From Scratch, From Day One - My GT5 Diary

Good evening folks

So here I am, a few days after Christmas, with a brand spanking new PS3 (Slim, 160GB) and an equally shiny new copy of GT5 in front of me. For several years, whilst everyone else dived headfirst into the world of next-gen gaming, I buried my head in the sand and continued playing GT2 and 4, remaining heavily active in those forums and basically paying next to no attention to GT5. Not out of any malice, simply because I wasn't going to pay over £300 for a console with only 1 game I wanted on it (GT5). It's only now that I've finally decided to take the plunge. Now, having jumped through the PS3 setup hoops, I've been having fun hooning around in muscle cars on the other game I got with my PS3 - Driver: San Francisco. But I can't put it off any longer. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for me to return to the racing game series that first turned me into a petrolhead nearly 12 years ago. The name of the game has changed. There's updates, DLC, online modes, new tracks and cars, new tech, more opponents. But at it's core remains solid, good, hard racing. Having dispatched the endless loading screens and installations, I'm ready to rock

Day 1 - 29th December 2011

For reasons I can't quite understand, one of the updates I get on my game means that, once I've waded through the many popup screens, I find that I have a free car right off the bat - a 2012 Toyota 86 GT. A pretty if a little bland-looking car, resembling (to me) a picture of the next-generation Supra concept car I saw a few years ago.

Maybe that's what became of it? It's a break from tradition, as it means I have something to drive around before I've even started trawling the used car lots for a humble car to get me going on the road to (cough) greatness. Still, means I can get some testing done of the new handling as well, so time to break out my new Logitech Driving Force EX wheel (complete with a full set of pedals this time!) and see what I've been missing.

It's been a while since I've driven anything force-feedback - I've not played GT4 in over six months at least, GT2 was controller-played, and the closest I've got was more vibration feedback on Toca Race Driver. So it's quite a shock when I hit the track at Tsukaba for some practice, and suddenly get my arms wrenched by a steering wheel going nuts off it's own accord! Oh, force feedback, I've missed you and the sore arms that result!

I quickly tame the wheel though and soon I'm hurtling through the corners getting to grips with the 86 GT. 197hp is adequate, and I wouldn't say it's the most thrilling ride - it certainly suffers from undue understeer in the corners, leading me to wonder whether it was in fact FF instead of the FR I assumed (correctly) it was. But I'm not complaining. A fire-breathing sports car would leave me in bits along the armco walls right now. I get some laps under my belt and decide to go back to doing things the old-fashioned way by looking for a used car to start procedings. 💡​

akmuq

Good luck with your GT5 career, I enjoyed reading your GT4 reports, especially the Grand Valley 300 New Years Day one.👍

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Thanks GT5 race reports should be coming soon, once I get that far in the game

Eggstor

Sounds like the boat I'm in. I burned a few gift cards to get a PS3 and GT5, and am glad the old Driving Force Pro works pretty well. Of course, I have to get used to the brake pedal being a bit "touchy", as my initial runs sans any traction aids were a bit "fun".

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Haha, yeah me too. First time I got back into the force feedback was an interesting (and arm-wrenching) experience!

Day 2 - 1st January 2012

Happy new year all

So I returned to GT5 after a few days off to begin my racing career in earnest. It's time to find me the humble underdog used car that will carry me up the ladder...and I'm really making an effort to find a car to love this time. That sounds very odd, so let me explain. In my early days in GT2, way back then, I stumbled upon the 1991 Honda Prelude, and fell in love for that car. I wound up having many good times with that car, it was so much fun to drive, and I won lots of races with it. All in a humble starter car. I got the same experience with GT4, in a 1989 Mazda MX5, bought for a pittance with tar for oil. So what car will follow in it's footsteps?

A prerusal of the used car dealership brings up a name I've been familiar with from my GT2 starter car tests on my GT blog - 1991 Toyota Celica. Hmm, 17,000 credits roughly, a car with proven pedigree (I absolutely loved it's GT2 incarnation) - what could possibly go wrong? Sold, done, sorted

With that out of the way, I say thanks but no thanks to PD and sell off the Toyota 86 for extra credits, and then take my standard approach to starting Gran Turismo games - head for the licence tests and get them out of the way ASAP. However, there's a snag - the new experience/levelling feature means I can only do the B grade licence for now. And it won't be the first time I'm restricted to a lower level by this silly system...but more on that later

For now, I get a mild surprise upon starting the B licence and finding out there's only one start/stop test, unlike the traditional 3 that've been a feature of every Gran Turismo game since the dawn of time Once I've gotten over this tremendous shock, I breeze through the B licence, with the regular run of bronze and silvers. I've never really been one for hunting down all golds, and that hasn't changed here

As much as I mocked the unimaginative test trials of yore, the new test trials for GT5 are actually quite good, and I enjoyed the drafting and race-based tests, rather than the standard point-to-point corner tests. Thumbs up there PD, although I'm still stewing about this levelling up dog collar round my neck...but again, that rant will come later on 👎

I get the B licence without much trouble, and upon completion I get a go-kart and a Toyota Vitz (or Yaris to us Yooropean types) delivered, both of which are promptly sold to help fund some tuneups for the Toyota.

So I head for the Toyota dealership, only to be told by a nice man in a shiny suit that 'they don't do upgrades anymore'.

Erm? Isn't that the whole point of GT, you numbskull?!

'No, there's a dedicated tuning shop for ALL the cars in the game right over there, sir'.

Oh yeah, that one...my bad

I slope off to the tuning shop to have a look around, wide-eyed. Seems that paring down on unnessecery fluff is the theme for GT5, as everything is catagorised a bit more neatly. I like this 👍 I leave the shop with some new sports hard tyres and a racing air filter, and head for the track, where the race events seem to have had a re-vamp as well. The Sunday Cup is my target though and I dive straight in.

It's only now that my doubts about the Toyota begin to surface. I have a good skirmish with my opponents at Autumn Ring Mini, and get my first experience of starting in a field of more than 6 cars, although the fact I start 5th sort of makes the extra 2 cars irrelevent 👎

I end up winning the race comfortably, although the Toyota definitely isn't handling as well as I thought. For one, it's understeering like hell! For two, it's not launching off the corners like a 4WD car with rally pedigree should. Wait, 4WD...(goes to check spec screen with miniscule font)...okay, that font is very very small, but even I can see that's not 4WD...in fact it looks suspiciously like FF...

That would explain why it doesn't so much attack a corner as sort of give up and head straight for the gravel

Despite my car's aversion to apexes causing me to go rallying at the end of lap 1 at Grand Valley East, I sweep through the rest of the Sunday Cup without too much trouble, and level up to...either 3 or 4, can't remember off the top of my head. I then browse the rest of the races in the Beginner's Series...and find I basically can't enter any of them, bar the FF series and perhaps the Japanese Cup. I then go to the Amateur Series, to find the door locked until I reach Level 5. Fuuuuuu....

Okay, time out, time out. I understand GT5 have tried to stop people just overkilling the game by getting fast cars and tracks early on and so on, but seriously?! Whatever happened to entering the harder races early on in a starter car? I have a car that could potentially enter some of the lower-level endurance races, but they're locked until I've hit some arbitrary experience level? So I have to wade through the mundane garbage, wasting money that I don't have buying cars I don't want to do these lower-level races, or going over to the Special series and doing the challenges there - but only the beginner ones mind, because yes! YOU'RE NOT EXPERIENCED ENOUGH TO ENTER THOSE ONES YET! Hnnnnngggggg....

Listen, PD. I understand you've tried to fix this overkilling problem, but was this really a problem in the first place? If there were different ways of going through the game, surely it was up to the gamer to choose their path? If people wanted to overkill the hell out of the game early on then that's there boring choice, right? To add this XP-grinding element to the series and keeping things locked off until we've traipsed through the lower-level stuff I guess makes it a more rigid progression, but it makes it linear as hell. Why not give me the choice to make my move up the ladder, then come back when I have some disposable income and hoover up the lower-level stuff? The fact I don't even have a choice in the matter is rather galling, considering also I like pretty much everyone else here on GTPlanet have been playing the GT series for years and years, so we're hardly what you'd call 'noobs' at this who should be kept in the low-level playground with the non-sharp, non-swallowble toys whilst keeping the grown-up fast cars and races locked off until they decide your mature and responsible enough to drive them. Not happy.

/Rant over.

So with nothing else to do for now, I go to grind out some XP in the Special challenges, diving straight in with the NASCAR discipline. It's a thrilling experience driving some of my favourite racing cars in the world right now, although Jeff Gordon's face animation is so laughably bad it makes the early Smackdown! games on the PS2 look state-of-the-art 👎 Still, I get through the beginner challenge, and with the path ahead locked (spot a pattern emerging?), I move over to the Top Gear set of challenges, and wind up in a race around the TG Test Track...in VW Camper vans. It's hilarious if teeth-gnashingly frustrating, as one thing PD haven't fixed from GT4 is the over-zealous penalty system in certain areas. Multiple times I approach a corner, find the path blocked by a traffic jam of vans all beetling along at 25mph, go to the inside to try and squeeze past, and get an instant DSQ for going off-track, or even worse, I swerve back onto the track to avoid an out-of-track DSQ, bump into another van and get a contact DSQ

I get through that challenge easy enough, and yet again wind up with nothing to do. In amongst all this though, I have hit level 5, so at least there's some more races to do...or so you'd think. I head to the Amateur Series, and find that yet again niche races dominate, and literally the only series I can enter in my Toyota is the Clubman Cup. Okay, when people said there were too many needless races in previous GTs, they didn't mean trim out the widespread races that people enjoyed - they meant get rid of the niché races where you buy one car to do that one series and never touch that car ever again...not the other way round.

So instead I take my Toyota to Laguna Seca, my proving ground of choice for cars, to do a bit of testing for a car test/review for my GT blog, and without sports tyres on, the chronic understeer is even worse. I literally have to brake miles before a corner to have any chance of getting near the apex, and it makes driving this car hard very difficult. In lieu of my wish to find a starter car to love, I decide the Toyota isn't doing it for me. So I head back to the used car dealership, and another car jumps out at me this time - and this time I make doubly sure it is 4WD!

It's a 1995 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III GSR, in Queen's Silver Pearl (basically shiny grey), and coming replete with a tasty 260hp out the box (which raises to 276hp with an oil change and engine refresh at GT Auto). I take this back to Laguna, and the change is like night and day. It's an absolute hoot to drive, this one, and not just because it comes with 96hp more than the Toyota. The 4WD is lovely and crisp, with understeer only coming if you drive like a colossal moron and don't brake until halfway round a corner. If you get it right, it rewards you with brilliant grip, and occasionally an outrageous taste of corner exit oversteer, which puts me in mind of my beloved Amuse S2000 from GT4. What a wonderful car! I'm sold on it. Technically I know it's not a starter car per se (you can only buy it at level 3), but then again, it's not too hard to do some licence tests and special challenges to level up enough to get the car. And at 24,000 credits, it is within the price range of starters once you've gone through the XP grinding I mentioned above.

So I end day 2 elated - I understand this may have come across as very negative, but overall I'm enjoying GT Life thus far. The frustrations I've outlined won't go away, but I'm sure once my XP raises enough for things to open out a bit, those initial niggles will be forgotten. Oh, and I've found the new love of my (GT) life - Lynsey, the Mitsubishi Evo III

Photos of my early races etc to come soon. Until next time...
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Day 3 - 2nd January 2011

So then, with my starter car sorted out, time to head into Day 3 and actually find something for Lynsey to do! More tricky than I thought...until C-ZETA kindly pointed out a few posts above that the Seasonal Events were mostly single-player races...not exclusively online-based as I had first thought! And once I got there, I discovered to my joy that there were no annoying XP limits on any of the races! Just like the old days - if you had a car for the job, you were in!

I also must say, I'm quite a fan of this new PP level system. Makes finding a close/competitive race very easy now, when you know roughly how the overall performance (not just the rough horsepower levels etc) match up to your potential rivals. I can see this being very useful as I progress, so nice job there PD. 👍

Anyway, I have a scout through, and quickly find an event for Lynsey and I to enter - the Online A-Spec Challenge No.1 second race, for 500PP level cars. 5 laps, Trial Mountain, 11 opposition cars made up of very similar cars to my own. This should be fun

It takes me a lap to get up to speed, but after that I start moving through the field, dispatching more modern Subarus and even a latest-gen Evo (much to Lynsey's amusement) as the laps click down. Annoyingly, the leading Espirit V8 has cleared off during all this, so when it gets to halfway through lap 4 and I pass the 2nd place TVR Griffith 500, the Espirit is 9s up the road. I try my best, but there's no chance at all, and I finish a distant 7.5s behind.

Then, to my absolute amazement, I get awarded 235,637 credits and my XP level jumps from 7 to 12!! What the absolute hell?!? So by finishing 2nd in one race (not that high a level race mind) I've completely broken the XP level system in one hit by getting an outrageous amount of money, and my level has shot through the roof? I didn't even win the race! Talk about easy money! And if I go back and win, and sweep the series...basically, you can disregard all my complaints about the XP level system, as in 2-3 races I'll have essentially broken it, it seems!

UPDATE 17:42GMT - I decide to try and sweep the three races in this series in the day, so I go hunting for a car sub-400PP, and strike VERY lucky with a dark grey used 2002 Audi TT 1.8T Quattro - rated at 399PP!

I then head back to attempt race 1 of the 3, at High Speed Ring, for 3 laps. 2 less laps, but my Audi quickly gets to work with the opposition, and chases down the leading Celica and FTO, enjoying a brief tussle with both at the start of lap 3, before settling into the lead and bringing my Audi home with no mistakes. The Audi is also good fun to drive, very grippy, and with nice traction and control.

With 1 race under my belt, time to go back to Trial Mountain for revenge - but not before treating Lynsey to some goodies with my new found cash. She gets racing suspension, a new racing air filter, soft sports tyres, some lighter windows, and a High RPM Turbo kit. PP up to 473, and within 5 more laps at Trial Mountain, revenge is mine to the tune of 6 seconds over the Espirit

With over 800,000 credits in the bank at the moment, I fancy indulging myself and sating my muscle car desires, whilst also perhaps building a car to take on the final, 650PP race at Grand Valley, which will feature a selection of full race cars. So in a few short hours, I've gone from the Dodge dealership to the performance garage via GT Auto, and soon after, I emerge with a sense of dread...what is this monster that I have created?!?



It's quite possibly my favourite car of all time, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T. But made badass. Race modification has turned it into a Trans-Am racer all over again, and a sea of tuneup parts has given it a monstrous 638hp and 614PP, in a package weighing in at 1260kg. And trying to tame this car is something else - in my Laguna Seca shakedown, it nearly bites my head off about 3 times in one lap, coming off of slow corners as I go to stamp the throttle. Lynsey would maybe squirrel a little, but would then plant the rear end and go, but the Challenger literally snaps sideways and attempts to wrench my arms from their sockets! This is on Racing Hard tyres too! However, the turn-in is very crisp and precise, and the brakes in particular are tremendous, and the snap (of arms) oversteer can be cured with delicate throttle control.

With some practice in trying to harnass this beast complete, I strap on some Racing Soft tyres and head for Grand Valley, where starting 12th I'm encouraged by a great first run, where despite some errors on my part, I sneak a 3rd on the final lap, despite going up against a field of full-on modern race and GT cars. A victory would've been impossible anyway, as the leading Chapparel 2J had cleared off to the tune of nearly 30 seconds :wow:

This was without any adjustments, bar to the top speed setting on the gearbox, so I go back and max out the downforce before going again for another attempt. This time, there is no Chapparel, but despite an improved performance from me, it's 3rd once again by about 14s this time. Back to the drawing board

It soon becomes clear that there is more to come from the Challenger, as I'd missed two key modifications - still working out the new menu screens was my excuse I'd missed a supercharger kit, and confusingly a sports ECU - confusing, in that a carburettor engine shouldn't have an ECU at all on it in the first place. Answers on a postcard PD Anyway, they are both strapped on, and boy I have to have my game face on now - if 638hp was tasty, what is firstly 674hp (with the ECU on) and then a whopping 772hp gonna feel like?!

Surprisingly, not that much more insane! I guess I must've got into a groove, as the step up to more power is a cinch. I nearly overrun the first corner by quite a way on lap 1, but after that it's plain sailing for my Challenger and I, and this time I'm not just chasing in vain a distant spec on the map - I'm passing it by lap 4! The Ford GT LM has no answers, and I cruise home to victory to round out a fun day's racing! And having officially tamed and fallen in love with the outrageous Dodge, I christen her Katie You may notice a theme going on - cars I'm growing fond of are normally named, as they'll be used quite a bit during my GT career. Slightly sad, I know

I head home to find a car ticket outside my garage, and a shiny new Pagani Zonda C12S inside it! That rounds off a fun day's racing, but there is just enough time to make a fully-fledged racing team out of my initial forays into GT5 racing. Several phone calls later, and I have a B-Spec driver on the books - a young guy from Bristol named Phil Sykes - and an official name. Team Bombersports is born

I let Phil know that he's welcome to get some combat hours under his belt. But having remembered just how blitheringly terrible the B-Spec dude was in GT4, I keep Phil well away from Lynsey and Katie - I've barely had either one more than a day or two, that's far too soon for a car I've grown fond of to be junked by some bonehead, right? So he gets to play around in the Sunday Cup in my Audi TT whilst I sit back and take stock of my first few days of racing in GT5 with the new video of Kaz Yamouchi at the Nurburgring 24hrs on Until tomorrow folks!

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Day 4 - 3rd January 2012

As I said earlier, uni work is the priority for today, so my own driving career will take a back seat, for now. Today is all about training up a wingman for me, in the form of young Phil Sykes, who I introduced to you in the last post.

Last night, I basically left him to his own devices in the Sunday Cup, and when I wake up in my flat near my garages (yeah, you'd think I'd upgrade the house a bit seeing as I'm a millionaire now and all, but still 💡) with the answerphone going crazy. It's Phil, and he's got bad news. Though my Audi is still in one piece, his first race was a disaster. 'The pressure got to me boss, I couldn't get anything right! Goddamnit!' he gibbers angrily down the phone. I sigh wearily. I miss the days when it was down to you, and only you, to win every single race...I'd rather be the one who screws up behind the wheel rather than watch someone else bin my car from the sidelines

I give him a call back and say I'm on the next flight to Grand Valley, the next stop for the series, and for him to just calm down. I bring some upgrade parts with me - he'd already got the oil changed and the engine refreshed, but I decided to give him a helping hand with a sports ECU and race suspension.

I turn up at the track, and Phil is very nervous, so I take him to one side.

'When I hired you the CV said you were a cool-headed driver. Either you lied or I clicked on the wrong guy by mistake, what gives?' I say to him.

'Look, I don't know what happened at Autumn Ring. I just collapsed! It was live, this was something else, they were coming at me in all directions, I fell apart! So much for my shot at the big time, it'll be all over in three races!'

Pause.

'...you think I'm gonna fire you after three races?'

'Well, why would you keep on a guy who failed in the Sunday Cup?'

'There's two more races to go. If you get your head straight and give a good account of yourself today, I'm willing to forget Autumn Ring. Consider it beginner's bad luck. A blip for you. You need to get your head straight. The boys in the pits are putting on some new suspension and engine parts on the Audi, so you'll have a bit more grip under you at least.'

'...what happens if I don't win?'

'Depends how you don't win.'

'What d'ya mean?'

'Never mind, just stop worrying about the details and race your own race. Remember what a guy once told me, it's a saying that's served me well.'

'What's that?'

''Don't let them get in your head, and stay aggressive''.

Another pause.

'...that's a pretty good saying actually. Who said that?'

'Old aquaintance from the GT2 days. I like it.'

'Yeah, so do I.' Phil cracks a smile at this stage, about the first one I think he's cracked since he signed for Team Bombersports.

'Alright, go do your thing, then we'll talk about how many races you'll have till your fired.' I quip to him with a wink. He grins wryly and heads to the car, and someone passes me a headset.

A few minutes later, and he's dogfighting near the front of the field. He's racing well here. Any signs of nerves have largely gone away, and he's taking the lead at turn 1 on lap 3 in a great outbraking manoeuvre. THIS is more like it, Phil! He maintains his lead, but starts coming under attack on lap 4. Come on Phil, stay calm. A few nervous moments later, he comes out the final corner and veers to the pitwall to stick a fist out the window. He's won his first ever GT race! That's more like it

This pattern continues through his final Sunday Cup race at Tsukaba, right up to the anxious final lap, leading me to quip on the radio 'you trying to stress me out delibrately?'

'Chill out skip, I've got this under control. Cool head, just like you said.'

A lunge from the 2nd-place car on the final hairpin into the lead later, and he weaves back by up the final straight.

'Still feeling so confident?' I mutter.

A pause. 'Well I won, didn't I?' he says, with a hint of relief in his voice.

I laugh. This driver management lark is growing on me. Steadily, mind

We win a Toyota Vitz as a prizecar, and I give this to Phil as his ride, and with some tweaks and mods he sweeps the Vitz Race and World Compact Cup with relative ease. Those early nerves are a thing of the past!

More updates to come.

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