Gran Turismo 5

Maybe my memory is wrong but I'm pretty sure all of those are over 400... wait, it's a minimum requirement? The other events had maximums.

Also all of the cars listed are heavily modified beyond just the power adders.
 
420 is the maximum.
This is weird, fired the game up and now my Midget is 439.
 
Until the dang earth quake, I was expecting that an announcement would come that somehow they accidentally released an early alpha version. Bought the thing 2 months ago together with a PS3 and I cannot shake the feeling of being on the receiving end of a very nasty practical joke. Being a professional programmer since 1994, it is blatantly obvious to see that GT5 is definitely not the work of 3 or more years. Except for the premium cars and some graphical gimmicks, you can nail all that stuff together with the help of an ill-behaved office temp within a year. Granturismo has always been a hardware seller. Many people (including me) baught all 3 PS generations solely to play Granturismo on it, but GT5 could well turn into an X-Box seller.
It has always been touted that Kaz is a bit of a perfectionist, so I refuse to believe that he would have released that without appearing on the official launch with a paper bag over his head - if it wasn't for some major mishap at the office. Seriously, I'm starting to believe that at some point they lost most of what they had done so far, because many things are so obviously hurriedly nailed together. I'm surprized the CD didn't come with the CVS dotfiles on it. (EA managed that once on a 2001 game)

Take the licenses for example. The target times were obviously determined using dice and a spinning bottle. Many of the tests are so ridiculously easy to gold, it makes silvering the GT4 licenses look like an enormous achievement. And they didn't even have the time to do the example videos properly. They used to show, how to actually gold the test - in GT5 some don't even beat the silver time.

Then there's the insulting B-Spec mode. What they did was copy/pasting the A-Spec events, take out all the code that took input from the controller and added an AI chauffeur. Sweeeet - doubled the content in two days. So now we're getting to stare at the screen for hours, watching the game play itself. And it sucks at it, too. It's definitely less fun than drowning. What was wrong with B-Spec in GT4? Why fix something that works perfectly? They just didn't have the time to do it properly.

The there's the woefully ill-designed A-Spec mode. First of all, the number of available races is not even half of what we had in GT4. You have 1000 cars in the game, but for many of them, there isn't even a usefull race you can use them in (2CV, VW Bug, Nazi-K?bel, Subaru 360 just to name a few). What was wrong with GT4's manufacturer races? And what they have is often so badly planned, you can't help, but facepalm. Take the american muscle car race. There's 5 american tracks in GT5, but the whole event is a 3 lap race at Monza. W.T.F.?

Each and every thing in GT5 is unbalanced. It begins with the range of difficulty in the licenses and special events. Many are ridiculously easy and wouldn't challenge someone, who's hopelessly plastered. I know that, because I golded some licenses, while completely drunk. Others however are barely this side of theoretically possible. It continues with the leveling system. You get sod all in terms of XP and cr in the races, but but most cars are ridiculously expensive and you need mindboggling heaps of XP to advance in the higher levels. So everything north of level 25 becomes a mindnumbingly tedious grind, unless you have a highspeed internet connection and can race online, and even that was bolted on later. The initial version didn't even dish out XP and cr in online races.

The list of WTF moments goes on and on, like:

- what's that ridiculous paint chip thing for. I need to buy a red car so I can paint another one red?
- why did you waste time on things like the museum cards?
- does the programmer, who's responsible for the AI, by any chance save his code updates on /dev/null ?

The whole thing is saved a bit if you can race online. For offline gamers the whole game is about as much use as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest. You can still have some fun, but you're just not going to make the cut. My only hope is that Kaz at one point comes out and says "Sorry guys, this and that happened and we had to release a rush-job. Please give us a few months and we'll release a proper GT5."

It's only an optimistic hope of course, but PD better be working day and night on the next, properly made version, because GT5 isn't a proper GranTurismo :cry:
 
I got the impression that they spent most of the time on the driving dynamics, then suddenly realized they needed to throw a game on top of it. Because the driving itself is spot-on, and I agree with most of your complaints about the "game."

Except you say there is no race for the Kubelwagen. Clearly you have not dumped a couple of hundred thousand credits into yours, I won the first Schwarzwald with mine :p
 
Except you say there is no race for the Kubelwagen. Clearly you have not dumped a couple of hundred thousand credits into yours, I won the first Schwarzwald with mine :p

Now there's the key. Where do you take the "few 100K" from? Grinding the same race over and over again? A K?bel Onemake race would sure be a funny thing - if you consider being overtaken by wildlife fun. Sadly there is no such thing and I can only think of time-related reasons. Having a series of one-make races in the VW dealership would've done the trick. Content, more XP and CR possibilites. Win.
 
They have the Nascar licence, did nothing with it.
The rally stages, could have been expanded ten-fold. The tracks are created on the fly, so they wouldn't have to do anything to create a championship.
 
Yeah, taking NASCAR in and then leaving Sonoma out for instance doesn't exactly make sense either, does it. In fact they should've modelled Watkins Glen as well and then go to town with a seven race championship. And how hard can it be to model something as simple as Pocono or other ovals. Or Eurospeedway - it's a badarse fast Oval, has a FIA spec road course AND a 11km GT course. So many missed opportunities :cry:

Just had a funny idea, how to describe GT5.

It's the redhead, who lives down the street.

+ she's a woman (it's a GT title)
+ she mops the floor with any woman you've ever bedded (physics model)
- she's got a clubfoot (B-Spec mode)
- she talks too much (Dead Gordon)
- she hasn't much in her head, but hot air (AI)
- the boobs are nothing to write home about (A-Spec content)

So, it'll be quite a giggle for a while, if you ignore the downsides, but it's not going to be a long relationship, is it.
 
Now there's the key. Where do you take the "few 100K" from? Grinding the same race over and over again? A K?bel Onemake race would sure be a funny thing - if you consider being overtaken by wildlife fun. Sadly there is no such thing and I can only think of time-related reasons. Having a series of one-make races in the VW dealership would've done the trick. Content, more XP and CR possibilites. Win.

I have done zero grinding. Most of my money comes from the seasonal events. Admittedly a "later addition."
 
Yeah, I haven?t played it in some time. I just can?t find a reason to grind it anymore.
I just hope that 2017 brings us a GT6 and that it?s a good game.
 
6 Years with GT5 as the "current GT" would kill the franchise for good. By that time most GT stalwarts are likely to be playing forza 6.
 
I should clarify that most of my time is now spent setting up various cars and racing them around in practice mode. Simple minds? <_<

I'm trying to learn suspension setups etc, and I enjoy seeing how fast you can get shitty cars to go :lol:
 
@thevictor

Yeah, did that, too. In GT2. GT5 is a bit cursed as it has to trump 4 previous titles and that's why it falls so hard. It doesn't even come near any of it's ancestors except for the physics.
 
In GT2, I didn't have a force feedback wheel. Hell I didn't have an analog stick.

EDIT: I was also 10 years old. So please understand if GT5 doesn't feel as tired to me as it does to you :p
 
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6 Years with GT5 as the "current GT" would kill the franchise for good. By that time most GT stalwarts are likely to be playing forza 6.

I was being sarcastic, and we waited 5 years for GT5, so 6 years for GT6 really doesn?t look improbable.
 
I think this is the best summary for GT5: It's not that great as a game, but it's an outstanding driving simulator. :)

That's why I enjoy playing it so much, because of how realistic the physics are. Previous GTs were probably more fun and better as games, but they never even came close to offering the same driving experience that GT5 does.
 
I have shelved the game for those very reasons. First time I have ever put away a Gran Turismo.
 
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The only thing I wish it had was more A-spec/B-spec events, and more races per each event. GT3 had a ton of events.
 
I haven't played in months, just got really bored with endless B spec grinding.
 
What the hell? My stupid Bob can't even win the Daytona truck race with 500 horsepower?

Sigh *adds a supercharger*
 
yeah they are no good on the ovals..

They always brake before the corners even if they don't need too and the rest off the field doesn't.
 
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