- 2,648
From ign, warning however there are grammar errors in it. Stupid ign....
May 14, 2003 - Sony Computer Entertainment America today held an exclusive Q&A session with Polyphony Digital's President and Producer Kazunori Yamauchi who provided the most details on Gran Turismo 4 to date, including the game's biggest advancements, changes and additions.
Speaking through a translator while demoing the first demo of GT4, Yamauchi addressed the issues revolving around the fourth game in the series by explaining that GT4 will go online (up to six players); it will offer more than 500 cars, ranging from the earliest race cars ever made to the fastest, newest games on the planet; it offers circuits based on real world circuits, many new courses from all over the world, and it will feature better, more human AI.
Due sometime in 2004 (that's as specific as they got), GT4 offers gamers a simulation-style racing game that re-creates the sensation of driving cars better than any game in the history of videogames, and of course, it's exclusive to PlayStation 2. SCEA debuted GT4 at E3 yesterday at its press conference.
For those fans who follow the series religiously, Yamauchi confirmed that GT4 will officially not feature car model damage, a change that's been much discussed among religious GT fans. GT will not feature USB Voice-Over Online support either. And, at least at this point, there are still no people shown driving these cars. Yamauchi declined to answer specifics about customization features as well as licensed cars. It's believed not confirmed that Ferrari, Lamborghini and other European streets cars will be in GT4.
Because the game is still very early in development (it's in an early alpha stage), several questions were not yet answerable. For instance, no information about the kinds of online play was available. The demo we played showed three new tracks -- The Grand Canyon (rally), NY, and Tsukuba Circuit -- but clearly there are numerous other tracks to be revealed in the future. Based on the demo, the car roster totals about 30 vehicles, and clearly there are going to be more, approximately 470 more. And from what we could determine at this point, the only change in major changes in the AI are that no car will ever trail too far behind you, and that they won't smash into you if you jam on the brakes before a sharp turn.
The Q&A Session
"Gran Turismo 3 was easy for us on PS2 because it was the first GT game on PlayStation 2," said Yamauchi to a moderately filled conference room crowd. "GT4 is harder because we have to outdo own our work on the same system. We have been re-thinking and working hard now to create a better game, and we have set our goals and objectives for GT4."
Polyphony plans to improve GT4 in numerous ways. The key areas of improvement include car kinds, AI, physics, graphics, handling, online and course design.
GT4 will feature more than 500 cars. Yamauchi hopes to provide eve more than GT2, which features a little more than 500 cars. The range of cars will be fantastic, as Polyphony will acquire the license for hundreds of vehicles from the past to the present, including standard style models, convertibles, modified street cars, street/racing cars, and historical vehicles. "We want players to re-experience the history of cars, from the birth to the present, in a way only possible with GT."
The game is clearly enhanced visually. "We had not extracted all there is from the PS2," said Yamauchi. "We have re-thought the procedures and re-built our technology to create an even better looking game, we hope you agree." Course such as the Grand Canyon are indicative of the graphic enhancements. "We spent 10 days photographing and studying the nature of the Grand Canyon," he explained. "We studied a 40 km diameter area to create our course. As you can see, the rally course is narrower. Because our technology is better and because of our physics engine, the game is easier to control."
The Grand Canyon course is flat out gorgeous. The entire level is photo-realistic, showing off the best clouds ever seen in a racing game, incredibly life-like mountains, canyons, and rock formations, and a huge variety of high-res textures on the course, from the trees, the dirt road and the flat 2D crowds to the incredibly detailed, gleaming, sparkling, reflective -- and unarguably dream-like -- cars themselves. "We have been able to increase the quality of the graphics because our designers' skills have evolved, not the hardware," Yamauchi pointed out. "We have created an all-new car design procedure which helps to create better looking and easier to create cars."
The car physics have improved subtly but substantially. "This is the first major refinement we have made to the car physics in GT since GT1," explained Yamauchi. The team has spent enormous amounts of time evaluating the time differences between real cars driving a particular circuit and their own GT cars on the same circuit to better time-lap simulation. In other words, the in-game cars now more realistically replicate the speed and handling of their real life counterparts.
Additionally, Polyphony's game offers three choices for drivers before they start. Players can choose from ASM (Assisted Stability Management), which minimizes skids, TCS (Traction Control System), which assists cars from spinning out in straight-aways, and choosing to use neither of them. TCS affects the differentiation of power to each wheel. For instance in all-wheel cars, such as the rally vehicles, you can see and feel a wheel spinning faster when one single wheel hits another surface such as grass. More power is actually generated to that wheel to get it back in track and this effect is genuinely employed in the game.
These features significantly affect the way the cars drive. In essence, TCS and ASM help experienced players in straight-aways and obviously, in turns, but more importantly because they function much the way steering assist works in many other games, these changes will certainly make the game easier for beginners and casual gamers.
Polyphony plans to up the level of artificial intelligence. Players will notice the AI behaving in more considerate ways -- not smashing or bumping into you, for instance --; they will make fewer mistakes, and there are more likely to catch up near the end of a game. For those who have spent significant time with GT, so often you'll win a race far ahead of other cars. Now, losing cars will never be that far behind.
Yamauchi announced there will be a mode called GT Universe, which is essentially the Simulation Mode. In it, players can select cars a variety of places, including Museums, new car manufacturers and they'll continue to be able to purchase cars from used manufacturers.
Lastly, the Logitech Steering Wheel, which demoed at the Sony E3 booth today, will ship simultaneously with GT4 (whenever that is in 2004). The wheel is impressive. It enables 900 degrees of rotation, which means two and a half times around, exactly like a real car steering wheel turns. The friction is heavier, giving players more resistance on turns, and it features a standalone brake and acceleration pad, as well as a standalone gearshift. It's highly desirable
The Car List (So Far)
There were about 25 cars shown in this three level demo, many of them entirely new. They range from old classics to current hot rods to old American muscle cars to current sports cars and rally cars. There will also be Formula Type Cars in GT4.
The full demo list includes:
Alpine Renault 1600S
Nissan Fair Lady 240AG
Subaru Impreza Rally Car
Subaru Impreza WRX Sti
Mitsubishi Evo VII Rally
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII
Chevrolet SSR
Lotus Europa Special
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 350
Chevrolet Camaro Z28 302
Isuzu Giulla Spirit 117 Coupe GTA
Toyota Corolla Levin 1600 GT Apex
Plymouth 'Cuta 440-6
Pontiac GXP
Toyota Supra 2.5 Twin Turbo
Honda Prelude Type S
Suzuki Cappuccino
Chevrolet Chevelle SS 464
Pontiac GTO
Chrysler Prowler
Pontiac Vibe GT
Chevrolet SS12
Nissan Z Unlimited Edition
Honda RSX-R Unlimited
We can only eagerly anticipate the other 475 cars during the course of the next year...
Hands-on GT 4
In the cloistered conference room far away from the bustling, crowded and noisy as hell E3 show floor, we sat in pure gaming bliss playing as much Gran Turismo 4 as we could take in. I played through all three levels, NY (street), Grand Canyon (rally), and Tsukuba (closed circuit). We could not have asked for a better setup, and we mightily thank SCEA for organizing it this way.
Surprisingly enough, GT4 plays a lot like GT3. The cars handle similarly, they drive realistically, and they generally handle in a reminiscent fashion. On the surface GT4 feels very much like GT3. But the game is early (early alpha stage), and as usual, Polyphony always impresses with its final product. Underneath the pretty surface, the cars handle with an incredible level of newly enhanced physics. The cars all feel heavier, though they still drive fast. The weight of each car seems to have been distributed with amazing realism, and in conjunction with the wheel differentiation, players will feel a sensation chill run down their spines as they play any single course.
The NY course is more or less a hot rod or American classic racing course. It's got several long straight lines in it, peppered with several sharp and closely placed 180-degree turns. Tsubuka, the famous Japanese course, is re-created with an excellent eye for realism and detail. Its wide turns and even surfaces and its long straight-aways punctuated with perfectly placed turns were very impressive.
I played with took the TCS and ACM on and off, and I preferred talking them off. Taking turns and handling lines is exactly the same as in GT3. Players need to approach each turn with a turning line in mind. Hitting the brakes hard before a sharp turn will indeed result in your car sliding off into the grass. Bumping other cars will indeed piss off human competitors but it won't piss off the computer AI. The AI will, however, not lose too much sleep or speed from the hit, however, as the competitive edge has been increased with these interesting new AI enhancements.
The sense of speed varied for each car and it wasn't quite as fast as I initially said (60 FPS); it was more like somewhere in between 30-60 depending on the course. You can still see jaggies at this point and the game still obviously needs to be optimized and finalized, so I guess we can expect to see those vanish in the final version.
Players can see an onscreen speedometer and a tachometer. On the tach, there is a little light indicator showing off a pit crew, which would back up the video showing a pit crew tuning your car during a race. The replays are great. There are two views from which to view you replay: In-car and set cameras. The set cameras actually zoom in and out (Just like in GT Concept), providing a health amount of simple fun just goofing around zooming in and out on your moving car. Also, the set cameras aren't set. Many times they panned along with the car; or they face directly at the car and led it into the course, or they followed it on a long flexile rail for 15 or more seconds.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, GT4 is going to be an excellent racing game. What am I saying? It's going to be incredibly deep, challenging, and it will impress far and above any other racing game on any system. But, GT3 was incredible when it hit retail stores in the summer of 2001, and now, nearly two years later, it's still essentially unrivaled in the racing department. So, GT4, as Yamauchi explained, is going to be hard to make because it is the second game on the system, and it cannot make the visual jump GT3 did.
However, the improvement to the physics, the visual improvements, and the roster of cars, not to mention the online play, are all in line with Polyphony's genre-leading production values, and in time, I suspect we'll see the new GT4 evolve greatly from this impressive yet unfinished demo. It's impressive by any other developer's standards at this point, but in its unfinished form, it's not yet up to the level that GT3 set. We'll have more on GT4 soon.
-- Douglass C. Perry
there you go!
May 14, 2003 - Sony Computer Entertainment America today held an exclusive Q&A session with Polyphony Digital's President and Producer Kazunori Yamauchi who provided the most details on Gran Turismo 4 to date, including the game's biggest advancements, changes and additions.
Speaking through a translator while demoing the first demo of GT4, Yamauchi addressed the issues revolving around the fourth game in the series by explaining that GT4 will go online (up to six players); it will offer more than 500 cars, ranging from the earliest race cars ever made to the fastest, newest games on the planet; it offers circuits based on real world circuits, many new courses from all over the world, and it will feature better, more human AI.
Due sometime in 2004 (that's as specific as they got), GT4 offers gamers a simulation-style racing game that re-creates the sensation of driving cars better than any game in the history of videogames, and of course, it's exclusive to PlayStation 2. SCEA debuted GT4 at E3 yesterday at its press conference.
For those fans who follow the series religiously, Yamauchi confirmed that GT4 will officially not feature car model damage, a change that's been much discussed among religious GT fans. GT will not feature USB Voice-Over Online support either. And, at least at this point, there are still no people shown driving these cars. Yamauchi declined to answer specifics about customization features as well as licensed cars. It's believed not confirmed that Ferrari, Lamborghini and other European streets cars will be in GT4.
Because the game is still very early in development (it's in an early alpha stage), several questions were not yet answerable. For instance, no information about the kinds of online play was available. The demo we played showed three new tracks -- The Grand Canyon (rally), NY, and Tsukuba Circuit -- but clearly there are numerous other tracks to be revealed in the future. Based on the demo, the car roster totals about 30 vehicles, and clearly there are going to be more, approximately 470 more. And from what we could determine at this point, the only change in major changes in the AI are that no car will ever trail too far behind you, and that they won't smash into you if you jam on the brakes before a sharp turn.
The Q&A Session
"Gran Turismo 3 was easy for us on PS2 because it was the first GT game on PlayStation 2," said Yamauchi to a moderately filled conference room crowd. "GT4 is harder because we have to outdo own our work on the same system. We have been re-thinking and working hard now to create a better game, and we have set our goals and objectives for GT4."
Polyphony plans to improve GT4 in numerous ways. The key areas of improvement include car kinds, AI, physics, graphics, handling, online and course design.
GT4 will feature more than 500 cars. Yamauchi hopes to provide eve more than GT2, which features a little more than 500 cars. The range of cars will be fantastic, as Polyphony will acquire the license for hundreds of vehicles from the past to the present, including standard style models, convertibles, modified street cars, street/racing cars, and historical vehicles. "We want players to re-experience the history of cars, from the birth to the present, in a way only possible with GT."
The game is clearly enhanced visually. "We had not extracted all there is from the PS2," said Yamauchi. "We have re-thought the procedures and re-built our technology to create an even better looking game, we hope you agree." Course such as the Grand Canyon are indicative of the graphic enhancements. "We spent 10 days photographing and studying the nature of the Grand Canyon," he explained. "We studied a 40 km diameter area to create our course. As you can see, the rally course is narrower. Because our technology is better and because of our physics engine, the game is easier to control."
The Grand Canyon course is flat out gorgeous. The entire level is photo-realistic, showing off the best clouds ever seen in a racing game, incredibly life-like mountains, canyons, and rock formations, and a huge variety of high-res textures on the course, from the trees, the dirt road and the flat 2D crowds to the incredibly detailed, gleaming, sparkling, reflective -- and unarguably dream-like -- cars themselves. "We have been able to increase the quality of the graphics because our designers' skills have evolved, not the hardware," Yamauchi pointed out. "We have created an all-new car design procedure which helps to create better looking and easier to create cars."
The car physics have improved subtly but substantially. "This is the first major refinement we have made to the car physics in GT since GT1," explained Yamauchi. The team has spent enormous amounts of time evaluating the time differences between real cars driving a particular circuit and their own GT cars on the same circuit to better time-lap simulation. In other words, the in-game cars now more realistically replicate the speed and handling of their real life counterparts.
Additionally, Polyphony's game offers three choices for drivers before they start. Players can choose from ASM (Assisted Stability Management), which minimizes skids, TCS (Traction Control System), which assists cars from spinning out in straight-aways, and choosing to use neither of them. TCS affects the differentiation of power to each wheel. For instance in all-wheel cars, such as the rally vehicles, you can see and feel a wheel spinning faster when one single wheel hits another surface such as grass. More power is actually generated to that wheel to get it back in track and this effect is genuinely employed in the game.
These features significantly affect the way the cars drive. In essence, TCS and ASM help experienced players in straight-aways and obviously, in turns, but more importantly because they function much the way steering assist works in many other games, these changes will certainly make the game easier for beginners and casual gamers.
Polyphony plans to up the level of artificial intelligence. Players will notice the AI behaving in more considerate ways -- not smashing or bumping into you, for instance --; they will make fewer mistakes, and there are more likely to catch up near the end of a game. For those who have spent significant time with GT, so often you'll win a race far ahead of other cars. Now, losing cars will never be that far behind.
Yamauchi announced there will be a mode called GT Universe, which is essentially the Simulation Mode. In it, players can select cars a variety of places, including Museums, new car manufacturers and they'll continue to be able to purchase cars from used manufacturers.
Lastly, the Logitech Steering Wheel, which demoed at the Sony E3 booth today, will ship simultaneously with GT4 (whenever that is in 2004). The wheel is impressive. It enables 900 degrees of rotation, which means two and a half times around, exactly like a real car steering wheel turns. The friction is heavier, giving players more resistance on turns, and it features a standalone brake and acceleration pad, as well as a standalone gearshift. It's highly desirable
The Car List (So Far)
There were about 25 cars shown in this three level demo, many of them entirely new. They range from old classics to current hot rods to old American muscle cars to current sports cars and rally cars. There will also be Formula Type Cars in GT4.
The full demo list includes:
Alpine Renault 1600S
Nissan Fair Lady 240AG
Subaru Impreza Rally Car
Subaru Impreza WRX Sti
Mitsubishi Evo VII Rally
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII
Chevrolet SSR
Lotus Europa Special
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 350
Chevrolet Camaro Z28 302
Isuzu Giulla Spirit 117 Coupe GTA
Toyota Corolla Levin 1600 GT Apex
Plymouth 'Cuta 440-6
Pontiac GXP
Toyota Supra 2.5 Twin Turbo
Honda Prelude Type S
Suzuki Cappuccino
Chevrolet Chevelle SS 464
Pontiac GTO
Chrysler Prowler
Pontiac Vibe GT
Chevrolet SS12
Nissan Z Unlimited Edition
Honda RSX-R Unlimited
We can only eagerly anticipate the other 475 cars during the course of the next year...
Hands-on GT 4
In the cloistered conference room far away from the bustling, crowded and noisy as hell E3 show floor, we sat in pure gaming bliss playing as much Gran Turismo 4 as we could take in. I played through all three levels, NY (street), Grand Canyon (rally), and Tsukuba (closed circuit). We could not have asked for a better setup, and we mightily thank SCEA for organizing it this way.
Surprisingly enough, GT4 plays a lot like GT3. The cars handle similarly, they drive realistically, and they generally handle in a reminiscent fashion. On the surface GT4 feels very much like GT3. But the game is early (early alpha stage), and as usual, Polyphony always impresses with its final product. Underneath the pretty surface, the cars handle with an incredible level of newly enhanced physics. The cars all feel heavier, though they still drive fast. The weight of each car seems to have been distributed with amazing realism, and in conjunction with the wheel differentiation, players will feel a sensation chill run down their spines as they play any single course.
The NY course is more or less a hot rod or American classic racing course. It's got several long straight lines in it, peppered with several sharp and closely placed 180-degree turns. Tsubuka, the famous Japanese course, is re-created with an excellent eye for realism and detail. Its wide turns and even surfaces and its long straight-aways punctuated with perfectly placed turns were very impressive.
I played with took the TCS and ACM on and off, and I preferred talking them off. Taking turns and handling lines is exactly the same as in GT3. Players need to approach each turn with a turning line in mind. Hitting the brakes hard before a sharp turn will indeed result in your car sliding off into the grass. Bumping other cars will indeed piss off human competitors but it won't piss off the computer AI. The AI will, however, not lose too much sleep or speed from the hit, however, as the competitive edge has been increased with these interesting new AI enhancements.
The sense of speed varied for each car and it wasn't quite as fast as I initially said (60 FPS); it was more like somewhere in between 30-60 depending on the course. You can still see jaggies at this point and the game still obviously needs to be optimized and finalized, so I guess we can expect to see those vanish in the final version.
Players can see an onscreen speedometer and a tachometer. On the tach, there is a little light indicator showing off a pit crew, which would back up the video showing a pit crew tuning your car during a race. The replays are great. There are two views from which to view you replay: In-car and set cameras. The set cameras actually zoom in and out (Just like in GT Concept), providing a health amount of simple fun just goofing around zooming in and out on your moving car. Also, the set cameras aren't set. Many times they panned along with the car; or they face directly at the car and led it into the course, or they followed it on a long flexile rail for 15 or more seconds.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, GT4 is going to be an excellent racing game. What am I saying? It's going to be incredibly deep, challenging, and it will impress far and above any other racing game on any system. But, GT3 was incredible when it hit retail stores in the summer of 2001, and now, nearly two years later, it's still essentially unrivaled in the racing department. So, GT4, as Yamauchi explained, is going to be hard to make because it is the second game on the system, and it cannot make the visual jump GT3 did.
However, the improvement to the physics, the visual improvements, and the roster of cars, not to mention the online play, are all in line with Polyphony's genre-leading production values, and in time, I suspect we'll see the new GT4 evolve greatly from this impressive yet unfinished demo. It's impressive by any other developer's standards at this point, but in its unfinished form, it's not yet up to the level that GT3 set. We'll have more on GT4 soon.
-- Douglass C. Perry
there you go!
