James Martin is the first to try out Gran Turismo 5 prologue on the Playstation 3
By JAMES MARTIN -Last updated at 23:56pm on 22nd February 2008 James Martin drives the same car on PS3 and in real life and guess which one wins
Although I write about new cars, I'm not usually the first to try them. That honour goes to the specialist motor press, a unique breed of divorced men with brown shoes who can fly to Stuttgart at a moment's notice to watch a PowerPoint presentation and drive around making frowny faces about torque holes. Generally, I test things when they're available for you to buy. But this week I got lucky. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for the PlayStation 3 doesn't come out until later this spring. But the other day a man from Sony came round with a preview copy and a debug console, which they use for testing new games. He spent two hours setting it up on my brand new, 50in bad-boy plasma screen, then left me alone with it the first punter to play what could be one of the biggest-selling console games ever. The reason the Gran Turismo series has been so popular is its attention to detail, and this new, high-definition PS3 edition is on another level altogether.
Techno-wizards, listen to this
You can play against anyone else in the world over broadband, and whichever track you choose, it reproduces the weather conditions currently affecting that track in real life.
God knows how it does it. The graphics and physics are supposed to be the most realistic ever committed to computer: the makers spent months at each track, measuring every bump and corner and the real cars' performance in all weather conditions. All this detail played on my 50in screen so smoothly, it was like watching Lewis Hamilton on telly (if Lewis raced Japanese saloons round the West End of London). Scroll through the menu and you can choose from a vast list of cars, including a Ferrari F430 a first, as Ferrari doesn't normally let people use its cars in games. The car companies have been so deeply involved in this game that you can practically use it to test-drive their motors. Even the changing exhaust notes are taken from live recordings. Their one demand was that the game didn't show their £100K-plus babies getting smashed up, so you can drive straight into the wall and bounce off without a scratch. Click on an Audi R8, a Nissan GT-R, a Dodge Viper, a Mitsubishi Evo X, a Ford Mustang, a Merc SL55 or an Alfa Romeo Brera and you can choose not just the colour, but all the specifications inside and out. I picked the Alfa Romeo Brera 3.2, as it's the car I've currently got in my driveway. So how does the game's Brera compare to the real thing?
The first thing you notice is the incredible similarity to the real car in every detail.
The handling's the same, the engine sounds right
the only difference is in acceleration.
The Brera in the game is how it should be; the one in the driveway has something wrong with it.
I used to have a diesel Brera and was really looking forward to getting my hands on the 3.2-litre V6 petrol model. But it feels really heavy, definitely knackered. In the game, you can hang a right off the track and enter the pits to change bits of your car. If I could do that in real life, there are a few things I would change. The massive sunroof is great, but I'd want more headroom and comfier seats Alfas are made for lightweight Italians, not big Yorkshiremen.
I'd change the wheels to sportier ones and fix that engine. But that's all. A few tweaks and it would be as amazing to drive in real life as it is in the game. My advice is, if you want to test-drive a sports car, get a PS3 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It'll save you a pretty penny and you can gulp pizza and beer while you're driving.
Even Lewis Hamilton doesn't get to do that.
