Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

CiDeRmAn

Having made a jap playstation store account last month to download the GT5 Prologue demo, I was blown away at how good the game was, notably better than the GT HD demo already available from the European playstation store and even, somehow, looking better than PGR4, although that could have been my imagination!

GT5 Prologue itself has just been released on in jap and is now available for download, costing the princely sum of 4,500 yen.
Unfortunately I could not register my credit card in the jap store as I am not a jap resident, so what to do?

I bought a playstation store ticket on ebay, it was worth 5,000 yen and cost me €40, not too bad, then I used an included faq to add funds to the jap account, then, a few minutes ago was able to buy the game from the japanese playstation store with no problems.

Now all i have to do is wait for the download to complete, could be a while, its a 1.8 gb file!

I will report back as to what the game's like, but as far as the demo goes, its super sweet!

steviec

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Having made a jap playstation store account last month to download the GT5 Prologue demo, I was blown away at how good the game was, notably better than the GT HD demo already available from the European playstation store and even, somehow, looking better than PGR4, although that could have been my imagination!

GT5 Prologue itself has just been released on in jap and is now available for download, costing the princely sum of 4,500 yen.
Unfortunately I could not register my credit card in the jap store as I am not a jap resident, so what to do?

I bought a playstation store ticket on ebay, it was worth 5,000 yen and cost me €40, not too bad, then I used an included faq to add funds to the jap account, then, a few minutes ago was able to buy the game from the japanese playstation store with no problems.

Now all i have to do is wait for the download to complete, could be a while, its a 1.8 gb file!

I will report back as to what the game's like, but as far as the demo goes, its super sweet!

Now why did you have to go and tell me that? I'm gonna end up doing this when I go home...

I didn't realise it was available for download, I thought it was a retail blu ray game and that's why I was gonna wait for the Euro release rather than the hassle of importing.

Ciaran500

Thought it was horrible. Still has the retarded AI of every GT game and the handling just doesn't feel right, felt a touch arcady even with all assists turned off.

tman

4500 yen is only about €28... you got screwed there:p

Call Me Jimmy

So you paid 40 euro to play a ****ty Gran Turismo demo? I played the HD one and it was less fun than watching my granny knit me a jumper. Fook mi!

steviec

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

So you paid 40 euro to play a ****ty Gran Turismo demo? I played the HD one and it was less fun than watching my granny knit me a jumper. Fook mi!

GT5: Prologue is very different to GT:HD, which was just a small amount of GT4 content in high res.

It's technically a 'preview' of GT5 but it still has a lot more content than many other games, easily enough to pump dozens of hours into if you're a fan of great realistic driving games.

CiDeRmAn

I think you either like GT or not, and I like it, still haven't tried it yet, wife watching movies on the big tv.
But as regards GT relative to other racing titles, I never liked Forza, all that po-faced track racing, and while I like PGR4 a lot, I pine after the glorious buzz got playing MSR on my trusty DC, has yet to catch that certain magic.
GT is GT, GT5 Prologue will give me a greater glimpse of the upcoming GT5 game proper, from what I played of the demo things have definitely evolved, everything seems better in this new iteration.
The arguements about AI may be true but I've never really noticed myself.

I'm just looking forward to being The Stig and race around the Top Gear track!

brav

Meh, while Top gear is prob the best show on TV, and I would love to post a time, I think the track could get very boring, played it a few times in other racers and I think the fact it has no elevation, or not much to look at, and its basically a figure 8, I got tired of it very quickly.

Just played Forza 2 there, I forgot how good realistic the game is, pity it doesn't look as good as GT

Dont be at yourself

Is the Top Gear track in Prologue?

My local electronics store has Prologue for 4,000 yennies and Uncharted for 5,000, so I'm very tempted to give myself an early Christmas present!

brav

No The full GT 5 will have it, along with downloadable episodes

CiDeRmAn

Yup, no sign of Top Gear Track

Good thing the rest of it's so good then!

It looks superb, a small problem in the demo was when, in the amazing incar view, your driver changed gear or pulled on the handbrake his hands never left the wheel, now they do!
But it plays beautifully, the tracks look pretty special, apart from the big daytona oval, thats a but crap to drive in my Golf Gti, I'm sure with faster cars it gets better.

The structure is the same as the other prologue games, though it does throw in some cup event races in several levels of difficulty, so far it seems like a worthy investment, if only to show what the machine can do, in an exclusive racing game.

The Full Gt5 prologue also has car damage and other extras, so when that gets an eventual euro release I may buy that too.

steviec

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The Full Gt5 prologue also has car damage and other extras, so when that gets an eventual euro release I may buy that too.

There's no damage as yet, there was some rumours going round as fact. Polyphony said they're considering damage for GT5 but tbh damage isn't exactly something you 'consider' adding at this stage of development so seems more like they were dodging the question to me.

What do you mean by full GT5 prologue though? Is the downloadable one different to the one on disc? May just wait for the Euro release entirely, the brilliant demo is tiding me over nicely anyway.

Dcully

The mention of crappy AI yet again is turning me off.
This was a title i saw as swinging me in the direction of picking up a PS3 instead of 360

brav

Id love to know why don't they just put their resources into finishing the main game?
I mean do they need to milk it more, releasing a preview demo, of a prologue of the main game. And charge for the prologue?

CiDeRmAn

Because people treat the Gran Turismo series as the definitive racing game, or perhaps the definitive car lovers game, no other product has the range of vehicles that GT4 has, in fact, I suppose you would be just as well waiting on the full GT5 game sometime in 09 rather than buying GT5 Prologue, but I needed something that made the hardware "sing" and this is it.
The different releases, well i'm not so sure why they stagger the releases, I guess the amount of work that goes into developing the game means that its better to release a cut price "preview" of the next big release than let the GT brand fade out.
So far we've had
GT in 1998
GT2 in 2000
GT3 A-spec in 2001
GT Concept in 2002,
GT 4 Prologue in 2004
GT4 in 2005
GT5 Prologue in 2007 (in japan anyway)
GT5 could be looking at a late 08, early 09 release in europe

So the gap for a PAL release of a wholly new Gran Turismo title will be something in the region of 3/4 years, I'm quite happy to have the opportunity to play a sample of it early.

Before the AI thing starts to get people down, why not get a jap PSN account and get the demo? Then judge for yourselves. No excuses for basing opinion on 2nd hand impressions.

Dont be at yourself

For those with the Japanese version, you might be interested to know about the upcoming update:

(translated from the in-game news service)

On December 25th, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be updated. Below is the planned features to be added.

Online Features:
-Online Event (Maximum 16 players, competitive mode)
-Online Event (Time Trial mode)
-Time Trial Online Ranking Feature
-Time Trial Ghost Download Feature

Information features:
Museum (Car manufacturer's historical information)

steviec

Really enjoying this so far.

For anyone with concerns about it being 'bumper cars' there is now a penalty imposed for ramming that slows your car for a few seconds (still no damage) which means you have to play properly.

Doesn't bother me too much, I play properly anyway.

Game is great so far though. Graphics are the best I've ever seen, handling is as good as ever and the racing is great. I'm not sure they've actually improved the AI but simply having 16 of them on track around you means the racing is more intense. And they're definitely not on rails anymore, I've observed cars ahead of me swerving all over the place to get past eachother and putting wheels on the grass where necessary. I'm still not sure they pay much attention to the player though.

eggplantman

i hope the full game is better than gt hd.

steviec

The online functionality for this went live today, I've played a few races.

Not the greatest to be honest, lag is horrible and races take an age to get into. But then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given it's a Japanese game with only Japanese servers.

In races that did work ok all seemed well though. It's Gran Turismo and it's online, what more needs to be said

They seem to be making an effort to keep cheating down - if a car is going a radically different speed to what they should be, for example not braking for a hairpin or braking on a straight, the game turns them into a ghost car so they won't interfere with anyone else. It also applies penalties for ramming and cutting corners. It's by no means perfect but it's a start and hopefully they'll improve it over time.