So I walked up to the store on Thursday morning, half-an-hour before opening time, to already see about half a dozen people waiting at the door. One guy shouts "another GT man" and I replied "yep, indeed, excited?", after some smalltalk and our reciprocation of our mutual love (read: hatred) for PDs delays, the door opens, we all rush in. One of the other guys picked up a Signature Edition and the rest of us stood in awe, "wow, that's the Signature Edition? That's huge", "what a waste of money!" and "I should have got that one!" were amongst the not-so-quiet whispers.
After everyone collected their games, they promptly ran out of the store and - I'd assume - drove illegally fast home. I was last in line, had a small chat to the guy at the desk, then went home as fast as Einstein's Theory of Relativity would allow.
I turn my PS3 on, slot the game in, shaking in anticipation, bouncing off the walls... Even though I knew there was a long installation ahead. I clicked the disk icon on the XMB Menu and bopped up and down in my chair, waiting. "This icon means accessin--", OK. "Please read the ter--", ACCEPT. "Would you like to full install, or incremental install?", ok, here we go ... *sigh* ... full.
*40 minutes pass*
As the intro sequence starts playing, I'm a little curious. "This isn't Gran Turismo, what is this?", but I said to myself I'd watch the intro, so I sat there. "Ohhhh, I get it, it's the car manufacturing process... Wait a minute... IS THAT A PRIUS BEING MADE?". I immediately contemplated igniting my PS3 - and myself - into flames, so to avoid seeing more of that Prius, but in the interest of actually playing the game, I decided against it.
As the real intro started playing, a tear came to my eye. It was beautiful. 5 years of delays, CGI, doubts, skepticism and vapourware were thrown out the window, in favour of "oooooh, preeeeetttttttyyyyyyy".
Once the intro finished - and I had changed my pants - I jumped straight into GT Life. Skimming over the settings and heading straight for the license tests to pick me up a car! Oh... What's this? I can't? DAMMIT. So I went to the Used Car Lot to buy myself an old "o'Crap", by "Piece". Ended up being an old Toyota Trueno. "If I've got a car then, might as well race!", straight to the Sunday Cup I went.
After a very long, very slow... win. I was satisfied, this was great. Level 1! Go Karting? YES PLEASE! I jumped straight into the Karting Challenge and obliterated it, Level 2! NASCAR? INDEED, OL' BEAN! and with that I promptly obliterated NASCAR (and Jeff Gordon's little head). Level 3! TOPGEAR? OHMIGODIWANNARACETAWPGEAH!
...That's when the problems starting happening. I mean, apart from having the most agonizing race in the world, coming straight from hell (and perhaps Jeremy Clarkson's Living Room)... The AI was horrible. I mean, to be expected from Gran Turismo, but I mean, mindless. After having just stopped playing NFS Hot Pursuit, this was a joke. I figure the Hippie Vans were the cause and the AI was too stoned to cooperate, so I ignored it and - in Jeremy's words - POWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAA'd forward.
Finishing all those challenges gave me a hefty lump of cash, so after a long time spent in the Dealerships looking at the most beautiful machinery known to man (and ps3 alike), I decided upon a Mazda RX-7 cause of it's great value for money.
Straight to the FR Challenge for me then, no stopping at baby-races in the middle. After winning and laughing at how much I won, I was a little disappointed that there was no cake (the cake is a lie)... Toyota FT-86 Concept? Niiiiiice! But my Mazda is better, ignore, leave it in the semi. RACE, RACE, RACE!
*40 hours pass*
Well... That was a lot of time invested. I'm currently A-Spec Level 23 and B-Spec Level 16. That's when the second major issue popped up. The EXP system is broken, it just isn't right to force players to grind the same events over and over. If there were more variety in events that reward equal EXP, fine, but there isn't. I can only do 5 laps of Indianapolis so many times before I get bored of turning left, at one point I decided to turn right 3 times instead, just for some variety.
So I'll get into the more "specific" part of the review:
Graphics: The graphics are awesome, no denying it. Of course, a majority of the standard models are copy/paste from PS2, without having even been fixed up, but when you're driving you hardly notice... Some of the tracks are also horrible, such as Trial Mountain, but, some are STUNNING, like Toscana and Nurburgring.
Sound: The sound is rather lacking. I'm not going to complain about the music as I rather like the menu music; and I always turn Race Music off. However, some of the cars sound AWESOME (NASCAR, '87 Motul Civic, Viper), but a lot of them sound horrible, especially ones that should sound awesome, the Pagani Zonda R in particular, that car is so beautiful, yet sounds like an old Dustbuster.
Presentation: I don't know why people are complaining about menus. I don't exactly find them "intuitive", but they're fine; and look very stylish. I will however say that transitioning between one section and another could be tweaked a bit.
Gameplay: The AI is horrible, sorry, but it just is. However, it is only really noticeably bad in the Special Events, where you can fail if THEY hit YOU, which is often. Most of the time, you'll be too far in front to care and that's when the game shines, the pure feeling of driving is amazing in Gran Turismo; and I don't even have a wheel, though I've been begging Santa for one (don't think he'll come through). But you can just feel the cars clinging to the road, slowly starting to lose it, only to full throttle and counter-steer to whip them back into line, this is racing! I am a little disappointed that there is no live timing with sector times in A-Spec though.
Online: Sorry, but I don't see much incentive in going online, seeing as I'm in Australia it usually means horrible lagg anyway. BUT, I never count online content in a game review - as do many other reviewers - because it varies too much and detracts from the intended experience.
Overall: Gran Turismo is a truly stunning game 90% of the time, if you're noticing that other 10%, then you're losing the race. But, that 10% really does bring it down. It pains me to say it, but I think we've been let down, SO FAR. There is nothing that cannot be fixed with a good patch, so I'm hoping PD comes through on their promises and delivers a "fixed" game. Nevertheless, all the faults in the world aren't going to stop me playing Gran Turismo 5 for another 5 days straight!!!