5. Standard models
Yes, I know standard models are a way to put more cars in the game and we may bless the GT4 models recycling, thanks to which we have 1000+ cars and not 200 as in Gt3, but seriously... it took two years to them to realize how they could put custom wheels on them... and they're supposed to be the best programmers in the world. I mean, in GT2 you could put custom wheels on your car, and those weren't definitively Premium Models!
It took time but now it's there, what's the problem? Besides, who said they are the best programmers in the world?
4. DLC
Yes, that awesome period when we all thought about a simulator which updated once in a while in order to always have new cars and so. We dreamt about 10 minutes to get 5-6 new cars in a months, and not of 30 minutes to update the game when it's evening, you come across the PS3 with no idea about what to do and your only wish is racing for less than 5 minutes on Trial Mountain, that 30 minutes only to discover they've added 3 new cars I can't even buy, because they all require real money.
You start by complaining we don't get enough dlc, and then end by complaining about us getting it. Getting a faster internet connection and/or developing some patience might solve this problem.
3. Special events & License tests
In the previous chapters, acquiring gold licenses was fun. I mean, when you bought the game you got all the bronze licenses, or maybe some silver ones, and then, after playing a while, you got gold ones. In Gt2 it was relatively easy, apart from that Rome-Night-Alfa155 thing, in Gt4 it was human, in GTPSP extremely simple, in GT5 impossible. I mean, how can I get a gold license when even the CPU demo is slower than the required time? At least show me how you can do it! Some of the test require perfect skill and even more perfect luck: today I spent 15 minutes trying to realize where I had to brake with an Audi TT in the A-1 test, and I got something like 20 attempts under 16.350 before finally going under 16.300. Why?!
15 minutes doesn't sound like such a long time to attempt... well pretty much anything. I mean, it would be quite a drab if you could gold of them on the first try.
There's no game in the GT saga as slow as GT5. Slowest in loading tracks, unbelievably slow in detecting network problems, slow in everything. There are times I think my ps3 has problems reading the disc, when I remember the content should have been installed on the HDD... why? Why has it to be so slow? When you reach the "Seasonal events" after 5 minutes of unnecessary loading time, you happen to choose the wrong one, only to wait another minute just to load 2 images of the tracks and the data concerning your reward. Not to talk about when you actually select the single race into the event: 30 seconds to load the scenery, and you're stuck for 2 minutes looking at an "Eni" advertisement and the blue sky. Even the loading noises from the cd drive of the Ps1 were more interesting!
It has become obvious that the game is asking a bit too much from the platform. Jagged shadows, long loading times and all sorts of imperfections are a result of this. There's also a lot of network traffic happening in pretty much all the menus, so again I question the speed of your connection. Have you tried navigating the menus with the PS3 disconnected from the internet and have you noticed any difference in loading times?
1. The PP system
A PP system. What a clever idea! A pity they managed to realize it the worst way they could. My Dodge Viper of the late 90s has got 550pp or little less, while my BMW M3 of year 2004's got 496, and the later is 3 second faster than the former at Tokyo R246. I have a TVR V8s I love to drive: 447PP, enough to be beat by every car in its class. Not to talk about the 430PP of an Alfa Romeo GTA of the 60s... how can I compete Mugen S2000s and similar beasts with 160HP?
There's an unbelievably large amount of this cases, like the 600PP Ferrari F40 or the 516PP Mercedes SL600 (1998), and what's the result? The result is, yesterday evening I joined two different rooms for the 550PP class: saw nearly 15 cars, 11 were BMW M3s, 2 BMW M3 CSL a 350Z maybe and some other non-M3 cars which ended in the last positions. Why is it so stupid? It doesn't care about LSD, suspension tuning and other 1000 things the game includes and PP doesn't.
The PP system has many flaws, but when it was first introduced it really changed the online scene. 500pp sports hard became a sort of a level, and many people were developing tunes and searching for good base cars, it was a jolly time.
You must understand that mathematically factoring in suspension and LSD settings into PP would be impossible. If you try to make a fast suspension setup for any car, you'll soon realise that it's not simple, and figuring out which LSD or suspension settings ultimately end up being faster on a certain track is something that is nigh on impossible to calculate.
I agree PD could've individually downgraded certain cars to a more competitive PP level (Caterham Firebird comes to mind, or in fact most radically light cars), but among friends you can make the regulations right.
And all these things come between an amazing moment and another, when your soul is filled with admiration for the spectacular graphics or for your close win after 5 laps of perfect driving. In such moments you're literally in love with the game and you feel you may keep playing for hours... then you say, "Why don't I try that new Seasonal?" ending up in turning the whole thing off after that long waiting and writing here your disapprovement for PD.
I've had many of these amazing moments, lately it's like that almost every time I play the game, but with such problems I can see how it can be frustrating. Trying a seasonal has never taken any noticable amount of time on my PS3.
Is it like an encyclopedia or does it have a few tips? Like Track characteristics? The first preview chapter makes it out like a encyclopedia.
