Gran Turismo HD for PS3 Impressions 257
fistfullast33l writes "On Christmas Eve, Sony released the Gran Turismo HD demo to the U.S. and Japan Playstation 3s. The downloadable demo is about 650mb in size and I let it download while I was at church for Christmas. The following are my own impressions.
Visually, the game is by far one of the best for the PS3. The graphics really are top notch including some extremely visually impressive effects like the sky reflecting off the roof of your car. The crowds are a little static, but look alive enough to be believable. There are no weather effects, but the shine of the sun off the road is realistic as well. All in all, this is arguably the pinnacle of graphics on the console at this moment, and it sets the standard pretty high." Read on for the rest of this concise review -- and chime in below with comments on any other games of this season that you'd like to praise or pan.
"The game is integrated right into the Playstation network, but sadly does not allow you to race against other drivers. Instead, you are limited to time and draft attack trials. However, the gameplay will keep you busy. You are allowed to save your replays and upload your times to the network, but only the top 10 or so are viewable from the track portion of the game. On the main menu there is an option to view where you rank per car. Not surprisingly, the U.S. version definitely had some large gaps between times as of December 25th so if you're really competitive there are some great opportunities to make a name for yourself. I think I was ranked as low as 4000 on some of the tracks as I was just trying to unlock the cars, so there are a lot of competitors out there.Visually, the game is by far one of the best for the PS3. The graphics really are top notch including some extremely visually impressive effects like the sky reflecting off the roof of your car. The crowds are a little static, but look alive enough to be believable. There are no weather effects, but the shine of the sun off the road is realistic as well. All in all, this is arguably the pinnacle of graphics on the console at this moment, and it sets the standard pretty high." Read on for the rest of this concise review -- and chime in below with comments on any other games of this season that you'd like to praise or pan.
There are 10 cars in all. The IGN article above links to the list if you're interested. You start with the Suzuki Cappuccino and work your way up by beating goal times for each car on the given track. There is only one track, but it's challenging enough that it might take you a few tries initially to beat the times. IGN says it took them about half an hour to unlock the cars, but I turned off a lot of the driving aids such as stability control and automatic shifting so it took me closer to a few hours. Plus, I'm a horrible driver.
From a control standpoint, the game is pretty standard in that you use the buttons to accelerate and brake and the L1 and R1 buttons to shift. The left analog allows you to steer. Contrast this with the F1 Championship Edition demo which uses the Left analog to steer and the Right analog to accelerate and decelerate. I actually prefer the F1 method better as it gives you a little more control over the pace of acceleration, similar to a gas pedal in a real car.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun when you've played out the launch titles and want something that you can show off to your friends. It might not be the most exciting title but it's definitely a challenge for casual gamers and experts alike, and the ability to record your times online adds a bit of fun to the title. Hopefully it will satiate those who need a GT5 fix and there is a rumor that more content will be released later on.
As a side note, my parents wanted to try out the PS3 so I let them play the F1 Championship Edition, Motorstorm, and GT HD demos, and they preferred F1 because it was easier to drive. GT was second hardest and Motorstorm totally confused them as the tracks aren't well defined."
Thanks to fistfullast33l for this review.
Impressions (Score:4, Interesting)
A few impressions ... GT:HD is decent, but I don't know if I'd call it the best-looking game the PS3 has to offer, but I can't comment too much on this as I'm still sadly playing in standard def. However, people previously commenting on how this was a high-res GT4 need to take a closer look. Any criticism directed toward it is rather silly, though; it's free, it's fun, and it looks good. You may want more, but come on, it's free.
That said, Resistance has been my main focus. I don't even like first-person shooters, normally. The polygon count is nice, but since I'm playing this in SD it's not really of primary concern; a really solid Insomniac shooter is. If you've ever played Ratchet and Clank, you know how Insomniac can put together a level and pace things: though far different than R&C, their style and skill is very evident. They toss lots of things to shoot at you, and give you lots of stuff to shoot with, which are the two fundamental things a shooter needs; they did this in R&C, and they did it again in Resistance. It's not some fundamentally different, revolutionary game; but it is a very fun FPS that has kept even me, who gets bored after minutes of play with other FPS's, interested enough to keep playing. I guess it gets a lot of the little things right.
The other game I have at the moment is Full Auto 2. This is a blast, too, pun not entirely unintended. To summarize, the game is basically the bastard child of Need for Speed and Twisted Metal. The races can feel intensely fast-paced, and the battle arenas play out much the same way as TM. The story is ignorable; I have. The one noticeable annoyance is what seems to be stuttery audio/video ... but strangely, this only occurs during menu sequences and cutscenes. If it's an intentional effect, it's not a good one. Fortunately it's not a nuisance when you actually play the game.
I Hear The Guys From Bizarre Aren't Taking It Well (Score:1, Interesting)
They had to run PGR3 in low rez(1024x600) just to get the game to run at 30fps and now GT is running at 1080p and 60fps and graphically blows it away. That's over three times the resolution for GT.
It is scary to think what PS3 games are going to look like a year from now.
Re:On control schemes (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see what use it would be in a computer game as it's more to do with the mechanics of downshifting at speed. From wikipedia:
Heel-and-toe is a driving technique used in performance driving. It involves operating the throttle and brake pedals simultaneously with the right foot, while facilitating normal activation of the clutch with the left foot. It is used when braking and downshifting simultaneously (like when going around a turn), and allows the driver to "blip" the throttle to raise the engine speed and smoothly engage the lower gear.
Heel-and-toe is used before entry into a turn while a vehicle is under braking, preparing the transmission to be in the optimal gear to accelerate out of the turn. One benefit of downshifting before entering a turn is a jolt to the drivetrain, or any other unwanted dynamics, will not upset the vehicle as badly when going in a straight line; the same jolt while turning may upset the vehicle enough to cause loss of control if it occurs after the turn is begun. Another benefit is "heel-and-toeing" allows you to downshift at the last moment before entering the turn, after you have started braking and the car has slowed, so the engine speed when the lower gear is engaged will not be too high.
Performance vehicles are usually modified (if necessary) so that the heights of the brake and accelerator pedals are closely matched to permit easy use of heel-and-toe, and that the pedals are not too far apart.
The name, stemming from earlier automotive designs where the accelerator pedal was on the left and could be actuated with the heel while the brake pedal was actuated with the toe, is misleading regarding how the technique is carried out in modern cars, i.e., operating the brake with the left edge of the foot, while rocking it down and to the right to operate the throttle. With practice, it becomes possible to smoothly and independently operate both pedals with one foot. The technique is common in all forms of motorsport, especially rallying.
Heel and toe braking has the following steps:
Brake with the ball (left edge) of your right foot while the car is in gear
Disengage (press) the clutch once the car has slowed down significantly (if double clutching, shift to the neutral position and engage the clutch)
Blip the throttle to match the engine rpm to the rpm needed for the selected gear using either the heel or the right edge of your right foot
Shift the gear lever to correct gear (disengage the clutch first if double clutching)
Engage the clutch, release the brake and roll your foot onto the accelerator
Re:It's good to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Whenever I purchased a racing game for my kids I always made sure the game showed crash damage otherwise my kids and their friends would not play it. Still they mainly played racing games just to crash the cars so games like Twisted Metal and Destruction Derby (there are many others) where the most popular. I do have friends who rave about GT but they are not interested in crashing the car so crash damage is not important and in many ways it would detract from the game.
New experiences with the PS3 (Score:3, Interesting)
I had an older style hdtv I picked up about 4 years ago. So I got the ps3 a few weeks back, hooked it up and was really not impressed with the ps3(no upscaling which really screwed me). Then gran turismo came out, i downloaded it, again. Bleh, not impressed at all.
So, today I decided to pick the Sony SXRD 50" LCD Projection TV, and after hours of dealing with boxing day lines I finally got it home, unpacked and set up (many hours later).
All I have to say is WOW! Gran Turismo looks amazing, I can really tell the difference now. At first I thought PGR3 looked better but now it's a totally different story. And when it comes to 1080p at first I was not a believer, but from what I've seen so far that's changed significantly. Damn, it's been mind boggling, hell even Rainbow 6 for the 360 looks way better.
So that got me thinking, the ps3 isn't so bad if you have a new tv, it's only bad when you have older style tv's(dont' like that personally) but now I'm not so pissed at the ps3(I like the 360 controller better though
And Gran Turismo is free and it does have a few things to do even if it's the same track over and over again..
MrJynx
The Gran Tusimo franchise (Score:4, Interesting)
Which illustrates, I think, where the GT franchise has gone wrong. I've been a huge fan of the series since the first edition, on PSX. It's made a wannabe riceboy out of me, in particular my fascination with the beast of a car called the Skyline. I even own one now, albeit the North American domestic market version. I don't play games as much as I used to and really, my PlayStations have become Gran Turismo machines. I bought my PS2 only after GT3 came out; I bought GT4 shortly after release more than a year and half ago.
And as I sit there, circling Nurburgring over and over and over (on lap 102 now), it's clear to me that this isn't fun anymore. Polyphony Digital lost sight of the "fun" aspect in GT3, I think. Endurance races existed before then, but in GT3, they got ludicrous and now, it's just completely insane. 24 hours??? For a single race??? And this is not the only one- there's another 24h hour one, plus a bunch of 8 hours. 2-4 hours was bad enough in the earlier versions.
I enjoy the technical aspects of the game - finding the line, the brake points, the differences between cars. But I can't also help think about all the things I don't like about the game while mindless doing this event. Like the utter shit AI in computer controlled cars. They drive like you don't exist, ramming you from behind as if you were invisible. And they make the same mistakes over and over. The lack of balance in the races - very few are actually challenging when you take a LM Fairlady against tuned production cars, or as in this case, a Minolota Toyota race car against LM cars. You could argue that I should pick cars that are more competitive and sometimes I do, but they don't make it easy to figure out what you are up against and with the potential "penalty" to have to do another 24 fucking hours if I lose, no, I'm not going to pick a competitive car.
Polyphony's strength, obviously, is their graphics wizardry- each new version takes your breath away. But they really need to rethink gameplay. Lose the ridiculous endurance races. Pare down the total number of events - it's ungodly and without the sense of satisifaction of "completing" a game, I feel less anticipation for the next one. Do something to make races more competitive - perhaps chose the opposing field based on the car the player brings in. Make the computer controlled cars mercy to the same physics as the player. Create bigger penalties for crashing (much has been said about how the auto manufacturers won't allow damage to appear on their cars, but there are other ways). And so on.
Buying the next GT edition has always been an automatic for me, but after this, I'm not so sure. When a game is more work than fun, what's the point?