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Different console. Same problems.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 82 / 102
Date: May 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Right up front, I'll point out the three most obvious things about GT5 Prologue.
1. It looks gorgeous
2. The AI is abominable.
3. There is still no car damage.

To use a lovely english expression : it's all mouth and no trousers. Look past the HD graphics and hype and you'll find Gran Turismo 1 lurking here.

The Gran Turismo games are known for their accurate car handling and fantastic graphics, and GT5 Prologue is no exception. The problem is that it is all absolutely ruined by the other driver AI. Previous Gran Turismo titles have never exactly shone when it comes to the AI, but in GT5 it's simply non-existent. It's not that the AI is dumb, it's just not there. The other cars all drive on rails, irrespective of where you are. For example, on the High Speed Ring circuit - there's a challenge to get from the back of the pack to the front in a single lap. In the car they give you, it is 100% impossible to come any higher than 3rd, and that's a stretch. The driving-on-rails is so accurate and predictable that you can actually predict exactly where every car will be at any given point. You'll come up behind the Ford Focus at the end of the second turn, and don't even think about passing him on the outside because he will always jink to the left for no reason as he goes across the bridge. If you're in the way, then tough. The game will just force you off the track. At the next corner, the Mazda 6 will always follow the identical line inside the corner, again irrespective of whether you're there.
The same is true in the other types of race. Within minutes of playing this game, you will find yourself making a tidy corner only to have a much faster car come right up behind you and ram you off the track because you're in the way of it's pre-programmed line. To see how truly awful it is, start a race at the back and watch the 15 cars in front of you. They'll all cut the same corner in the same way, every lap, all with the identical puff of dirt as they do it.
It is simply abominable.

The problem is that this issue was solved long ago by the likes of - well - just about every other racing franchise out there. It's compounded by the fact that there is still no car damage or dirt in GT5. You can stuff any car into a concrete armco at 175mph and it will simply bounce off without so much as a scratch. To think that Polyphony could put out a game with no car damage and ruinous AI on a next-gen console in 2008 just boggles the mind given how accomplished the competition is (think: Project Gotham Racing).

So what about the eye-candy aspect? Well - it runs at 1080p (full HD) and it looks absolutely spectacular. The textures are crisp and don't blur out at highly obtuse angles like they would on an X-Box. The car models are beautiful as are the various effects like the real-time reflections and the colour-flip paint jobs. There is some aliasing on high-contrast areas but detail popup is minimal. There are very noticable level-of-detail swaps on some of the cars where they swap from a low detail to a high detail version. It's most noticable on the Daytona circuit where you'll occasionally see the shading on the back of a car pop noticably as the model swaps to it's higher resolution version. In fact the eye-candy aspect is only marred slightly be the fact that the game clearly doesn't run at 60 frames per second. Well - it does on sparsely populated tracks but in the thick of the action on some circuits, you'll see noticable slowdown which you just shouldn't have on a console as powerful as a PS3.

What other things to know about? Well the online aspect of the game has a lot of promise but it's buggy at best. If your PS3 isn't set up pefectly on a broadband network (NAT type 1) it just won't connect to the servers. If you're lucky enough to have a good setup, then even when it does connect, the racing is a bit dodgy. It's obvious that the sample rate for your system communicating with all the others is fairly slow as you'll often see your opponents cars jump across the circuit from one side to the other, or suddenly appear to brake or accelerate at light speed as the servers catch up.

When you come to use the game for the first time, be prepared for a long wait. It seems to copy the entire blu-ray disc on to the internal hard drive which takes a good 15 minutes, then as soon as you connect, it will download a huge update which will take 5 to 10 minutes to download and another 5 minutes to install. So out-of-the-box to first race is about 30 minutes. That seems a bit odd to me - I was entirely expecting the game to run off the disc like many of the other PS3 titles.

So GT5 Prologue : it's great eye-candy, sure. But the two biggest, most long-standing problems with the GT franchise are still present. Awful AI and no car damage. The press previews and talk from Polyphony indicate that the full game will have car damage, but historically, they've never been known to change their underlying game engines between the 'Prologue' and the full versions of GT. They have always claimed that they've fixed the AI with each successive version of the game, but honestly - GT5 Prologue has taken a massive step backwards. They say it's better than ever but it's actually worse than ever. So when they say there will be car damage in the full game, I say 'cry wolf' I'm afraid.

It's an ominous omen for GT5 later this year. Sure it'll have more cars and more tracks. But chances are it will have the same problems the GT franchise has always had, and that's simply not good enough. Couple that with the questionable frame rate and online problems and that could be disastrous.

I dearly love the GT franchise - I've had every one of them and I've been hoping and praying that they would one day fix the AI problems and the lack of car damage. If they've not done it on the PS3, then it's just never going to happen, and that is a sad indictment of Polyphony's marketing strategy. I've played this game a lot, desperately wanting to like it but I always put the controller down and am left with an empty feeling. It's just not exciting.

As Good as it Get on The PS3

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 28 / 42
Date: April 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

It's amazing how critical some have been toward GT5 Prologue. In a sense it's deserved but in other ways it's very unfair. Yes Prologue is a game with less content than previous GT games but still it has as much content as many other racing games. I have always love the Gran Turismo series. From it's humble beginning on the Playstation to it's trumped up GT4 on the PS2. What has never lacked is vehicle selection. Although in this game you are getting a rather limited 60 plus vehicles. Compared to the previous GT4's 500 vehicles this seems rather minimal. Although compared to some games that offer less than 50 vehicles, Prologue seems standard.

Gran Turismo: 5 Prologue begins like any Gran Turismo game. Stunning and beautiful intro transitioning to the menu. What is a first is the ability to play online and GTTV. Both are welcome editions in my book. The racing physics have improved in this version which make it much more challenging. With previous iterations there were times when you could slam your call into a wall when coming into a curve without any consequence. This game makes you pay for arcade racing. What is an added bonus is the ability to use the all new Dual Shock 3 controller. The DS3 makes racing that much more enjoyable.

Their are nearly two dozen makes of cars. Although each dealer is only limited to two or three cars. What is missing is the ability to tune your car. That is probably the biggest drawback for me. Now you do get the ability to do this after finishing all three licenses. There are no skill tests to acquire these licenses. Just completing a license to get to the next. The first license is easy to complete but it does get more challenging after you finish the first license.

With this game you only get a paltry six tracks. Although each track has different variations which does add more to the game. This is one of the few games where I enjoy mastering the tracks. So playing on the Suzaka or London track is a lot of fun for me. The tracks are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen on any game. Playing in London looks so real I almost think I am watching the real thing. Watching the replays are so incredible that they are great ways to show off your PS3.

Lastly I want to talk about GT online. The format is rather simple. Pick a experience level based on how far you have progressed in the game. Getting into the race is simple and only takes a few seconds to get into a race with eleven others. You position in the race varies depending on nothing. What is irritating is some of the people you may play against. On more than one occasion I have been knocked off the road by others who seem to have only one intent. This makes the racing not much fun as people tend to not want to play right. I am hoping they will eventually allow for more user control on these races to help avoid these problems from becoming overwhelming.

All in all GT5 Prologue is really a fun game. If you can look at this game as a challenge that will keep you playing for hours on end this should be a must buy. If you are someone who has loved every Gran Turismo game then GT5 Prologue is for you. Now if you are someone who thinks they will get bored by six tracks and sixty plus cars don't bother with this game. For forty dollars it is well worth it to me. A great racing game for the PS3. A great game until the full GT5 is released.

A passionate labor of love to give us the drive of our life.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: April 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Wow. Trying to give Gran Turismo 5: Prologue a complete review is like trying to count the grains of sand on the beach in Ashikita, but I'll do my best.

Whether you are a new player of Gran Turismo or a long-time fan like myself, the only place to truly start is choosing the Gran Turismo TV option and watch the video "Beyond The Apex". I watched this video at least 4 times before I even started playing the game.

We get to meet Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo's creator. This man loved cars by age 8, and his love has developed into a lifelong dream of providing video gamers the perfect balance between car beauty, and car functionality.

But this is no easy task - for example, his development team took great pains to take 20-30,000 pictures of just ONE racetrack over a 2 month timeframe! Why? To make us feel like we're racing on the real thing.

Every curve in the road, every tire mark on the track, every dip of the car frame with acceleration and shifting is designed to give us all the sensations we would feel driving a car in the real world.

The game gets glowing reviews from Tanner Foust, a professional drifter and Rally car driver. It's one thing for a person like me who's never been on a racetrack, it's quite another when a professional driver says this is the type of game that encourages people to go out and buy a rear wheel drive car and try it for real!

Okay, so let's get on to the gameplay.

The online PS3 players can use the functions of News, Online Racing, and Online Rankings. The only thing sweeter than hosting a race with players from across the globe and winning a three lap race by a hair's breath, is seeing YOUR name at the top of the online rankings.

There are 71 cars to choose from, more than enough to whet our appetites until the full version of Gran Turismo 5 is released. This game gives us a lot of creative freedom: we can alter the AI difficulty, the active steering, the driving physics, braking, traction control, tires, and much more.

The graphics are, for lack of a better word, flawless. During the intro movie, a car is shown driving on a road with sunlight reflecting off the rear panels - the light is shown as patchwork through leaves on a passing tree. That level of detail is also in the gameplay itself.

There are 4 different viewpoints for driving the car: a player with the top-of-the-line racing wheel can choose three camera angles inside the car, while other players can choose the exterior camera to get a better overall view of the car's physics. As far as the controller options, we can choose the button setup ourselves. I was very impressed to see the controller schematic for not just one, but FIVE driving wheel simulators to choose from.

On the racetrack, we have a blue line to direct us on the best path to victory, which we can either follow or alter at our own risk. The path also shows us the optimal brake times, which is a fantastic feature for the novice and expert alike. We have rules to follow - The days of cutting across patches of sand to get ahead of our opponents are gone. There are penalties for hitting other cars, ramming cars off the track, using shortcuts and any boundary collisions.

So what are the shortcomings?

Well, the online portion does have limits. If the host player of a race has a slower internet connection, the race can end prematurely or the picture quality/gameplay is sacrified. Some players are extremely courteous, other players may resort to cheap schoolyard tactics which can ruin the overall racing experience.

The AI can be a little cruel on the racing circuit. We can't hit other cars, but if we're in the line of another car that drifts into us, we get penalized.

The emphasis on drifting is more prevalent in this iteration of Gran Turismo, and the art of drifting is not easy to master. The more casual player might find this aspect of racing very frustrating.

Younger gamers might get frustrated with the realism of the game's physics....this isn't Twisted Metal, after all. But hey, if Kazunori Yamauchi could love cars at age 8, then I guess anything is possible.

But the biggest shortcoming? This is only a prologue....the finished product will most likely not be released before 2009.

Anyone with a passionate love of cars probably has this game in their library already. The casual player can definitely give this game a rent, much as I did. Be prepared, though: Once you appreciate the fine art of drifting and racing with the precision of a heart surgeon, you won't be returning this rental on time. You'll be saving your pennies for a Dualshock Wireless Controller or a Gran Turismo Racing Wheel.

Gran Turismo has truly earned the title of "The Real Driving Simulator".

All 71 cars available

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: May 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

For those who do not have the time to earn all the cars and tracks, visit gamefaqs. com and download the game save file. There you will find the save file which has all the cars, plus the F1 2007, and tracks. Great way to drive all the cars instantly and tracks if you just don't have the time to devote.

best GT ever, with caveats

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: April 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is really thin on content for anyone who just came off Gran Turismo 4 or even Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec. So, if hundreds of cars, thousands of aftermarket parts, and dozens of tracks is mandatory then don't consider GT5 Prologue.

However, what's actually on the disc is almost perfect. The driving is excellent and the force feedback with a wheel is tremendous. The technology is great, with gorgeous lighting and the best looking cars I have seen in a game. The challenges are easily beatable depending on your skill, but I have tons of fun just trying to do hot lap and rise up in the rankings.

The only place I can really ding the game is in online play. There is no way to make a private lobby, and early races are plagued with people who play like its Burnout. But it's in there, and you can earn money for better cars quickly. A better online system would give the game a lot more replayability.

So, basically, the physics, look and feel, and feature set are all greatly improved over past games. It doesn't have much content but the core driving experience is as usual superb.

Exactly What Anyone Intelligent Should Expect

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: June 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Please ignore the reviews touting this as an incomplete game. They were clearly expecting something other than what the title promised, a Prologue. If you are a serious Gran Turismo or car enthusiast like myself and own a PS3, you are doing yourself a great disservice by not purchasing this game. The graphics are astounding, there is a healthy choice of cars (70+) and online play works very well. In fall, crash damage and enhanced online gameplay will be added via online update, so Polyphony is not leaving this game alone until the full release of Gran Turismo 5.

While the game still feels like GT of old, the new in-cockpit view adds genuine realism and excitement to the gameplay. Also ignore others here as they assert that the driving dynamics are the same as all previous GT games: this is blatantly fallacious. In "professional" physics mode, handling characteristics are far more realistic than ever before. You can genuinely feel body roll, push (understeer), mid-corner rotation and squats and dives from acceleration/deceleration. Each car feels immensely different and astonishingly organic.

Again, if you are have been a fan of the GT series, do not wait until the full game arrives and pick this one up immediately. If you never liked GT, big surprise, you won't like this iteration either. Also, all of your progress (bought/won cars, money, etc.) will be carried over to the full game as well. Anyone expecting more than a "prologue" had their expectations set too high. Yes, the full game will obviously be more comprehensive, but with promised online updates and by far the best driving dynamics ever created for a racing game, Gran Turismo Prologue is easily worth $40.

Looking past the "eye candy" graphics...this game hasn't changed in 10 years.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 21
Date: April 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My PS3 is connected with a HDMI cord on a Sony Bravia 46" LCD HDTV....and GT5 Prologue looks amazing.

But aside from looks (and engine sounds), the game is a huge letdown.
The gameplay has changed very little from the first edition of this franchise in ....was it 98' ?
Anyway, I think Polyphony should concentrate on more important things than realistic graphics....like gameplay, AI and an overhauled penalty system during the S class races

If it wasn't for Microsoft's failure rate of the XBox 360, I would have opted for getting Forza 2 ....a much better and realistic driving/racing simulation.

Amazing Prologue for GT5...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: April 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Beautiful Visuals?
Check
Full HD at 60FPS?
Check
16 Player Online?
Check
Damage?
Uhh get back to me this fall
New Nissan GTR?
Hell YEAH!!!

GT5 Prologue is an amazing entry into the PS3 era by Polyphony Digital and a MUST buy for any Gran Turismo fan. The cars feel right and the AI is much improved, but not perfect yet. Some cars still follow a line and will not move. The new in-car models are gorgeous and extremely detailed. With over 60 cars and 5 tracks, Prologue is a great game.

Sure many will say its a glorified demo not worth 40USD and for some that is true. It will not be worth it. But for car fans and especially GT fans you will not be disappointed. Sony has been proactive with updates for the game and it is possible that damage will be added this Fall.

So the verdict? Buy it if you enjoyed GT1-GT4 stop reading and buy. See you on the London track m8s!!

Long overdue GT game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: April 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

It took a good while but this game is definatley worth it. As a GT fan from since GT1, I might sound a bit fanboyish but any and all car nuts, racing nuts, need to have this game. At 1080P resolutions, this game is just simply stunning. Even looks fine at 720P. Sure their isn't damage modeling yet but it's supposed to come in a patch maybe in the late summer/fall timeframe. I never really cared too much for needing damage but at least when it gets damage modelling, it will "somewhat" control how the wacko drivers drive in online races.

Yes, it only has 71 cars, but that's one hell of a fantasy garage that most humans will ever be able to have, let alone drive. It has 5 tracks but with different variations. Short, full, reverse, etc. They finally got the engine sounds of the cars done right in all it's digital surround sound glory. Did I mention it's a beautiful game? Ahhh, the beauty of Blu ray.

I haven't tried the 16 player online aspects yet so...

Car tuning, you will get after certain class races.

GT-TV is great to have in the game for those times you just wanna check up on the motorsports world.

I got this game with the official GT steering wheel(had to drive 90 miles to get it,some Gamestops have it already), and I must say, this is about as close to driving the actual car as you are gonna get. Even better if you get the G25 wheel but that's too pricey for me.

All in all this game is a must have at just $40. This is what the GT fans have been waiting for. This game is truly vehicle art on your tv. If you have any passion for cars and a PS3, you need to get this ASAP. At least give it a try. You won't regret it.

Same Old Same Old, Though a Bit Prettier

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Another great looking GT game with semi-simulation game play and some annoyingly unresolved core issues. Your opponents are still mindless cruise missiles who do not respond to your presence on the track at all and who never make mistakes. Plus damage modeling remains absent, though promised DLC sometime this summer is supposed to address that issue. Those of us who remember the "damage" system from GT2 (or Forza for that matter) where you hit a wall at 140 and then the car pulls a bit to the right may be a bit skeptical as to how this will be implemented. The usual GT combination of annoyingly flawless competitors and no damage makes using the other cars as bumpers to improve cornering as tempting as ever, especially in some of the more brutally difficult challenges. (See below.)

This specific implementation has some unique issues. Those of you who feel the GT-R is a bit over-hyped will quickly grow tired of all the added background content about that vehicle in the game. Much like the Acura NSX was the former over favorably modeled vehicle in prior GTs, the GT-R here seems a bit too perfect. A good third of the 75 cars in GT5) featured are useless and boring, a familiar problem from GT4 with its dozens of bland Japanese cars that those outside the Nipponese car buying market could care less about. (5 Skyline Models! 7 Suzuki and Daihatsu Micro-Cars!) However, most of the cars here are reasonably interesting and the graphics are beautiful. The handling model also appears to be as accurate and distinctive for each car as might be expected.

The mere six tracks in the game grow very tiring very quickly. The Daytona oval is as dull as could be imagined, and the London circuit, though gorgeous, is under-utilized in the actual in-game events due to the fact that it has no decent straights and too many sharp angled turns.

Besides bad opponent AI, no damage, GT-R propaganda, a few dull cars, and a teeny variety of tracks, are there any other problems? You betcha! The real problem here is the gameplay. There are about 40 races in the game total at this point, grouped into 4 tiers, each of which must be completed in order to advance. Some of the races, especially in the A tier, are vastly difficult especially A-8, the Ferrari pass them all in one lap. If you can't win that last race in the tier, you need to grind away over and over until you finish it in order to advance.

When you finally get to the last tier ("S"), you will be disappointed; though you can now finally tune your cars, your tuning options mainly amount to either minute changes in camber and brake balance a la NASCAR, or beefing hp up / weight down or vice versa in order to balance cars out in each race. The added "joy" of S class racing is the return of the GT4 5 second penalty for bumping other racers and / or the landscape. As was also the case in GT4, you are penalized even if the drone racers hit you, while they are not.

The game so ends with a whimper rather than a bang as you strap weights onto your car to trim it into the point category, and then grind your teeth in frustration as your cruise missile opponents hit you from behind and vanish into the horizon as you lose the race because of the penalty levied because of the unavoidable and unintentional collision. An actual damage system and opponents with more brains than a pigeon would be a much better solution to the bumper cars problem, but this is what the geniuses at Polyphony give us instead.

To add insult to injury, the GT crew in recent news have announced that the actual GT5 game may not be out till 2010 and the much hyped DLC upgrade may not be out in summer 08 as originally promised. Lovely! In the meantime, why buy this at all? I would suggest buying Grid instead, which is a fully realized game with functional damage, an actual campaign structure, challenging artificial opponents who also make mistakes and even crash at times, and more than twice as many tracks. Sure there is no trendy BGM, the handling is not as realistic, and there are less cars modeled than GT5P, but damage and human style opponent AI more than make up for those deficiencies.

Rent GT5P if you want to see the pretty graphics, play Grid during the loooong wait for the real GT5 and then see if the end Polyphony product is a worthy enough game to spend 60 clams on. Content and graphics in the GT games are fine, but the series needs to see damage modeling and more challenging competition in the single player game in order to remain a viable contender in the next-gen racing game market.

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