The true killer app for PlayStation 3 isn't Kratos' blades or at the end of a Helghan rifle scope or even a cutesy sandbag doll--it's shifting Gran Turismo 5 into high gear. While Sony has yet to officially announce the next full installment of the enormously popular series, a teaser in the form of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue hits PlayStation 3 exclusively in mid-April. We had the opportunity to test drive this high definition upgrade to the franchise during this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Prologue provides a small taste of what's planned for the full fifth installment with just five venues and a handful of vehicles. Two main modes of play are here: arcade and event. Arcade mode essentially grants you access to any of the tracks--both forward and reverse iterations--to race at will. The bulk of gameplay comes in event mode, which houses A-, B-, and C-class races against computer-controlled competitors. Unlike Gran Turismo 4, you don't need a license to access A- and B-class events; as long as you have a qualifying car, you're good to go. A starting bank roll of 3.5 million credits allows you to buy a car, although participating in the advanced events will require purchasing better cars. As such, you need to earn as many credits as possible by winning lower level events.
The five included tracks--Daytona International Speedway, Fuji Speedway, Eiger Nordwand, Suzuka, and London--are a good mix and a few of the events capitalize on their challenges. Joining straightforward circuit races are time trial and mission events. As you'd imagine, time trials task you with running a lap under a set time. Augmenting the natural difficult of these trials is the fact you have to compete with computer-controlled racers during the event. It's one of only a few negatives we noted during our preview; hopefully, the racers are taken out before the final release to allow for clean trial runs.
Even more challenging than the competitive time trials are mission races that give you a specific objective to accomplish during an event. You might be asked, for instance, to speed into first place within the span of a single lap from a last place starting position. It proved immensely difficult to do this using our Acura Integra on the Daytona International Speedway against a block of sophisticated AI racers. If the marked difficulty of our time with game is any indication, Prologue could be a tough racer.
In line with previous installments of the series, Prologue promises the most exact, realistic physics and handling of any racing game. Differences in acceleration and handling are distinct, ensuring that each vehicle feels as unique as its real world counterpart. Weather conditions and your position relative to any competitors on the track influence handling realistically. Rain-slick asphalt creates traction problems compared to dry road. Drafting, incredibly important when racing on any of the closed oval-shaped tracks, makes a huge difference in acceleration; moreover, you can hear when your vehicle begins to draft as the sound of air rushing over your car grows silent. Controlling your car can be done a number of ways including the analog sticks or any of a slate of supported wheels. Support for motion control steering is also planned.
One of the other modes to be included in the final version is full online multiplayer via PlayStation Network. Unfortunately, Sony hadn't set up the demo units to showcase the promised 16-player races. Although online multiplayer wasn't on display, plenty of other features tied to PlayStation Network were in working order. Booting up the game while connected to the Internet opens access to a slew of content ranging from a full racing calendar and detailed weather information for notable racing venues worldwide. Additionally, a mode called Gran Turismo TV showcases videos related to automobile culture and style that can be downloaded from the Network. Something we'd like to see is the ability to share player-recorded videos over PlayStation Network; however, a Sony representative made clear that the feature wouldn't be shipping with Prologue. Perhaps it's worth looking into for the full game.
For everything that Prologue does well, there's one major component missing from its simulated driving: damage modeling. Once again the series fails to introduce the element and it's unlikely to make it into the full game. Even though the game promises some of the tightest driving of any game out there, there's plenty of room for improvement for the series.
