I went to visit the Eurogamer Expo at Earl's Court in London today in order to sample the GT5 demo physics for the first time since I ran the GT Academy TT last year. This would be the first time I sampled the newer physics.
I went after 3pm as tickets were sold out, and managed to get in for £5. I headed straight for zone C where the 4 Gran Turismo 5 pods were, sporting Logitech DFGT wheels. F1 2010 was right next to it using G27s, shame GT didn't have them.
Having watched some of the recent videos on the GTP front page I was worried how violently the cars like the Ferrari Enzo and 458 Italia were reacting under heavy braking. They seemed to shudder and lock up immediately. After watching a few people drive this demo build, and finally having a go myself I realised what the story was. They were all using standard physics.
As soon as I selected professional physics and turned the aids off, I was able to utilise smoother brakes more reminiscent of Prologue and the GT5 demo. I did 2 mins worth of driving at the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the Ferrari 458 (yellow, of course) using S3 tyres. I must say I was very impressed with the sound, especially in chase cam. I drive using bumper, but it still had a healthy roar and my goodness the 458 has some blistering power and 7 singing gears. It was an absolute pleasure to drive and wasn't terribly unlike the handling of a Ferrari F430 on S tyres in GT5: Prologue.
After that I had to wait about 20 odd minutes for a free pod and another try. I decided to try the Nissan MOTUL GTR Super GT race car on R3/R3 at Nordschleife also. I found the R3s immensely grippy, to the point where I was actually braking far too early and never utilising the runoffs or exit kerbing. I couldn't feel the limit very quickly on those tyres. The Motul GTR sounds magnificent even in bumper cam, and you can really feel the bumpy nature of the Nordschleife. I was very much driven to lift off over the jumps and drive well below 100%.
My last tries of the demo were with the Motul GTR on R2s and R1, and by far the most enjoyable experience was R1/R1. I did this three times and it was utterly amazing fun. Buckets of grip, a lovely amount of slip and liftoff oversteer with bagfuls of power. It really felt like a proper race car should, not hugely different from the tuned Fairlady Z of the GT5 Academy demo. It felt properly connected to the road in my opinion and a noticeable step up from Prologue physics.
A lot of people were trying the road-going supercars like the Enzo and the Gallardo on tracks like Madrid and Rome. I noticed that on this build, when in cockpit view the detail of the following cars in rear view mirrors was significantly more basic than if you actually looked back using rear-view.
I thoroughly enjoyed my experience though, and if the Motul GTR and 458 on the Nurburgring are any indication of what's to come with GT5, the good times are most definitely just around the corner.
All the best
Maz
).
