Gran Turismo 5

Review from AJ - Monday, 17 January 2011 @ 12:46am

Oh. My. God. This is the worst "first hour" of having a game I have EVER experienced. I cannot begin to describe to you how painful just getting started in GT5 is. Actually, I CAN, and I WILL. And I hope you find it as dull and boring as I found actually doing.

My first hour of GT5.
1 - Insert disc.
2 - start game
3 - Install PS3 update (fortunately it's on the disc...but still takes 5 minutes)
4 - restart PS3, restart game
5 - Download and install game update - about 10 minutes
6 - restart game....watch intro...5 minutes of car manufacturing backed by classical music (more on this later)...yawn
7 - Select language, select install option (20 minutes?? NO thanks!)
8 - "Can't sign in to Playstation Network, please close all programs and sign in"
9 - Quit game
10 - Go to playstation sign in
11 - accept new terms and conditions
12 - restart game AGAIN
13 - Video again...skip
14 - re-enter language
15 - this time select install option... 23 minutes worth!!!
16 - re-sign in to playstation network
17 - scroll through and accept "additional" terms and conditions
18 - Go to GT mode
19 - Choose character...ok..that's reasonable
20 - Create "Your My Home Page"..including welcome message, colours, times you play, messages for friends etc etc.....seriously...can I just play the game already?!?!?
21 - Read several more lots of instructions
22 - Can't race...have to buy a car
23 - Sift through list of cars to find one to buy.
24 - Enter A-Spec
25 - read more instructions, find race that I can actually use my car in
26 - dinner time
27 - quit game

If only this was a flying game!

Seriously. This is a console game. Do I really need to go through all this bullshit just to play the damned game? I don't even have to go through this much crap to install a PC game. But the worst part is that this is all just symptomatic of the whole GT5 experience. The game developers have spent literally 5 or 6 years building the RACING and it looks like they spent a week building the interface. It's pretty to be sure, but completely and utterly unusable.

If there are any usability students out there looking for an example in how NOT to build a user experience, fire up GT5 and take a look. This is a case study in how to not build a "game". I put "game" in quotes because GT5 completely fails at being a game. It's a fantastic simulator, probably the best I've ever experienced. But the "game" is so cold and uncaring about the user that it feels like I should be wearing a lab coat and protective goggles ever time I sit down to play.

A quick example. I've just finished my first couple of races and go to join a new race. It says, "your car does not meet the requirements". Ok. No probs. I head to the garage expecting to see a way to buy a car that meets the requirements. Nope nothing there. Back out of the garage. Click the requirements button. Ah! A list of about 20 cars that meet the requirements. But...I can't click any of them. I can't buy any of them. I have to remember them. Back out of the list. Back out of the Cup screen. Back out to the "Your My Home Page" screen. Into the dealer screen. Now to sift through 1000 cars to find the 20 that qualify for my race. Of course there is no way of knowing exactly which cars match, you have to remember. Ok..so I buy a car. "get in car" and back to the race. Eventually I actually get to play the game, win my race, back out to the menu. OK...we're not done yet. Time to choose the next race. Your car doesn't qualify. SHIT. Ok, this time my other car does match, but GT5 doesn't just say, "hey this car in your garage will work". You need to open the garage, go to your list of cars, find a car that you KNOW matches. Select the car. Select "get in car". Wait while the game loads a nice animation of your new car. Skip that. Two more button presses to exit the damned garage, and NOW I'm able to race.

This game looks awesome...in replay

I could go on, but you get the idea. It doesn't matter how awesome the racing is if the rest of the game is so completely and utterly unbearable to use that you can't bring yourself to sit down and play it. Fortunately for me, I've always been a fan of Gran Turismo, and I'm willing to put up with this kind of "we don't give a shit about gamers" experience. But in comparison to the ease of use of Forza Motorsport, PGR and anything from Codemasters, GT5 is in the usability dark ages. When they play tested this game, they tested the races, not the menu. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if you didn't spend at least as much time in the menus as you do in the game.

If you're looking for a neat summary of how GT5 "feels", just watch the intro. It's beautiful. 4-5 minutes of wonderful classical music set to some amazing imagery of cars being built by impressive looking robots and then even nicer footage in and around Tokyo at night. Breathtaking stuff in Full HD (and presumably in 3D for those who wasted their money on it). BUT, and that is a big BUT....it makes me feel like I should've been wearing a tux and a stiff upper lip. It doesn't make me feel like racing. It makes me feel like getting Jeeves to wax the Rolls before we take the family for a trip up to Hamptons for the weekend in our matching cable knit jumpers and colour matched Somsonite luggage. Racing is hot, dangerous and dirty. GT5 is clean, pristine and...well...sterile.

Not all cars have in-car view...lame!

The really strange thing is that GT5 has always been THE driving simulator, so you can forgive this level of sterility. The thing that confuses me though is the lengths they've gone to do "dumb down" the game and make it more accessible. For one, you don't need to do license tests to progress through the game. On the contrary, you need to race to increase your level to then be able to take drivers tests. Given that the tests don't actually unlock anything except more tests I honestly can't understand why anyone would do them. They are completely redundant.

Speaking of redundant, what the hell is with B-Spec races?? The best way I can explain them is racing with one button. You don't steer, or accelerate, or brake....you just tell the driver to "go faster", "go slower ", "overtake". This is without a shadow of a doubt the most utterly ridiculous mode in any game I have ever seen. This isn't like Forza's "drivertar" which had you drive AS an AI driver to improve their skills for use in game. This is an interactive replay. I cannot for the life of me fathom how this mode can be in any way shape or form be entertaining. I thought I was doing it wrong...that's how bad it is. I had to go look up the instructions just to check what I was supposed to be doing, simply because it is so freaking stupid.

Then there is car damage. As of writing, I'm level 15. I'm yet to see any damage on any car. Having a read around the web it appears that you don't see any car damage until the expert levels...which frankly I'm not interested in attaining. Not even cosmetic damage. The game makers will lead you to believe that it is because they wanted to have damage increase as the game goes on, but the reality is quite different. The simple fact is that most of the car models in the game feature no deformation, no broken headlights, no smashed fenders. The "delayed" start to damage in the game is purely a means to hide the fact that of the advertised 1000 cars, only a small minority have simulated damage. For proof of this, jump into arcade mode, and drive the "expert" level cars such as the Rally bred WRX. Damage up the wazzoo here! So if I need to be expert, why is there damage here? Sounds a bit suspect to me! According to the developers there is a patch coming to fix this...the cynic in me suspects the fix is deformation models for the 600 cars that don't have damage.

The weather is nice though I guess

While I'm on the topic of 1000 cars, not only do they not all display damage, they don't all have in-car view. It's my preferred driving view, and in a huge number of cars it is not available. On top of that, customization of the cars is extremely limited, the ability to tune cars varies wildly from model to model, and of the 1000 cars advertised, the vast majority are duplicates. Yes you too can own 35 varieties of Toyota Yariz. Wizzo. How about instead of giving me 1000 with varying levels of damage, internal views, customisation and tuning (most of which are variations of the same car)... just give me 300 COMPLETE cars. It's just another example of how GT5 gives you more more more, but achieves less less less.

The reality is that whilst GT5 is a truly beautiful game, with stunning visuals, amazingly detailed cars and really really REAL scenery, it is simply not enough to make up for the games many many failings. I could rant on for ages about the flaws of this game which are made all the more glaring simply for the fact that the rest of the game is so amazing. GT5 has video game bipolar disorder. Half of it has been made with such care and detail and true love for racing simulators, and yet the other half has been slapped together with little thought for the player or for the overall experience. A game that traditionally has featured the most detailed and enjoyable "campaign" mode in any racing game has now been reduced to nothing more than a sequence of sterile race events lumped together with vaguely interesting "special events", redundant license tests, and the wholly retarded B-Spec "interactive replay" events. GT5 is certainly not worth the wait!

Pros

The most amazing visuals of any game ever (well, the city races anyway). Enjoyable "special" events".

Cons

Horribly UX design. Boring sterile racing. Licenses are redundant. 1000 cars but two-thirds are duplicates or not worth driving