models is obvious quantity over quality. If it was about quality they would have lowered the car count and only done premium models like they did with GT3.
 
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jaycee_xr3
My best friend has played for first time last saturday night...
He is WII user, so he has 0 experiencie with "simulation" racing games. His impression was that GT5 is arcade, the slow cars are slow motion racers, the fast cars are unbeatable.

I'm still thinking about that words :P
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Does he have a driving licence?
 
deftonesmx17
May I ask what you were smoking when you made these two comments?

GT5 is clearly an example of a non-polished game that indeed suffers from quantity over quality.
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They could have added a lot more cars as lower quality than the premiums, they could have added a lot more tracks that were lower quality than the masterpieces they created with Nurburgring and La Sarth.

The game was working great from the get go, with quality driving physics, cars and tracks. GT5 could have left out the 800 or so standards that are in the game, and still would have had a fantastic quality game with plenty of content. A strange decision to add such low quality looking standards, but as i said, its a healthy compromise.. The premiums blow anything else out of the water.


Features listed that were in 1.06 were never confirmed for the release, it was pretty well documented that the game would be recieving updates over time to improve it. Adjustable downforce on a wing is another healthy compromise, other option would be to achieve the same thing by having many different wings, its unecessary and the system in place works great. Graphical issues are due to the performance of the PS3, there is only so much you can squeeze out of the old dog. GT5 did a fantastic job of the graphics considering.


About the premiums/standards again - Modelling a car to the quality they did with the premiums is a mammoth job, it takes an absolute massive ammount of work and time to put it all together, the standards as i said didnt really need to be in the game, but there was no way they could have modelled them all in the time frame to add them at premium quality, so they added the standards. No other game has anywhere near as many cars available.



There is always compromise in life, especially in creating games, there are none that get everything right. You could name any game, provided i have played it i could pick it apart into so many pieces and flaws. But thats just life.
 
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Bigbazz
They could have added a lot more cars as lower quality than the premiums, they could have added a lot more tracks that were lower quality than the masterpieces they created with Nurburgring and La Sarth.
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They did add more low quality cars than high quality ones, which is quantitiy over quality through and through.

Dont let the good lighting in GT5 fool you, Nurburgring and La Sarthe ARE low quality and so are most of the tracks. Every surface is completely flat looking with a high-res texture; no normal mapping what-so-ever (creates the illusion of depth).
Bigbazz
Features listed that were in 1.06 were never confirmed for the release, it was pretty well documented that the game would be recieving updates over time to improve it. Adjustable downforce on a wing is another healthy compromise, other option would be to achieve the same thing by having many different wings, its unecessary and the system in place works great. Graphical issues are due to the performance of the PS3, there is only so much you can squeeze out of the old dog. GT5 did a fantastic job of the graphics considering.
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It sounds like you'll defend GT no matter what, even on something that is wrong. It's a compromise that a factory spoiler (not wing) gives you adjustable downforce, seriously?!?!?! How is it a compromise when there is an actual wing for that car in the game as well? It's not compromise, it is a pure mistake. A fixed spoiler should provide fixed downforce, not adjustable downforce.

Please explain why like every single game on the PS3 supports normal mapped environments if the PS3 can only be pushed so far?
 
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deftonesmx17
They did add more low quality cars than high quality ones, which is quantitiy over quality through and through.

Dont let the good lighting in GT5 fool you, Nurburgring and La Sarthe ARE low quality and so are most of the tracks. Every surface is completely flat looking with a high-res texture; no normal mapping what-so-ever (creates the illusion of depth).
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Dont let your eyes be fooled, it may look amazing, but its not really amazing! And don't let yourself be fooled, those roads are not really bumpy and ragged, they are just computer images that simply look and feel bumpy and ragged!

Don't be fooled, they may look and feel better than anything else out there by a long way, but they're really not!


Is what you're saying? ok!


Those tracks are iRacing quality driving experience, with graphics that i'm still not sure how the PS3 can pull off.


What you're saying is stupid, you're blabbering on saying that it creates the illusion that its good? isnt that a genious, graphics are what you see, regardless of how its done, if it looks good then it looks good, there is nothing else to be said about it, you must realise how ridiculous you sound? Next up, the game has a system that allows you to adjust downforce, to do that you need to buy a wing, this is a compromise, in real racing you could do the same thing by adding a different wing to a car, adjusting aerodynamics in racing happens, and in GT5 you race and tune cars, this is how GT5 allows you to do it. Why is that so hard to understand?


There is compromise in all gaming, in all things in life. Something does not have to be perfect to be really good, something does not have to be exact to be accurate. Kaz wanted you to be able to adjust downforce, therefor he added a way, he could have done it a different way more realistic to life, but that would have taken a lot of work for the same practical result, time is money and you spend the time where its best needed, and i very much doubt that was in ensuring the way you adjust downforce was realistic. You know what else isnt realistic, the way you adjust gear ratios... Do you care? no because this gives you the same result but with easier execution.
 
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