Alright race fans, the demo's been out since last Thursday. Have you had a chance to play it yet? I have, and I have to say it's kind of a mixed bag for me. Let's start negative and then end with the positive because overall I'm very excited about GT5.
While there are few glaring negatives with this game, the demo has some inherent flaws and they are most likely due to the fact that this demo is tied to high level prizes. First, there is no hood view for your vehicle, so it's chase, cockpit or bumper and that's it. A bit disappointing, but I am almost 100% sure this will be addressed in the full version of the game. The game still has the red flashing gear indicator, which has been appropriately pointed out by forum posters as more of a hindrance than a help. There is also a troublesome issue involving the use of a controller versus a steering wheel. If using a 6 axis control the TCS for the normal tuned 370Z is set to 7 and is VERY good at slowing down your lap times. While using a wheel the TCS is completely off, and thus comes as a rather large shock if you've been using a control (this happened to me). This demo has the tires set to N3 for the normal tuned 370Z which makes steering downright difficult as you have to feather the throttle and be sparing with braking if you're not going straight.
All these driving control issues make it much more simulation, but probably more difficult than I care to experience. I guess there is a bit of arcade racer in me still (see arcade vs sim post in the archive). I never realized just how difficult GT can be when set to Professional physics. I never bothered to change this setting in the last two versions of the game and as such my skills aren't up to snuff. Driving the normal 370Z honestly feels like driving on ice, but then again having a lead foot doesn't help, so take that comment with a grain of salt.
Ok, enough of the bad, on to the good. This game looks fantastic! The same way that COD MW2 looks awesome, GT5 looks to be on par. The textures and sense of speed are downright sensational. I love how the car bounces a bit across the track. This makes you feel like you have a direct connection to the road, instead of driving on a perfectly flat piece of ice. Sounds are spot on (I've seen several 370Z's up close, some at high speeds) and sound effects are stellar as well. The models for the cars are typical Polyphony (obsessive detail), along with the cockpits. The use of online leader boards kept me trying for a few hours over this past weekend, but the highest I ranked was in the top 1600 in the USA (not too impressive).
In watching my ranking I found that you can watch the leaders' lap replays, which makes it easy to find a good driving line. I recommend turning the ideal driving line off so that you can find your own best way around the track. I left this feature on (it places a blue dotted line on the road so you know where the ideal driving line is) and it actually hindered me as I tended to react to it, rather than plan my next corner.
All in all this is a great demo, but it does have its short comings. I am confident most of these will be addressed in the full version on the game. One major issue I have though is car count. There will be over 900 cars in this game, but 800 of them are already spoken for. 800 will come from Gran Turismo PSP, a game I own and have reviewed here. While 800 sounds like a lot, there are really only around 500 or so because several hundred are literal repeats of the same car. An example is the Mazda 6. It is called the Mazda 6 in North America, but called the Mazda Atenza overseas. Both copies of the car are in GT PSP and their stats are IDENTICAL. Essentially they put the same car in twice, named it something different and changed nothing. I certainly hope this lazy trend doesn't continue in GT5, and I'm relatively confident that it won't. Again, good demo, great visuals, solid driving and lots of replay value until GT5 releases in 2010. The clock is ticking Polyphony...please don't let your fans down.
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