Gran Turismo 5 Review

• 30th Dec 2010

Gran Turismo could well be the biggest driving game franchise launched. It is just bewildering why it has taken them so long to get a release out on the PS3?

The prologue game that has preceded a few of their titles is always a right tease but one that many people are happy to bypass in favour of waiting for the real deal. So now that GT5 is here, does it disappoint?

Well immediately no, then yes, then no not really again. The game looks (and most certainly sounds) great. Those familiar with the title will know the basic set up involves you starting out with a small amount of cash, no licences and no car.  Once you have selected an available car to you for the price you can afford either new or second hand you can then enjoy the racing, again from a basic level up. The idea is basically to level up so you can access more races and more events – and also buy better cars – take them to the garage and fit them up with better parts. It’s all part of the mechanics of becoming a better game racer.

Of course the best way to level up fast is to go get your licenses!  There are six of them – each with 10 short tests to complete (each coming with a Gold, Silver and Bronze reward in order to qualify).

You also get the added bonus of the B-Spec manager tour on this game when you get to send instructions to the racer you have. This way you can build your own little company of drivers and send them out to win for you. Points mean prizes remember!

The downside is that the loading times can be a bit of a pain in the neck, even on the license end. The game also gives you the option of loading onto your system 8MB of data which apparently speeds things up, we were less than impressed with how slow everything still seemed to move when we did this!  We advise you to just have the patience and wait for the normal disc data to load.

The graphics also range from very impressive (in the racing) to quite trashy (in the tests). You’d hope for an all round improvement over all areas of the game – but no – sadly we are stuck with a look that doesn’t look like they have been worked on for five years. No doubt if we were to look back we’d see that there have indeed been improvements from the previous release, but they are not obvious when you first put the game in.

The upside is that the gaming is highly addictive and brings much joy. The added bonus of online is sure to have racers all over getting their kicks far beyond the main game set up!

GT5 is worth the price tag. It isn’t perfect and has left room for the next version (please don’t take five more years!!!) to be a huge improvement – but it is still a step up from the past and is headed in the right direction.

Steven Hurst