heres my first attempt
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1994 it was historic year, the United Kingdom became linked to the rest of Europe, the channel tunnel was official opened. Run Forest Run became engrained into the minds of millions of people as Tom Hanks brings alive one of the most entertaining stories in modern history of movie. Nelson Mandela completes an amazing comeback story and is elected president of South Africa. The IRA announce a cease fire in Northern Ireland
and so on, 1994 was truly a great year. It was also a great year for the world of electronic gaming, Sony unleashed the PlayStation unto the world and has never looked back, spawning classic games and pushing boundaries of what was perceived possible.
However, although racing games existed, they existed as speed freaks, it wasnt until 3 years later, did the world come to know, what is now known, as the best racing series of all time, the Gran Turismo series, even it the early days, it was set apart from rest, pushing for massive selection or cars and tracks, realism, it strived for perfection. 13 years passed, 4 (full version) games in total on the PlayStation 1 and 2 had been released. A splattering of smaller spin off games had been released. But the world has been waiting, children, adults, teachers, actresses, waiting patiently to sit behind the wheel of a car they could never own, on a track they may never have the chance to visit, and pit their skills against the worlds best.
So there it was, after a wait that seemed longer than it needed to be, November 24th 2010, Gran Turismo was launched for the PlayStation 3. The most powerful gaming console available with a game that strived for absolute perfection was available, quickly becoming the best selling game of all time on the PS3, the racing community of the world rejoiced, or did they?
The game was released in many editions, your standard package, pre-order specials, signature edition, etc. All had different values on sale and provided you with extra items depending on what version beyond the standard package you got. However the biggest portion of the game broke down as the following.
1031 Cars from a wide range of manufacturers, including but not limited too Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes, Honda.
71 different tracks, however there are only25 unique locations offering differing variations of how they are run to make the figure upto 71.
4 main racing modes. A-Spec, the now famous career mode of GT Series. Arcade Mode. B-Spec mode, a chance to manage drivers and instruct them on tactics during a race, identical to A-Spec, you create a driver, and he drives your cars. And the highly anticipated Online Racing mode.
Many more other features which are included in this game, which I will touch on but I would end up increasing the thread size to 3000 pages!
So, how does the game play? After what seems like as long as the development period, the game will finally install and update. From here you can access GT Mode and Arcade Mode. Probably if you are a fan of the GT series, and lets be honest, who isnt? You will be rushing into GT Mode. And when you do this is when you stumble on the first clumsy aspect of this game. The GT Mode interface, its big, clear, bright, and colorful. You can get everywhere you need to go. But after a few minutes of navigating this aspect of the game, you soon feel like you are waiting too long, wondering why you have to leave certain sections to access other sections, this going back and forth, and waiting, is no game breaker, not in the slightest, but I suspect a bit more forethought in this area could have been applied to make it smoother/faster, if not more interactive between sections. For example, cars when driven for a while need oil changes. To change the oil of a car, if you are on the top GT Mode menu, you have to select the GT auto shop, and then choose Oil Change, and then Select to do the Oil change, then watch them change the oil, then you have to exit this menu, then exit again to get back to GT Menu. Now this is from the main menu. If you are buried in another menu, you have to go back from that menu to the main menu to begin this journey. A simple option in the Car Garage menu would be far more usable.
From this main menu, you can access, A Spec, B Spec, Online Races, Your Profile, New Car Dealership, Used Car Dealership, Tuning Shop, Practice, Photo mode, Options, Seasonal Events, Online Dealership, Licenses and Special Events. Also from here you can access you car garage, however this option is almost available in every other menu.
There is a ton, and some more, cars. So many cars, you wont know which car to choose. As always with GT series, you win cars by winning different races through A-Spec and Licenses. However, you can now win cars from doing B-Spec and Special Events. Cars are split into two sections, Premium and Standard models. Premium model cars have been fully modeled down too the last detail, standard model cars are cars which have not had the full treatment. Approx. 221 of all cars in the game are considered Premium, not all are must drive cars in your typical sense. However, once again, this great difference in the premium number of cars vs the number of standard cars has upset some. However I feel, do they have a right to feel aggrieved. Lets take the premium out of the picture and lets look at the standard models, how do they look on screen? Good, some are excellent in fact, some could do with some touching up, however thats over 800 different modeled cars in the game. The problem here is the premium cars are just so incredibly detailed and look so good you feel like you could reach out and touch them and it would feel like Katy Perry . In fact with a premium car, in photo mode, you can zoom into tail lights and see the molded manufacturer name in the plastic light is just mind blowing. But I wonder, did it need that much detail, I mean its amazing, but when am I ever going to see that name in the game, you have to zoom in to see it, how much time was used to make such fine detail that I can clearly see stitching in seats and dashboards ? Would I have sacrificed that for a few extra premiums? I think so. Premium is very much premium. Car choices are ranging from a Go-Kart to the much publicized (and often maligned) Redbull X2010 Concept car. In between we have family carriers, trucks, super cars, sedans, Le Man Race Cars, Ferrari F1 cars, Nascar, Old muscle, Old European, Classic race cars. There is such a wide range here it would be impossible for someone to buy this game and not find one of their fantasy cars in here. Every car feels unique to drive as well, with so many options in tuning and set up it is possible to set any car up to feel the way you prefer. The choice of cars is truly a big tick in the yes column for gamer satisfaction.
As for scoring or rating GT5, I dont think its required. You know what to expect, its a racing game, it has a ton of cars, a large selection of tracks, and many different modes to play them in. Do you like cars? Do you like Racing? Then GT5 is a must; you cannot be a serious race gamer without this game.
Are there issues with the game ? Yes of course, show me a game without an issue and I will show you tic tac toe. However PD have shown continued support and its looking like they will see this through to a completed perfect product. The issues are not game changing, or game breakers, they are just magnified by the brilliance that GT5 is. Stick a black stone in a bowl of white stones, it will always stick out.
but this game is everything and more that i expected from checking gtplanets news page every day for a year or 2 just to see leaked/released news on the upcoming title. if i was to complain it would be about the jaggies smoke causes and shadows but i still give the game 10/10
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. Guess I forgot that I was supposed to give her one.
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