Gran Turismo: racing game or car collecting game?

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Biggles

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I just completed the iB license tests. Test iB8 requires you to drive a Honda Insight & overtake a couple of very slow cars around the last corners of the Tokyo track, culminating in an excruciatingly slow "drag race" to the finish line with a Toyota Prius.

Frankly this "test" is emblematic of everything that is wrong with PD's approach to game-making. The iB8 test isn't that hard, but it's a remarkable pointless test in any case, requiring no particular driving skill & only a few attempts to figure out the timing required to achieve gold.

After completing this test is anyone ever going to take the Insight or the Prius out for a race around any other track? The Insight is a "premium" car, lovingly rendered in every detail - exterior & interior. God knows how many man hours went into its production & that of the Prius. Instead of focusing attention on aspects of the game that people will appreciate & will offer significant replay value - the quality of the AI for instance - PD squandered precious resources on modeling two of the most boring cars to drive possibly imaginable. We all know there are many, many other examples of this in GT5.

This approach to gameplay seems to be rooted in Gran Turismo tradition, where the game attempted to present some kind of encyclopedic representation of automotive history. This may have been acceptable as long as GT remained cutting edge in other aspects of the driving experience, but with the arrival of GT5, KY really seems to have shot himself in the foot pursuing an impractically broad vision. After a long, long wait GT5 has arrived, brilliant in some respects, but overall feeling rushed & unfinished.

Isn't it time for KY to embrace the smaller & more focused vision of providing the best possible, fully featured racing game & leave documenting automotive history to someone else? How about just offering a later expansion pack: The One Hundred Slowest Cars Ever Built - for those inclined to pay extra for it?
 
It's an amazing driving game. It's mediocre at everything else it tries
 
Gee I dunno doing a 1 hour lap around nurburgring in a daihatsu midget is just a white knuckle experience. I'd try it in a kubelwagen but I'm just too afraid of the sheer speed and power!
 
I kind of like collecting cars :O I think that's why I like GT over any other racing game...
 
cwm33
Gee I dunno doing a 1 hour lap around nurburgring in a daihatsu midget is just a white knuckle experience. I'd try it in a kubelwagen but I'm just too afraid of the sheer speed and power!
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lol just for the hell of it I may just try that!
 
Ever occured to you that this might be a marketing issue? Toyota paying money for their car to appear in the game? :P
 
Isn't it time for KY to embrace the smaller & more focused vision of providing the best possible, fully featured racing game & leave documenting automotive history to someone else?
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No. This is GT, and this is what sets it apart from other games. Don't like it? Play something else then.
 
GT5 is a pandora box for car-lovers. You´ll find history, specs, fun, challenges, phototours, and you´ll be able to share all this with your friends trough the online community feature.

I see a loooooooooooooooooot of flaws in this game. Seriously, i understand why so many people are angry with the game. But i cant explain, why i am not. Its about loving cars... isn´t just a game. Its a experience that cannot be explained.
 
I'm rather pissed off by some some of the rubbish cars that made it to premium and other awesome cars that didn't make the cut.

PD definitely need to get their priorities sorted for GT6 and spend more time on content than pouring months into modeling premium cars nobody cares about, because I won't be buying it untill I hear glowing feedback.
 
But gt doesn't have to be like this. Keep the stacks of cars just don't for e people to use stupid cars for stupid events
 
Mike712
I'm rather pissed off by some some of the rubbish cars that made it to premium and other awesome cars that didn't make the cut.

PD definitely need to get their priorities sorted for GT6 and spend more time on content than pouring months into modeling premium cars nobody cares about, because I won't be buying it untill I hear glowing feedback.
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Well good for you then. For the rest of us, we can enjoy driving pos premiums.
 
Seriously.Play it , or leave it. THeres tons of racing games outthere...pick one, be happy.

Sorry for double posting...
 
both or not, it's what you make of it. You can always sell cars you used if you do not want to collect them.
 
scooterlord
Ever occured to you that this might be a marketing issue? Toyota paying money for their car to appear in the game? :P
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It was mentioned in an interview a few months back that Polyphony Digital don't accept payment from manufacturers to feature their cars in the game.
 
I think that some of the choices made for premium/standard designations were kinda hit/miss, but I think overall the game is very well executed in the grand tradition of GT. I purchased the 458 Italia last night to race in La Festa Cavallino and I was anticipating how the car would handle and feel. And you get that with all the cars you purchase: the great ones and the terrible ones you just wasted a bunch of money on, and the nostalgic ones that reflect the real world ones that you used to own. In addition to the great racing game, you have that other underlying aspect of building, improving and maintaining a great collection of cars that the rest of us outside of the fatcats on Wall Street can only imagine. And with all things, the good comes with the bad, and in this case, the fast with the slow. Like Mr Turismo said, this game is about loving cars, plain and simple.
 
Even so, marketing reasons isn't just money, they may advertise back; let alone I think Japanese people have other types of bonds between them that we might not be able to realise...
 
Racing/driving game for me, i dont care for collecting all the cars. As long as i've got some exotics, historics, track cars and drifters i'm happy.
 
This game really is about the joy of catching a 120mph slide in the middle of a fast left-right sequence of corners, feeling the steering go light as you flick a focus wrc into a turn and power smoothly out of it, taking a position off your mate at a tight hairpin by braking a split second later and getting on the power a fraction earlier.

The real driving simulator it is not though. Which cars does KY drive where reverse gear is a button on the dashboard instead of a gear in the gearbox? Where competitors in a race brake in strange places mid corner? Where the competitors have a rubber band effect when you pass or get passed by them and need to catch up or stretch a lead? Where every car has a brake bias default of 50:50 front to rear?

I love the game but some aspects are frankly ridiculous compared to the effort it would have taken to fix them. You just have to ignore it and get on with enjoying the game for what it is.
 
Hey OP dont insult honda insight! Thanks to this honda insight turtle car, im able to paint my R32 GTR in sky blue metallic, yup ive brought a honda insight just for the paint, shes still sitting in my garage, i dont want to sell her, i only get 5k out of it.

As for licenses, im only upto A license, i dont see the point in finishing them as all events are Level based, rather than license based like previous GTs
 
Mr Turismo
GT5 is a pandora box for car-lovers. You´ll find history, specs, fun, challenges, phototours, and you´ll be able to share all this with your friends trough the online community feature.

I see a loooooooooooooooooot of flaws in this game. Seriously, i understand why so many people are angry with the game. But i cant explain, why i am not. Its about loving cars... isn´t just a game. Its a experience that cannot be explained.
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Make your words as mine too :)
 
That is the beauty of GT. There are plenty of daily driver cars in this game. Not every car is a Ferrari, a Lambo, a Corvette, a Viper, Saleen or Ford GT. It's interesting because of that. Myself, I love reading the descriptions when I look through the showroom, because it's interesting.

If I want to go race a boring as can be monotone electric vehicle, I can. I don't have too, but I can.
 
Unless I need them for an event, I try my best to avoid using slow, useless cars and just drive the ones I like.
 
yaywalter
No. This is GT, and this is what sets it apart from other games. Don't like it? Play something else then.
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If they gave us a game on par with GT4, I doubt it would matter much, but under the circumstances, its more of a sore thumb.

I can't help but wonder about the collector aspect, when they have yet to include a early seventies Pantera, one of the hottest cars ever made, but include a kubbelwagon or whatever its called.
 
Because WE LOVE CARS!!!!!!

and I love this game.
 
scooterlord
Ever occured to you that this might be a marketing issue? Toyota paying money for their car to appear in the game? :P
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No, as stated before, that's evidently not something Kaz does.

As much as the Prius makes me harf, it is the first successful hybrid that I'm aware of, and Kaz wants everyone to experience it.

Mr Turismo
GT5 is a pandora box for car-lovers. You´ll find history, specs, fun, challenges, phototours, and you´ll be able to share all this with your friends trough the online community feature.

I see a loooooooooooooooooot of flaws in this game. Seriously, i understand why so many people are angry with the game. But i cant explain, why i am not. Its about loving cars... isn´t just a game. Its a experience that cannot be explained.
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This is my reaction to Gran Turismo, and well stated.

Honestly, we can pick on flaws in GT5 that need tending to, but the A.I.? I have no racing game with A.I. which impresses me more than Prologue's or GT5's. When I raced online, the cars behaved pretty much like they did with real live humins behind the wheel as bots in single player. Well, occasionally they brake weird, but I've seen worse behavior from people, surprisingly. ;)

And by the way, I love cars, so I collect them. Standards and all.
 
People just mad cuz their 89 Hyundai or whatever non-popular car they drive didnt make the premium cut =)
 
Collecting cars is something ill do down the road, for now its all about progress through aspec. once that's completed, ill happily expand on my garage inventory.
As for the slower vehicles, I find it pretty impressive when a player is able to beat me in the lambo vs. Ferrari races AS WELL AS a slower FF battle around a deep forrest or trial mountain. Different tactics for different classes.
I think ill wait until I see some updates and DLC before I make my final decision about GT5's success or failure. Its buggy but oh so brilliant, a little turn of the digital wrench here and there would make this GT fan happy!
 
To be honest, I love cars, a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot, like... A lot. The Gran Turismo series has taught me most of what I know about cars, so I for one appreciate what Kaz is trying to do when he includes cars like the Fiat 500 and the Camper van and such.

However, in previous GT's I always found the sense of speed was really lacking, and I hated driving basically any car without tuning it to ridiculous levels first (bearing in mind I was 17, 18 when GT4 came out), but now, in GT5, with the improved sound and sense of speed I'm not feeling that need so much (but the incredibly stupid AI means you basically have to get out of their way pretty quick or risk being PITed...).

So, what I'm getting at is, with obvious exceptions, most cars feel faster and more fun than they did; good examples being the Suzuki Cappuccino and the Honda Sports 800, they're not fast, but they are fun.

Also, at the end of the day, you knew GT5 would have 50 Skylines (it actually does, in fact there's more if you include the Carbon R, Blitz ER34's and such), every model of Lancer Evolution and each year's Civic SiR or Type R, you knew that full and well, yet you bought the game and complained about it. That, to my mind, isn't the game's fault!
 
This is GT, and this is what sets it apart from other games. Don't like it? Play something else then.
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LOL. Well it's hard to argue with flat out fanboyism, however judging from the "professional" reviews, not to mention thousands of posts in these forums, there is an objective consensus emerging about GT5:

the game has excellent physics, (for the most part) outstanding graphics & a nice track selection with some first rate "special effects", but the gameplay, design & functionality of the game are sub-par.

Even if you don't accept the latter part of that description, there's no denying that PD failed to deliver their benchmark graphics for most of the cars & some of the tracks featured in the game. I think we can agree that KY did not plan to deliver a game with most of the cars rendered in "Standard" graphics. My guess he just ran out of time - the quest to include 1000 cars fell short in the end & the resources spent on trying to model all those cars took time away from working on other aspects of the game.

It's clearly not possible to deliver everything - choices & priorities have to be established. There may be a good reason to include a Prius in a "car-collecting" game, but is anybody going to spend much time driving it (let alone racing it) if they do "collect" it? Is it worth spending limited resources creating a car that people are unlikely to drive for more than a few minutes at best?

If GT5 has demonstrated anything it's demonstrated the upper limit of what PD is able to achieve in more than 5 years of development time, which has to represent the maximum time it's possible to go without having the whole project collapse under the weight of cost & frustrated expectations on the part of the fan base. If enough people get turned off & decide to "play something else", there won't be a GT6 - or at least not a GT6 that has the same epic ambitions of past Gran Turismos.
 
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