Review: Gran Turismo 5

The beauty of Gran Turismo lies in its history, it's history as the best driving simulation ever produced on a console. The legendary detail and accurate portrayal of varied cars and tracks has left a remarkable impact upon the gaming world. With many competitors, GT has had to re invent itself and fine tune its performance in order to even have a chance at crossing the finish line first.

However, in my opinion, that podium position was taken abruptly by Forza 2 for the Xbox racing team. Forza proved to the world that racing simulations could actually be rather fun and quirky, with the ability to customize your love with many different visual features that please the eye and not just the soul. Racing Clans emerged with fully professional paint decals as though taken straight from TOCA themselves. This competition to create the greatest works of art on cars in Forza led to an international challenge where real life racing teams were looking for new designs for their cars. This type of publicity for the Forza series made it very successful indeed. However, Gran Turismo 5, the latest member of the GT club, has certainly set its flag firmly in the ground, and stands proudly against any new racing game.

As I placed the disk into my PlayStation 3, I found myself suddenly getting excited at the prospect of burning rubber around the N’berg in a 400bhp Nissan Skyline. I wanted to jump straight into the seat and place myself behind the wheel and thrash my way through the gears until hitting the 200mph hark. This was all taking place in my mind of course, as I was only 20 minutes in to the 40 minute wait to actually start the game. The incredible graphics and processing power required for this game to run smoothly demands that it must be installed onto the hard drive. This is fine I considered, if it makes the game better and run quicker and smoother then okay, I shall occupy myself with reading a book maybe...

40 minutes later, the game is ready to go, out of the pits and onto the start line. I am ready to burn my way round that German super track in my Japanese super car and my heart shall race and I shall be in heaven. But no, once again, GT decides you have not waited long enough and you must endure the most boring intro video that I have ever had the misfortune to watch coupled with the worst soundtrack and the icing on the cake: a hideous song by none other than My Chemical Romance. Not good I thought. But one must adapt and move on, my chariot awaits me. And once again, GT slams on the breaks and says no. The loading times simply to navigate the menu are outstanding. There is nothing simple, nothing easy about navigating that fantastic menu that GT has provided, the 10 second waiting time to simply change cars, change tracks, change the horrendous music volume down, change anything is just an absolute mission. I demand super quick easy menu navigation in order to minimize any sort of stress that is involved with any game, and GT fails in that.

Now I apologize now for the massive negativity that I have thrust upon you similar to some sort of heated rant about Maggie Thatcher in a workers union bar, but it is necessary to set the scene for the opening of the pearly gates. The light it shines through, upon your face, the sound of angels gently plucking their harps and singing a melody that instantly calms and relaxes you, as you realise, that the skyline is parked right there, waiting for you. And by the heavens do the angels suddenly turn into demons, the sweet melody erupts into a ball of flame as you here that outstanding sound of a 400bhp skyline coming to life and that smile spreads across your face and you become the boy racer. I am stunned by the detail and just pure genius that GT designers and developers have created and implemented. The noise from the cars, the slight bumps on the road, the tire markings on the track, the dust! Such dust! As is portrayed in the trailer, the mountain trail tracks are utterly beautiful. I will admit my imagination does take me to the point where I pull over, stick the hand break on and just admire the view, because it deserves to be admired. The scenery is definitely a vast improvement.

Sadly, this is not entirely the case. As you plummet towards a tree of death at 200mph you come to realise that the trees are certainly more bushy, but still rather 2d. They just do not look convincing. The same goes for the strange looking fans that wave and take pictures as you zoom by. Honestly, they look good at 180mph, but whack it down a few gears and you will realise how shoddy they look too. Now, I am being anal as this game is simply an anal fest. This game is utterly nitty gritty detail on everything, yet they let us down with shoddy extras like that. It’s a deal breaker, the core content of a game is no longer the way to the podium, it’s that and more. Simple things like that and better menu navigation would complete this game and solidify its place within the hall of perfect games.

GT is certainly worth buying if you love to race. That is simple and clear. It is a fantastic game, the cars are beautiful and the graphics incredible. The menu is liveable and the shoddy fans and Duke Nukem trees passable. But I still love this game, and I will still defend it against the preying vultures that circle above (like Joe).

8.0 - Great.