Maybe I'm being too purist or snobby, but this is how I'm approaching GT4, as an old school photographer. So everything I've accomplished has been entirely within the GT4 game engine and "camera" filter effects, and I only use an art proggie - in these cases, MS Paint - to resize and crop.
I find a great deal of satisfaction in using the GT4 renderer to coax out all the quality of my images, forcing me to work with the system as it is, rather than fluff it up with computer created eye candy.
...everything in the images is computer created eye candy
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It seems like the modeling team overestimated how fast they would get in their production, and instead of going from six man-months per car to just three or four, it was more like five or so, and tracks took a year or two regardless. I know many of us would rather they fudged some lower detailed content for more of it, but it's a little late for that. Besides, I LOVE that crazy detail!
Would the game really be worse without the back seat stitching modelled?
Really?
By the way, consider me a numbers whore.
I also love collecting cars. If I really wanted to play a small GT game, I'd play GT3. I want to race the Sileighty with the new physics, and snap pics of it in the GT5 rendering engine. As well as hundreds of other cars you'll probably never see in another racing game.
Don't get me wrong, I love the variety too. I just want it all on one homogenous level of detail. Or at the very least, have the majority of the car lineup up to the higher level of detail. Not 4/5 from the last generation.
I know kingcars considers us fans as hopelessly addicted to Gran Turismo and devoted to Kazunori. Well, name another game series with such a pedigree, which isn't just an encyclopedia of cars and motorsports, but a celebration, and a work of art, where each game release is akin to an album release of a world megastar. Name another developer who can get in a car that isn't his, and in a few laps around a track, is close to record times with that vehicle. Or who has participated in professional races, while performing comparably to pro race drivers. What other game or producer deserves such accolades as they receive?
Oh well, consider me finger wrapped.
Just like kingcars, I too call myself a fan of the series. It doesn't mean I can't be critical.
In this case, I think something else is in play.
Considering the demands Kaz and his team have been under, I think the Standard car inclusion might have been a late development. Consider that in 2008 Kaz stated that GT Mobile would definitely be produced, but it would have to wait until GT5 was complete. Then the next thing we know in 2009, he's holding a PSP Go! and presenting GT PSP. While looking incredibly uncomfortable with it, I might add. And then over the next few months, he gives interviews with thinly veiled remarks about what a struggle it was, and that it took the entire team dropping GT5 work to focus on it.
Yes yes, you really don't approve of PSP. It's too bad a GT game on PSP was promised way back around GT4's release, so as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't so much a roadblock in the way of GT5's development so much as Sony finally reminding them of something they had said years previously.
Plus, as Amar has shown... Standard cars have been around a long time. Since GT Vision, really. The thing is, Kaz said years ago that GT5 was going to be a ground-up, fresh product. Then we got that deleted message about Standards... then E3's actual reveil of what that meant specifically. But we have had an enormous car count for a very long time as well, and after finishing the first of what has become the "Premiums", you'd think they would've figured out roughly how many they could fill the game with in a reasonable time. PSP may have hindered development of GT5 for a while, but I find a game on a new portable device (even if it's missing certain console features like GT mode) something to be far more proud of than recycling a last-gen, 6 year old game's entire car lineup and calling the game a "revolution".
Consider the Standard car trailer. If this stuff had been planned from the start, or even years ago, I'd think those models would have been spruced up and given new skins and textures, and given sectional modules to make them upgradeable like the Premium cars. Okay, maybe this work has been done anyway, and once again, Kaz is underselling GT5 to make a bigger splash when the truth is revealed. It could be. But the trailer suggests to me that a decision was made rather late in the game to include them, rather than release a GT5 which was about as big and involved as GT3. And I wouldn't have liked that nearly as much.
Hey, I would've thought those models would've been spruced up too. Apparently we thought wrong. I'm not entertaining the idea that they'll all be updated for release, for the simple reason that if they were going to show the Standards at E3, knowing they're out of date, I'd hope they'd show some updated version, the most recent they possibly could. But yes, I suppose it's still possible, however unlikely.
Even if the game were Premiums only... it's quite a lot larger than GT3. Or heck, if they would've set a limit of 3 man-months per vehicle, we'd be looking at a car lineup rivalling a certain competitor's... and then there's the issue of DLC.
I'm not saying a game where the Standards are absent would be a better game... but I don't think it really would've been much worse, either. At least it would be a game all on one level of quality (which would surpass all other competitors), instead of a mismash of woefully out-of-date and cutting edge.
I suppose I should say that I consider the XBox to be pretty close to a generational leap over the PS2, because it was five times or more as powerful. In contrast, the Dreamcast was rather similar in capability. Likewise, I don't consider the 360 to be one generation better than the PS2, not with specs and capability that place it squarely in the realm of a modern gaming PC. It's at least 20 to 30 times as powerful.
That's some odd rationalization. So the XBox and PS2 were not considered of the same generation? Are the PS3 and 360 not in the same generation either? Are you trying to tell me the PS3 isn't one generation newer than the PS2? Odd.
Perhaps you balk at Forza 2 as ancient history, but this is a game which has been improved to be the flagship racer on the 360 18 months after its release. I consider Sebring in FM2 to be far better looking than Fuji Kaido in FM3, and you can still see faceted edges in FM3 car models, sad but true.
Yes, you can, just as you can in GT5 Premiums. The point is they're not even nearly as noticeable as Standards.
I don't have time for any comparison shots this morning, and I know that for you, these images have nothing to do with level of damage or missing body panels - and for the record, there are very few racing games in which car debris will have the chance of damaging another vehicle.
Yeah, I know... but I keep hoping PD's put some attention to that and rectified it. If a part has weight to it when it's attached to the car, it should when it's fallen onto the track!
...now I'm wondering if my car's weight will be affected too
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Besides, it seems that nothing less than better-than-real image quality will do for you.
But these images stun me with the realism capable of the moldy old GT4 rendering engine, so this is mostly for the rest of the class.
...no, just "better-than-last-generation". Drab colours, zoomed out camera, and low resolution definitely help GT4 look decent, but even the TT, one of the more finely-modeled cars in the game, has some ugly pixelization around the wheel wells and the entire glass area. And the M3 doesn't hold a candle to current generation models. I honestly don't know how you could deny that other than blind allegiance to all things PD. I've always admired GT4's treatment of headlights and their realism considering what they're working with (and it's more proof that yes, the headlights are modelled on some cars), but they don't provide any actual lighting, which was disappointing.
I'll readily admit Premiums look better than the competition though, that has never been argued!
That's exactly what standard cars are, to me
Ding ding ding!
I'll be the first to agree that GT has been an AMAZING series so far. But that still doesn't mean they should get away with murder.
Whoa man, murder is a bit strong. Lazily recycling last-gen assets to hit the all-important bragging right numbers is probably more acceptable
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That's REALLY interesting. And it actually shows more than 2 top-down convertibles on track at once. It's also showing that standard cars HAVE been around much longer than we've known about them (in GT5).
Well, frankly in regards to Standard model convertibles, it'd be justifiable to laugh at PD if they can't fit 16 on a track at once. 16 Standard models still don't cover even 1/2 of the poly count of one Premium!
But I am giving you one of the reason why it takes time to make something as good and big as GT5. They have increased their team 3 time more since GT4 and also made GTPSP in between. PD is owned by Sony and they are paying the wages to their employees so they will know exactly what they have been doing every years or rather every 3-4months what progress they are doing regarding the game.
but most of you, criticism and logic is just wrong. It is something only PD can answer that. I am just giving you the actual reason and complexity it has taken for them to build the GT5 engine. Easy said than done 
