Pre-release GT5:Prologue Thread Firmware 2.17 mandatory for GT5:P? (and Pictures)

[Biggles]

After playing EPR exclusively for a couple of months, & returning to Gt4, I was very impressed with the positioning & volume of sounds - it seemed very, very well done, reflecting exactly where the other cars were...

 

[Tenacious D]

We're basically getting to the point in which an essential demo or light version of a game can be just as anticipated as the forthcoming retail product.

This is one of the fascinating things about living in the future, that demos and prologues are hotly anticipated, and people riot on message boards when even these are delayed. They have fits if somerhing isn't just like real life. And that's another thing. We've reached the point that a game is hard to distinguish from real life! We have to be picky to find faults. What a world. And yes, Forza 2 was delayed at least five times.

I'll have to do a contrast of GT4 with Forza 2. I think it'll be fun to compare a game from more than a generation apart. I see Gran Turismo 4 holding it's own, because Forza 2 wasn't a quantum leap over Forza 1. It was more of a tweak except for graphics, much like GT3 and 4. I have a feeling that as in my GT4/Forza 1 comparison, I'll be within a fraction of a second of lap times with the same cars on the same track, Laguna. The Nurburgring will be fun too, as it looks to be a lot like the track in Forza 1, but the right length.

 

[DuckRacer]

Delayed? how was it delayed if a release date for the US market hadn't even been set, for neither prologue or GT5 itself?

I'm talking about the European release.

And I fully expect GT5P to appear in the States since it's a major PSN release originally announced at an American show.

EDIT: Oh, I see what you're saying. Just ignore me.

 

[Kamus]

I do own Enthusia, and I also disagree with you on how realistic Enthusia is. It's nothing like the opening Miata cinema. It would help if it had anything resembling realistic tire sounds, much to Wolfe's chagrin I insist this is true. At some point I'm going to go out with my bro's camcorder and see how similar Enthusia is to real life, compared to GT4 and Forza. I've played it enough to know it captures certain aspects of driving dynamics, and for the fans that's great, but there are also threads detailing how it gets things quite wrong too. I think in the realism department, you'll just have to leave it at the fact that you prefer Enthusia. I prefer GT4 because it sits me behind a wheel like no other game I've ever played before, and equips me to understand what my car is doing and how it feels about it.

I haven't played Ferrari 355 Challenge for years because I found the cockpit view to be crap, as it is on most games, but I might give it a whirl for the heck of it this fall.

I was also going to make that very comment about using a hand controller to control a car in real life. Physics is one thing, but being able to control a car properly and make a judgment from that, I think you're exaggerating a scouche.

By the way, I am adamantly not a drifter.

As for Prologue's delay, it irks me, though I feared as much. But there is a good thing about a delay. The Japanese release will be missing a few elements intended for the full Prologue build, such as voice chat, multiple online play modes and other things. A delay gives Kas and the lads time to finish up Prologue a bit more, so our release should be a more satisfying one.

If you've played both Enthusia and GT, i just can't understand why you'd prefer the handling in GT4, if for any other reason that it's much more forgiving.
While GT4 is overall a far more complete product than Enthusia can ever hope to be, when it comes to handling it's just doesn't touch Enthusia.

I've done nearly 1000 laps in nurburgring in GT4, and about 500 or so in Enthusia.
The feel of the tyres is completley different.

I got pretty good at the track, i downloaded a video of an NSX-R with a cockpit / pedals view of the track, and i quickly decided to play the video side by side with my best laps on both games.
The track itself in GT4 seems to be truer to the look and bumps of the original track. Enthusia gets the track right, but not the bumps, and it just looks different than the real thing. But other than that, the layout is very well represented in both games.

Now, here is what i observed:

In GT4 i could brake a LOT later than what i was seeing in the video. (this was done Using "N2" tyres btw.)
Also, the "accel" control wasn't nearly as active as in the video, you rarely have to use accel control in GT4 to avoid spining out, or getting out of the track (this is ALL due to the flawed tyre simulation, too much grip. and the loss of grip you can't even feel comming that well in GT4, it seems like an artificial loss of grip.)

Then there's Enthusia.. i was SHOCKED with the results.
While the gear ratios seemed slightly different, i was very surprised to see that the braking spots were EXACTLY the same in both the video and my replay, and i mean it down the same instant.
Shiftdowns were exactly at the same time, and the engine sound from the accelerator control was dead on.
Of course at times we would get out of sync a bit because of slight differences in driving, but as soon as i would re-sync it, we'd be braking at exactly the same time for a good portion of the track.
The only thing that was different were the slightly different gear ratios.
(i can't recall how different they were in GT4.)

So, While in GT4 there are a LOT of times where you are pretty much relaxed to the point where you are taking some corners at fullspeed with out worrying to much about either steering or accelerator control (specially very high speed corners.)
In enthusia the whole time you have to pay complete attention, any distraction can cause you to lose control.

In enthusia the whole driving experience can be summed up as a workout, and it's far more stressing than GT4, but at the same time. far more rewarding.

Also, before i end it. i never said that you'd be able to control a real car as well with a PS controller, i said that you WOULD be able to control it, and that it would definitly feel realistic, but i never even suggested that you'd be able to control it as well as with a steeringwheel. I thought i made that perfectly clear in my previous posts.

If i ever get around to it, i'll post a video of the NSX-R in both enthusia and the real life videoclip so you can see what i mean.

 

[Robin]

Gosh this delay is a real bummer but im going to try my hardest to get a Japaniese or any asian version of GT5P like I did with GT4P... hopefully a mate of mine will be able to get we one there and bring it back!

I dont want to have to wait till march 2008!!! for a demo! Gosh MGS will be finished by then and thats a huge game!

As long as the GT5P online demo is still comming in oct then im happy for now

Robin

 

[T13R]

Sweet, looks like GT5 for 2009 or later... that gives enough time for another PS3 price drop and then hopefully a nice bundle deal, exactly what I was hoping for 👍

 

[racingfreak01]

Gosh this delay is a real bummer but im going to try my hardest to get a Japaniese or any asian version of GT5P like I did with GT4P... hopefully a mate of mine will be able to get we one there and bring it back!

I dont want to have to wait till march 2008!!! for a demo! Gosh MGS will be finished by then and thats a huge game!

As long as the GT5P online demo is still comming in oct then im happy for now

Robin

Try www.play-asia.com, they supply asian games to the rest of the world

 

[FoolKiller]

<Tons of assumptions.>

You make a ton of assumptions here based off of watching online videos and early builds of the game that are even pre-demo quality. I'm not sure where your comments about teh engine come from, but you state them as if they are fact, immediately after saying, "the way the game is looking." YOu go one and on about what it is and isn't but you have nothing to back this up other than what little we have seen online.

How is it that you can begin to get so opinionated and start drawing so many conclusions from what we have so far? Online videos of a pre-demo build? First-hand reports of pre-demo builds? Have you played any of the completed demos on the PSN? Those are horrible representations of the full game. What we have so far seen is pre-demo builds of Prologue, which many people consider to be a demo itself.

This goes for everyone making crazy assumptions: We have not seen anything remotely close to anything complete. So far we have only been shown enough to show us what the general look will be, nothing else. Everyone needs to calm down and realize that in the grand scheme of the finished game we know almost nothing of what it will be like.

But that's just my opinion.

But I believe you are making up your mind on what is and is not fact way too early.

 

[Kamus]

You make a ton of assumptions here based off of watching online videos and early builds of the game that are even pre-demo quality. I'm not sure where your comments about teh engine come from, but you state them as if they are fact, immediately after saying, "the way the game is looking." YOu go one and on about what it is and isn't but you have nothing to back this up other than what little we have seen online.

How is it that you can begin to get so opinionated and start drawing so many conclusions from what we have so far? Online videos of a pre-demo build? First-hand reports of pre-demo builds? Have you played any of the completed demos on the PSN? Those are horrible representations of the full game. What we have so far seen is pre-demo builds of Prologue, which many people consider to be a demo itself.

This goes for everyone making crazy assumptions: We have not seen anything remotely close to anything complete. So far we have only been shown enough to show us what the general look will be, nothing else. Everyone needs to calm down and realize that in the grand scheme of the finished game we know almost nothing of what it will be like.


But I believe you are making up your mind on what is and is not fact way too early.

I'm not making ANY definitive conclusions here, but it's always fun to speculate, and the fact that i use the term "the way it's looking now" is pretty well founded.
We got information regarding the current state of the game and i'm making speculations regarding the information that we have.

This information comes in the way of the videos we've seen, and hands on experience from people at the conventions where it has been shown.

Of course we won't know anything final until the demo of GT5 ships next month, and that's just regarding prologue, not the final GT5 build.
But it will be a very good indicator of the direction PD is heading to this time around, and where their priorities lie. (Evidence points to the same priorities that are found in previous GT games: Graphics and presentation are #1.)

 

[harrytuttle]

Just look at all the delays EA's & Maxis' Spore has gone through and continues to have! I believe it may have already broken the record for longest delay.

Have we forgotten DNF?

Ten years! Ten!

 

[Tenacious D]

@Kamus:

Enthusia's tire sounds are crap. This is the single most important aspect to me of knowing how a car feels as it takes turns. When I go sliding off a track before the tires make any sound at all, and when they do it's much like Forza's whispering crowd noise sound - on grass no less - then the game is useless to me.

Not to mention the cars don't even feel right.

I understand you Enthusia guys' enthusiasm for the game, but that's you guys. You might consider that the game pretty much bombed for certain reasons, and when someone warned me that it was even more disconnected than Toca, and I found that very thing to be the major flaw, that might be why hardly anyone liked it.

 

[Biggles]

I really believe that EPR introduced an aspect of modelling the car physics not even attempted By Forza or GT4. This makes EPR a challenging & interesting drive that rewards those prepared to look beyond its immediate shortcomings: graphics, sounds & weird gameplay.

I really hope that the GT series is able to incorporate some of the physics lessons of EPR when GT5 arrives on the scene.

 

[unv412]

I really believe that EPR introduced an aspect of modelling the car physics not even attempted By Forza or GT4. This makes EPR a challenging & interesting drive that rewards those prepared to look beyond its immediate shortcomings: graphics, sounds & weird gameplay.

I really hope that the GT series is able to incorporate some of the physics lessons of EPR when GT5 arrives on the scene.

well stated biggles.I think this is the biggest wish for hardcore racers (those people who in real life have participated in racing/lapping/drifting/rallying/burnouts/ect) and those who have some real understanding of a real cars behaviour on the limit.This is what were waiting for some sign of PD.
Ps ....as for EPR, its really funny that a game that bombed so hard in the sales stakes, have such a hardcore following from gamers....just shows u what great physics in a console game (from 2004???) can do!

 

[JohnBM01]

This is completely off-topic, but the F1 Grand Prix of Japan is taking place this weekend. I'm kind of comparing how Fuji looks in GT5P compared to its real life travesty-of-justice-thanks-to-Herman-f:censored:ing-Tilke. I was thinking of "GT5: Prologue" when I seen this track on Speed Channel.

 

[Tenacious D]

I really hope that the GT series is able to incorporate some of the physics lessons of EPR when GT5 arrives on the scene.

It's good that you Enthusia fans have such devotion to your game and all, but aren't the physics Kaz and the lads should be studying be the physics of real life?

GT, Toca, Enthusia, GTR etc are all snapshots of reality, and as such are limited, especially on the older Playstation hardware. If you want to study physics, grab a real Subaru, Mustang, Honda and BMW, and throw it around a real track on various makes and types of tires. Ne?

Now that it's been mentioned, maybe this is another question to ask. Let's say that GT5 Prologue will be coming out in March 2008 at $39.95 US. Then let's say that Gran Turismo 5 will be coming out at the end of November 2008 for $59.95. Who will still want to buy Prologue?

Me. 👍

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

....as for EPR, its really funny that a game that bombed so hard in the sales stakes, have such a hardcore following from gamers....just shows u what great physics in a console game (from 2004???) can do!

Shows it bombed, and only appealed to a small group of hardcore followers?

 

[RACECAR]

Don't know if this was already posted, but its quite interesting

 

[Beerz]

I'm in Europe but I'll import a NA GT5P if the USD/EURO conversion keeps going like this, even with p&p it'll still be cheaper.

 

[amar212]

... Then let's say that Gran Turismo 5 will be coming out at the end of November 2008 ....

Maybe in Japan . Maybe?

 

[Kamus]

@Kamus:

Enthusia's tire sounds are crap. This is the single most important aspect to me of knowing how a car feels as it takes turns. When I go sliding off a track before the tires make any sound at all, and when they do it's much like Forza's whispering crowd noise sound - on grass no less - then the game is useless to me.

Not to mention the cars don't even feel right.

I understand you Enthusia guys' enthusiasm for the game, but that's you guys. You might consider that the game pretty much bombed for certain reasons, and when someone warned me that it was even more disconnected than Toca, and I found that very thing to be the major flaw, that might be why hardly anyone liked it.

It bombed for various reasons:

-Contentwise it was underwhelming, the project seemed very underbudgeted for the goals it had.

-The graphics were nothing special.

-The majority of the people didn't even know about this game.

-People thought the game was "too hard" this is a reason why i think it didn't sell that well, not a reason why i think it sucked by the way, but at least they didn't hestitate to deliver a true sim.(which is why sim fans were pretty much the only fans of the game.)

-The tyre sounds do suck, even though they are better than the ones in GT4, i think it's hillarious you use this as something to defend GT4 with.

-The game doesn't even have LAN play, a big hit for me. (i would totally buy this on the PSN with high res and multiplayer though.)

I'm confused about your Toca comparasion, but i hope you're kidding, that is a 100% arcade game, might as well compare it and GT4 with PGR.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, even though it think you are very subjective about it.

I have no problems recognizing the flaws in all of the games i play, i am no "GT fanboi" as much as i am a fan, i can still comment on flaws, and what i would like to see improved.
The fact that i use Enthusia as inspiration for that, is because they get a lot of things right that the GT series don't yet.
For example, another thing that GT could use from the likes of enthusia is the way they get their transmitions right, like no other console game out there.

Having said that, i think PD is the only company with the resources to make a proper sim in evry aspect of the word.
They've always exelled with the graphics, presentation, content and interface department.
I just wish they got the thing that a "real driving simulator" should have, right once and for all.
And by the way, just how did your reply had anything to do with DS and physics?

 

[unv412]

Shows it bombed, and only appealed to a small group of hardcore followers?

thats what i said!....what was your point to the conversation????
On all things asked and complained about and nitpicked about GT5p, I think we should all voice and discuss GT5P with justified opinions.Example is that I collect model cars of the Australian muscle car era (1:18) and a company that did the model stuffed it up by not representing them in there proper detail.Lots of people roasted them for this on their forum and others defended them by sayin "if it wasnt for this company making this model you wouldnt have one at all".Now another company makes better ones.My point is we critique and request from PD to ask for a better product.(eg in time forza or if EPR2 makes a comeback..look out)Its not a case of wanting too much,we just don't want to be left WANTING!

 

[STINGer71]

Maybe in Japan . Maybe?

Maybe for Xmas 2008 in Japan? Remember GT4?

 

[Tenacious D]

-The tyre sounds do suck, even though they are better than the ones in GT4, i think it's hillarious you use this as something to defend GT4 with.

Living next to an intersection with a major boulevard just over a hill in a major city, I can assure you that I've heard many a traffic incident with tire sounds that sound exactly like GT4's. When I take my Supra and push it around a curve, it sounds very close to the tire sounds in GT4. I'd say you can't be serious about EPR's tire sounds. They barely exist. And I'm done addressing your DS/physics remarks because they're based completely on your imagination and biases.

Well, I will say one thing about them. Being in an actual car will never be anything like being in a videogame car, and so making an association from one to the other will always be fraught with error and personal opinion from us civillians. But I don't see how anyone can compare how a certain car handles in real life to a car in a game without a wheel in both instances, because a steering wheel and pedals are much of the factor of a driving experience. With a hand controller, what you're comparing are your subjective impressions of other videogames.

Your list of EPR issues with the gaming public is pretty good, but I have to come back to how the game feels to me. I've played dozens of racing games, from the NFS series (RIP) through Sega's marvelous if arcade racers, Gran Turismo, Toca, GTR, LFS (when I finally got it halfway functional)... I'm sure my list is much like yours. And the game which feels the least like I'm driving a car is EPR. From what I've read of other gamers on boards across the net who prefer games other than GT, that seems to be the most common denominator.

I think Foolkiller summed up your first post pretty well. Saying you were playing an apparently worn out controller on a blah display in a poor setting in which you couldn't even hear it, and then saying "right now the game is crap" is completely raw opinion. I think you were expecting EPR dynamics. You would have been much better served and sounded less opinionated if you had said something like "Okay, this is a poor way to get a feel for it, so I hope all the flaws were because of the convention issues." You can't possibly judge a game that isn't even finished yet, and played in a cruddy environment on beat up hardware. You might as well go to a poor restaurant and judge fillet mignon from that.

I think that many of us in the GT community are tired of people who prefer other games or just don't like Gran Turismo coming in here and posting poorly framed opinion, and sometimes downright harf, as if it were scholarly well thought out discourse. I've looked at some of my earlier posts on GTR, Forza and other games and realized I was heavy handed with my criticisms of them. All these games have issues with properly representing the reality of running a car around a track as fast as you can. All are impressionist paintings of real life, and some do a better job than others in certain areas. All of them have to do some fudging of reality to help the gamer because you are missing too many elements in real life racing that tell you how your car is doing on the course. And many of us are tired of posters coming along and throwing opinions around as if it was established automotive gospel. I much prefer GT to Toca or Forza, but because I'm also a fan of Forza, I post on the boards occasionally. I personally think Toca is yesterday's news so I don't go to those boards anymore, and I think after Prologue comes out and some of you don't like it, you need to move on to your chosen games and play on those boards and let us enjoy our Gran Turismo.

Now I'm going to play some Forza 2.

 

[Kamus]

And I'm done addressing your DS/physics remarks because they're based completely on your imagination and biases.

I realize now i've been wasting my time, "imagination" seems to be extremley like the real thing when watching videos side by side to my replays in the game, mind you. i'm not trying to make them seem similar, that's just the way they ended up being because of the same limitations in both the real cars, and the ones in the sim.

The fact that the braking spots are in EXACTLY the same spot, and so are the shiftdowns say something, you can ignore it if you want and call it my "vivid imagination".
I can tell you right now though, i happen to drive real cars too, and the way the tyre feedback seems is much more true in EPR than GT4.
To add, i think the same of Race 07 by simbin (having only played the demo.) and the GTR series, same goes for LFS.

Of course the only problem with those, is that there are no licenced cars unless you get mods for them.

I think it's very intresting that you think it's my imagination that's vivid, when just about evryone that is a serious sim fan agrees with me.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

I think it's very intresting that you think it's my imagination that's vivid, when just about evryone that is a serious sim fan agrees with me.

Uh, how exactly do you know "just about everyone that is a serious sim fan agrees with" you???
I know for fact many, including myself do not, at least not on everything you have suggested.

Of course we won't know anything final until the demo of GT5 ships next month, and that's just regarding prologue, not the final GT5 build.

Yes, so maybe it would be a good idea not to jump to so many seemingly definitive conclusions based on such limited examples, and so much subjective opinion.

 

[Kamus]

Uh, how exactly do you know "just about everyone that is a serious sim fan agrees with" you???
I know for fact many, including myself do not, at least not on everything you have suggested.


Yes, so maybe it would be a good idea not to jump to so many seemingly definitive conclusions based on such limited examples, and so much subjective opinion.

Ok, care to share your objective opinion on the matter?

I realize this board is full of GT fanbois.

I'm a fan, but i don't ignore what needs improvement in the series, i have no problem admiting flaws in any of the stuff that has it, being games or anything else for that matter.

So, again if you're gonna bash my opinions, at least have some of your own to share on why i'm worng.
other than "limited examples, therefore you lie!"

 

[Tenacious D]

@Kamus:

We're discussing two entirely different things now, go figure. I was discussing feel as to how it correlates to a real life car on a real life track. You are now discussing lap times and how awesomely they line up with a real life car. Actually someone did a run with a GT4 car on the Nurb and compared it with the same car in a real life race, and it was almost exactly the same too. Even to certain trees passing by at the exact same moment. So make of that what you will.

Every game has a certain dynamic which you have to adjust to when using a controller. That's just the nature of gaming. It doesn't mean that it correlates to anything realistic. Otherwise, you could say that "When I do this on a controller, it's like when I turn a steering wheel this much on my car" or mash brakes or whatever, and no one can say that. Using a hand controller is putting in arbitrary movements and converting that to actions on a screen, while a gas pedal is a gas pedal, whether on a car or a steering controller.

I really think we need to leave this at games will be games, and gamers will have their druthers.

 

[Earth]

I'm wondering if at Forza 2's message board if there is fans demanding Gran Turismo 5's graphics, GT5's incar view, GT5's High Dynamic Range Lighting, GT5's large variety of tracks, GT5's encyclpedia of cars, GT5's 16 car races offline AND online etc etc etc etc

Gran Turismo 5 will do certain things better than other racers, and other racers will do certain things better than it.

If you like what Gran Turismo is you will like Gran Turismo 5. This will no doubt be the biggest jump for the series. In car view, 6 to 16 cars, online racing, downloadable content, 1080i upscaled to 1080p native, all new to the GT series.

I seriously cannot figure out why anyone, after playing through the first 4 GTs, would consider GT 5 some sort of GT 4.5 because it still doesn't have proper collision detection and the physics don't allow burnouts and donuts.

That's just ignoring all the great addtions the series is getting for the 5th installment. Of all the games that made the leap from the last generation to this one, I can honestly say Gran Turismo 5 shows the biggest improvement in terms of gameplay, graphics, everything.

 

[RACECAR]

I'm wondering if at Forza 2's message board if there is fans demanding Gran Turismo 5's graphics, GT5's incar view, GT5's High Dynamic Range Lighting, GT5's large variety of tracks, GT5's encyclpedia of cars, GT5's 16 car races offline AND online etc etc etc etc

Gran Turismo 5 will do certain things better than other racers, and other racers will do certain things better than it.

If you like what Gran Turismo is you will like Gran Turismo 5. This will no doubt be the biggest jump for the series. In car view, 6 to 16 cars, online racing, downloadable content, all new to the GT series.

I seriously cannot figure out why anyone, after playing through the first 4 GTs, would consider GT 5 some sort of GT 4.5 because it still doesn't have proper collision detection and the physics don't allow burnouts and donuts.

That's just ignoring all the great addtions the series is getting for the 5th installment. Of all the games that made the leap from the last generation to this one, I can honestly say Gran Turismo 5 shows the biggest improvement in terms of gameplay, graphics, everything.

Awesome post:tup: And to add for people who keep wanting GT to have what ever other game has, GT5 is going to be made the "GT" way, its not gonna have Enthusia's Physics or Forza's Livery editor, or GTR's Car sounds, Its gonna be GT.

 

[buickgnx88]

It would be nice if it could have a GT livery editor though