Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) - Review

Introduction

Gran Turismo is a Sony’s exclusive  simulation racing games, focusing on realistic driving aspects and always having a really good career mode. After some delays on the release, Gran Turismo 5 finally comes out to the PS3 with online mode, internal view from the cars, some cool special events and driving looks better than ever.

Story & Characters

The game has more than 1,000 (one thousand) cars, but they are separated into 2 types: Premium cars and Standard cars. The Premium cars are incredibly detailed, you can see the driver perfectly inside the car and the car’s inside are also very well-done. The Standard cars are not so detailed but still good looking. Compared to other GT games, GT5 has less events, but they are fun to play, specially the Special Events, that includes: Rally, Kart, Nascar’s driving leassons and Gran Tour. All these events take place in some of the 60 courses, some real ones and the classics GT courses.

Gameplay

The gameplay is amazing! Each car feels unique and when you make some modifications, the car’ll feel different from before. In this aspect GT5 is perfect: Driving. Driving in the game is very realistic. In the other hand however, the damage system is weak and takes a long time to unlock it, they should give an option to play with damage right in the beginning of the game. Also the fact that only Premium cars has internal view annoys me, cause’ you get use to this camera, but when you´ll drive a Standard car you don’t have this option of camera, for the Standard cars they could have done like in GT for the PSP, where all cars has the same generic inside view, to resolve this little problem.

Visuals

The intro is very beatifull and cool. But the game itself is a little unstable when comes to visuals, some tracks looks better than others, you’ll be racing in courses with amazing textures, other tracks are not so detailed. The cars are divided in two types: Premium and Standard, but those differences are not that big, they’re  tolerable. The menus are simple, but easy to navigate. Overall it’s a very good looking game, specially with Premium cars or in the Photo mode.

Sound

The menu’s musics are very nice and relaxing, the racing musics are okay, but other GT games has better racing musics. The sounds of the cars are awesome, they feel very real and each one sounds unique.

Replay

GT5 is a really long game if you want to try out all of what the game has to offer. You can just pick a car and race, do Time Trial and play Split-screen with your friends, in the Arcade mode. The “GT Mode” is the main mode of the game, is the career mode, where you buy cars and participates in various events, the events usually has some requirements like: Only 80’s cars, only japaneses or only lower than 250HP, also you can take care of the career of other racers, in the B-Spec mode, giving orders to the pilot like: Speed up or maintain the speed. The online mode is solid and fun to play, is good to test your skills against real people, but it could have more options like tournament. You can also take pictures of your cars in cool locations to show to your friends.

Good & Bad

The Good: More than 1,000 cars, a lot of tracks, Special Events, Premium cars looks just great, Online is fun and driving is fantastic!

The Bad: Cars are divided in two types, unstable visuals and Online could have more options.

Conclusion

I waited a long time for this game, and the wait was worth. A deep gameplay, good visuals and sound, a lot of cars and tracks to try out  This game has enough to keep you busy for a long time. A game made for people who love cars, since the game is a really Driving Simulation.