Wow you're gonna be pissed once you see this..
Wow, Forza really put PD to shame on the replay presentation. And another bonus for them if there are no invisible walls.
That said, GT5's top gear test track is still fantastic. It's an entire game within the game for me to hotlap road cars there. I have my own power laps board on my phone and everything. Love it.
The no standing start thing is a bummer, then again I'm not sure how practical it would be. Only your first lap would be a standing start, meaning you would be doing your "hot lap" on cold tires. And then you would have to restart back to cold tires again after every lap. The times still wouldn't be accurate, nless they made a special "Standing Start Power Lap Mode with warm tires and new standing starts each time after you cross the finish line."
I'm now reading comments about how it doesn't really reflect Top Gear tests (no standing start, full track not available, no single car testing to attempt duplicating Top Gear runs, etc). Quite disappointing but hopefully that will be corrected at some time in the future.
Meanwhile, not otherwise knowing anything about GT5, I see there is a "course maker" feature. Has anyone attempted to recreate the full Top Gear test track using this "course maker"? I realize you probably couldn't get the background accurate etc, but could the airfield and full course be created such that we could in effect create our own true Top Gear test track? If this were possible, can these created tracks be shared with other users?
It's true that GT5's lap times don't reflect Top Gear, but let's be honest... even if there was a standing start we would still be blowing The Stig's times out of the water.
Today I just beat the Pagani Zonda R's real life Nurburgring lap time, on my first attempt, by 15 seconds. My GT-R Nurb lap time is 5 seconds faster than the real life counterpart.
No matter how much we want the game to reflect real life lap times down to the second, the fact that we don't have to worry about crashing a multi million dollar car, don't have to fight g-forces, get infinite retries, etc. mean the times are never going to be accurate. Which makes the whole "Oh no! No standing start, how will I know if I'm faster than The Stig!!?" concern is a moot point anyway. Spoiler... you will be faster, by a lot.
Since the times don't match, I enjoy seeing if my Power Lap board matches Top Gear's power lap board by car order. It's fun to see if Stig is better at driving certain cars relative to others than I am. In the end, this is what I would be doing anyway if the game was perfectly realistic and had a standing start. Comparing times down to the second just isn't a realistic expectation.
It's true that GT5's lap times don't reflect Top Gear, but let's be honest... even if there was a standing start we would still be blowing The Stig's times out of the water.
Today I just beat the Pagani Zonda R's real life Nurburgring lap time, on my first attempt, by 15 seconds. My GT-R Nurb lap time is 5 seconds faster than the real life counterpart.
No matter how much we want the game to reflect real life lap times down to the second, the fact that we don't have to worry about crashing a multi million dollar car, don't have to fight g-forces, get infinite retries, etc. mean the times are never going to be accurate. Which makes the whole "Oh no! No standing start, how will I know if I'm faster than The Stig!!?" concern is a moot point anyway. Spoiler... you will be faster, by a lot.
Since the times don't match, I enjoy seeing if my Power Lap board matches Top Gear's power lap board by car order. It's fun to see if Stig is better at driving certain cars relative to others than I am. In the end, this is what I would be doing anyway if the game was perfectly realistic and had a standing start. Comparing times down to the second just isn't a realistic expectation.
I have tested this.
Before the lap timer starts, you can take the car just up to the starting line and stop. This forces the game to give you a standing start. I finished my lap and was several seconds faster than Top Gear's time, as expected.