Gran Turismo 5: The video game that lived inside of my PlayStation 3 for three straight years and never came out, that is until Gran Turismo 6 came out. It was an incredible ride all throughout its lifespan and forever changed my expectations of racing games, video games in general really. The online experience I had shall never be forgotten and I made so many memories: Meeting friends online to go race, share what new cars we acquired, show off our own custom rides and throw 'em down on the course, Shuffle Racing, lending cars for one another to borrow for whatever the occasion, competing in the Seasonal Events to see who can get the best Performance Point Multiplier bonus, and making millions of Credits when you were away from home with B-Spec Remote Racing.
In my opinion, GT5 is still the most-ambitious title that Polyphony Digital has developed, considering their scope of features they wanted to implement before succumbing to feature creep (a lot of the features they wanted to implement made it, but others got postponed) and the hardware platform they were developing the game on. GT5 still has the highest number of "Firsts" for the franchise:
- Use of licenses for unique in-game content and challenges (even if they were severely underutilized) such as NASCAR, Top Gear and more
- Introduction of karts; they are the first other type of vehicle to co-exist with cars in the franchise
- Course Maker; while it was underwhelming to a majority of players, the idea of having an infinite number of courses to race on was a very ambitious and quirky idea for the franchise
- Online community hub, where you can check out what your friends are up to in the game, comparing their progress and stats to your own, see what photos they've shared, check out some of their car collection, receive and send messages to, post bulletins on their bulletin board, receive and send gifts to, and much more (I think I got them all but there could be more; it's been seven years or so!)
- First game in the franchise to have a lobby system over the Internet (not matchmaking, but lobbies and rooms where you can join a group of players that you want to race with custom conditions and rules set for the room instead of fixed settings)
- Shuffle Racing! Such a cool departure from the traditional bring-your-own-car racing everyone was accustomed to; instead, everyone is given a random car to drive and competes with one another which makes for some unpredictable yet fun racing (bring it back, PoDi!).
- Seasonal Events; if you've cleared all of the game's offline events (A/B-Spec events, License Tests, Special Events), then the developers put together some (sometimes very hard!) additional challenges on a regularly scheduled basis to test your mettle; they had all kinds of different conditions and they gave out some very rewarding prizes should you manage to complete them (Performance Point Difference adjustment multiplier was a fantastic idea that didn't return in GT6)
- More in-depth personalization and customization for cars with custom body and aero parts, and if you wanted to paint your car a specific color that was featured on another car, you could do that, with paint chips (with some licensing exceptions).
- Multi-monitor support, 3DTV support, and head tracking with the PlayStation Eye.
- Online B-Spec Racing; I mean, it was pretty much like betting on horse racing because you didn't know who was going to win, but at least you always gained Credits instead of losing them; it was always nice being away from the game all day to come back to millions of free Credits!
![Big Grin :D :D](/wp-content/themes/gtp16/images/smilies/biggrin.svg?v=3)
- Saving and suspending endurance races (which was eventually added into the game with an update)
- Cross-platform interactivity; you could drive your car collection from Gran Turismo PSP on the game if you linked your PSP
- Trophies/Achievements for bragging rights
- Introduction of DLC (while GT5P received additional content with free updates, GT5 had all-new content released for it available for purchase on the PS Store); I still remember the day when it was first-announced; I think the community exploded with all the excitement it generated.
![Big Grin :D :D](/wp-content/themes/gtp16/images/smilies/biggrin.svg?v=3)
...and I'm sure that I forgot a few, but that's what I can remember off the top of my head. And thanks to its fans and several communities, we know much more about the game than ever before. Just last night I had
updated the game's page(s) on The Cutting Room Floor, which, if you don't know what it is, is a website for the documentation of unused and hidden content in video games. With all of the features and content that this game came jampacked with, it was inevitable that some of it had to be shelved for another time, or was just changed/removed outright. The "What Could Have Been" factor of GT5 was so immensely high, much more courses, more cars from the PS2-era, even all of the fan-favorite courses from the PS2-era could have been in the game. Imagine that!
As of today Gran Turismo 5 is one of my Top 20 all-time favorite video games and probably my 2nd-favorite in the franchise (sitting right behind GT4), bringing back the old and blending it with the new for a grand gaming experienced enriched by the Internet. I'll be replaying GT5 this week to pay homage to the game that managed to spend three years of my life and I enjoyed every second of it.
Long Live GT5's Legacy!
![Cheers! :cheers: :cheers:](/wp-content/themes/gtp16/images/smilies/cheers.svg?v=2)