GTPlanet Weekly Rewind: Sitting in the Backseat

Yes, another reference to “Friday” by Rebecca Black. It’s a catchy song once you’ve listened to it over one hundred times, but of course we’re not here to discuss Auto-Tune wonders, are we?

Sony just announced the Playstation 4 this past Wednesday and things are looking incredibly bright for the upcoming eighth generation of video games, and all that’s left now is Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox 360. As I say that I know many of you are wondering when Gran Turismo 6 is going to rear it’s taillights, and to that I’d propose waiting until E3 in June. This conference, while very informative, was but a mere blip on the radar – a chess move, per se. At E3 we’re more than likely to see everything unveiled… if it’s to be unveiled at all. Curb your enthusiasm.

Best of all? Even while curbing your enthusiasm to avoid disappointment, the one thing you won’t be disappointed in is the fact that the PS4, at current, will be hitting shelves this holiday season. Christmas Rush 2013! That’s right, you heard it here first. Someone owes me a PS4 now. I don’t really have much else to go on about so let’s grease these wheels and let ‘er rip!

GTPlanet Picture of the Week

Recommended by the man himself, this week’s picture comes to us courtesy of kornGT and features the voracious Ferrari 330 P4 taking charge on the one and only Green Hell. Upon first glance it’s possible to mistake this for a real photo, but it’s all in-game.

Have a suggestion for next week’s featured image? Drop me a private message, entitle it “GTPlanet Picture of the Week” and fill it out with your two choices and they’ll be featured in upcoming Rewinds. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

The Good Racecraft Guide

Masterminded by VBR, this guide is the ultimate reference in what constitutes good racecraft and introduces you to our very own guidelines for the OLR, but what about the practical application of the craft and all of it’s underlying subtleties?

Complimenting what the OLR already stands for in the online racing community here this guide was put together by some of the cleanest racers and covers racecraft, etiquette and manners and of course general sportsmanship. You are actively encouraged to share your own insights to make the overall racing experience better for not only yourself but everyone else involved. You can find the entire guide here and it should be known that anyone on the cusp of or already running a racing club, league or series is welcomed to adopt it as their own.

Gran Turismo E-Motion Concept

It’s amazing what the imagination comes up, wouldn’t you say? The Gran Turismo E-Motion Concept isn’t available to drive in Gran Turismo 5, and to be perfectly honest it isn’t even a real car. What this is can easily be described as being one of the most ambitious fan projects for a video game. The E-Motion Concept was built from the virtual ground up and features a rather impressive engineering feat in that it’s mass distribution would dynamically change depending on how it’s being handled and how fast it’s going.

The concept was put together by four French designers, Frédéric Le Sciellour, Jérémy Sachot, Ishak Belhout and Julien Ancery, and is said to have the performance be a compromise between a kart and an F1 racer. Quite the brutal experience if it were to actually exist; I don’t know about any of you but I’m definitely onboard for something that maniacal.

Be sure to stop by their website here and take a look at the videos as well as more insight into the virtual project. A big thanks to sparkytooth for bringing this to my attention!

GTPlanet Weekly Race Series (WRS) Week 105 – Mountain Lion

In the second week of the 10-year anniversary of the WRS the challenge is to promptly engage Tuscan Speed 6 RM and race it around Trial Mountain; sounds fun already, doesn’t it? With 446 ravaging horses under it’s hood and weighing less than 2,000 pounds the real challenge is going to lie in keeping this monster planted. Stop by the official thread here and remember that you NEED to be registered before officially participating in the WRS, and that can only be done by submitting a time for the official GTP_Registry Qualifier.

GTPlanet Vehicle of the Week

This week’s featured vehicle can only be described as an oddity. Recommended by Roger the Horse, the Daihatsu Midget II D Type is one of Japan’s own Kei cars, or Keijidōsha which means “light automobile” when translated.

Have a suggestion for next week’s featured image? Drop me a private message, entitle it “GTPlanet Vehicle of the Week” and fill it out with your two choices and they’ll be featured in upcoming Rewinds. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

GTPlanet Tune of the Week

This week’s tune, the “Mitsu-Beastie” was recommended by danbojte and comes to us courtesy of krenkme of Clueless Tunes. The “Mitsu-Beastie” (clever play on words, huh?) is based on, of course, the Lancer Evolution IX GSR converted to RM spec and painted in Medium Purplish Grey Mica, it boasts a 590PP score at 527 horsepower. The car is primed for medium-sized venues but can easily be adjusted for your track of choice.

Here’s your weapon. What you do with it from here is your choice and your choice alone.

Exactly like the Picture and Vehicle of the Week features, if you have any suggestions for the upcoming Rewinds be sure to drop me a private message, entitle it “GTPlanet Tune of the Week” and let me know. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

GTPlanet Photomode Competitions

In Week 117 of the Standard and Advanced competitions you are to put your best foot forth and show the community just how seriously you take your in-game photography. All you need to know is as follows:

Week 117, Standard: Rims – I really don’t think it gets much simpler than this folks; any car, any location (all inclusive of photo travel), the task is simply to take the best shot possible of your featured wheels/rims, and of course they are to take center stage. Shots can be taken at a complete standstill or while in motion.

Week 117, Advanced 2.0: Italy’s Forgotten Standards – Whether you take this figuratively or literally is up to you, but the actual task at hand is to take any Italian Standard car around any track on the entire GT map and capture one of the beauties while in motion. Creativity and clean-up are encouraged.

For all of the relevant information pertaining to this week’s challenges be sure to stop by here and here.

Closing Thoughts

Another Rewind completed. Which means for the next week I’ll be on the lookout for the inclusions in next week’s entry, but of course that’s not what I’m going to do at all because if you remember I’ve said the Rewind’s are a spontaneous occurrence every week, and I intend to maintain that magical formula as it just feels natural.

What I’m about to say may surprise a few of you, but in all due honesty the eighth generation of consoles, from a pure graphical standpoint or even a technical standpoint don’t impress me as much as the previous generation did. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely going to own all three contenders at the end of the day but with me being a PC’er you can see where my reservations lie. There’s no doubt in my mind that as the platforms mature the visuals will get better and better but the same rings true for the PC as well, twofold.

Speaking of PC games, yesterday I was attempting to get DmC running and it would crash at every instance, now the issue here is that just hours prior to this it would run perfectly fine thus prompting me to begin tinkering with things, which eventually led to me uninstalling and subsequently re-installing the game multiple times to no avail. Knowing there was a problem afoot I decided to come back to the issue at a later point in the day while playing a track from the official DmC soundtrack (it’s mastered by Noisia so it’s great) and started the game knowing full well it would crash, but lo and behold – it started up!

The moral of that story? When your PC games don’t want to work properly you should set the mood with music, preferably music from the game’s own official soundtrack.

And on that bombshell it’s time to end. Until next week keep racing!

GT5 Photomode images by jBhlpS, G.T. Ace, and Boabdulrahman.

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Comments (41)

  1. BkS

    People always seem to compare consoles to a PC, which in my opinion is wrong. A console has a sole purpose, or at least did have, and that was to play a video game. Nothing else.

    Comparing PC graphics with console graphics is bad as well, of course the PC is going to have better graphics at higher polygons, but the principal to play a game, the EXACT same way on a console with a few less polygons or a few less visual effects is worth that.

    Consoles have a neat trick as well as being value for money, they also have EXCLUSIVES. Just like the PC.

    Enjoy the console for what it is, not what it can/can’t do compared to a PC, but all in all, consoles aren’t that much behind PCs, and can do pretty much everything they can, and sometimes even better!

    Nice week in review T12!

    1. XDesperado67

      At one point there was a real reason for consoles. They were much cheaper than even the cheapest PC and they were very user friendly, just plug’em in an play.
      PCs have gotten much easier to use and cheaper. Nowdays consoles are becoming overpriced dumb PC’s. The XBox started that trend, and if you look at the PS4 specs you’ll see it’s following suit. Buying a console now means you’ll be getting low end PC hardware with a proprietary OS and paying what you would for a comparably configured PC/Laptop.

      I’ll most likely still end up getting a PS4 for games that are exclusive to it, but it won’t be either the technical marvel nor the bargain in cost that the earlier generations of Playstations were.

  2. CallmeDan

    Whaaaaat?! Barely a description for the Daihatsu Midget! The most legendary car in Gran Turismo (the Suzuki Escudo is #2) and you barely gave it a description! I am disappoint.

  3. canieaturchikn

    Help SSRX disappeared after 2.11 update! Tried to re-download but it still doesn’t work. In game download screen says its installed but its gone. And gone from arcade and practice modes too.

  4. ajrichar

    Moral of the story about PCs? That their complexity with sound and graphics cards, plus processors and RAM means that for people like me, a console is easier by just popping the disc in and playing. Sure, the gaming on a PC invariably has better graphics or depth (think I-Racing or R-Factor), but you don’t need to upgrade processors, RAM or graphics cards to keep up with the latest game requirements. Plus, I’m a technological troglodyte!

    Looking forward to next week’s Rewind!

    1. Terronium-12

      You don’t need to do it with PC’s either. That’s a common misconception that evidently diverts people away from ever attempting it.

    2. ajrichar

      I take your point T-12, however for people like myself, the troubleshooting required to sort out problems of failed game installs or no audio in a game is just too much hassle. I use computer for work, sobidxrather not have the complexity of a PC for gaming. That’s what attracted neck the PSOne back in the day – connect it to the TV, put the disc in and turn it on. Easy. That fundamental principle still applies to the PS3, although it is becoming more PC-like every iteration as limited game installs, need to expand hard drives and updates and downloads all shift the focus toward greater complexity in console gaming. I appreciate that’s a consequence of greater processing power in our consoles driven by greater consumer demand for realism and depth in our gaming. However, as long as the basic principle of ‘put the disc in and play’ remains, without the need for the user to configure the hardware or other supporting software, they’ll still be attractive for people like me (when they come down in price, that is). The fact also remains that between a game released four years ago on the PS3, and a game released now, the same PS3 can play them both to their fullest without the need to buy or upgrade new software/hardware. I wonder whether, for a PC game released 4 years ago and a brand new PC game today, that same PC can play the new game to it’s fullest in its highest resolution without the need for more RAM or processor speed. Perhaps you can, but I like the fact you don’t ever need to countenance such considerations for console gaming (costs of DLC excepted). I love seeing communities develop patches and skins for PC games (think i

    3. ajrichar

      Cut off by fat fingers on my iPhone!

      Anyway, I was saying that I-Racing and Richard Burns Rally have seen some incredible depth added by enthusiast gamers that look incredible, but for non-technical people like myself, it’s just too much hassle to configure. I can’t even get my copy of Grand Prix Legends working on my PC, using Windows 7, despite the best efforts of my PC-experienced brother doing his best to get it working. If it was a PlayStation game, I’d only need to load up the game in the console it was released in and play. C’est la vie.

  5. ScotteDawg

    What people have to remember is that technology is growing at an alarming rate! As we (human beings) create one thing, the possibilities for our next creation get larger! And with more people in the world to work on them, things grow more rapidly too!
    So, instead of waiting 5 years for something, we might wait only 3 years for that same thing we were expecting, but it is actually better than we thoughrt it would be. And so the cycle goes…

    Now for a small list of what I hope makes it into GT6.

    1. Every single GT track ever made by PD
    2. Every single track ever mentioned as an idea by GT gamers.
    3. Bring back the country vs. country race series’.
    4. If the PS3 can handle 16 cars online, the PS4 can surely handle 30 to 40! (just imagine!)
    5. ABSOLUTELY NO STANDARD CARS.
    6. A wider range of rims.
    7. A tyre pressure and rim size/width modifier.
    8. Personalized number plates on un-modified cars – rear quarter window on RM cars.
    9. Up to 4 numbers on the side of RM cars. (eg. 1970, 888, 351, 05 etc.)
    10. Be able to put numbers on un-modified cars.
    11. Have access to GTAuto through an online room for oil changes.
    12. Be able to change your drivers’ suit to match the car while in an online room.
    13. We need greater flexibility with the track creater.
    14. Once camera settings have been chosen, they should stay locked in until WE change them.
    15. More Photo Mode locations.
    16. ABSOLUTELY NO STANDARD CARS!

    1. Musolini187

      i dont agree, ever since the ps3 era technology has been slowing at an alarming rate. if you look at how fast technology grew from the 80’s to 2k, it was a far higher rate then from 2k to 2k13.

      it’s actually one of the reasons i feel these next gen consoles are not needed for at least another 3 years.

  6. ps3finest

    Very cool pictures, I could only dream of being that talented. As always, well done T12, this is a really neat series.

  7. krenkme

    Hey, hey. Lookie there. Thanks Dan, and T12. Very unexpected, and an honor to be chosen for tune of the week. Thank you!

  8. infamousphil

    My first time posting a comment on this forum regarding photos… Great pics!!! Yeah, ok, I know… Hear me out.

    I’m a little put off by the photo shopping that has been accepted by GTPlanet as ‘photos of the week”. I’m thinking “GT’s quality photo travel should be good enough without the photo shopping”. The NSX is spectacular and obviously shopped, but I do like it. The 330 at Nurburg and VW/Ghia meet at Eifel are sweet and I think “doable” without a photo shop.

    1. infamousphil

      Yeah, but how do you what’s shopped? I like staging photo ops in arcade mode but try staging a race with all the appropriate whips you want in the shot… Very difficult to get a GTR-1, CLK GTR, R390 and F1 GTR on the same grid in the arcade mode. Will keep trying.

    2. JeremiahTB

      Are Photoshopped pics used in PotW? I can’t remember. Obviously users of that app have an advantage, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy and cool.

      One more thing? I wonder how many images get nominated each week?

    3. ScotteDawg

      Absolutely, Phil, photoshoppiomg IS cheating!

      If you want to “stage” a certain group of cars for a photo, do it online with friends. You can choose the cars, the tracks and where you want the cars. You have to be in a race to be able to save the replay, but the results can be really good.

      I am a regular in a “cat & mouse” room and the host of the room organised it so that a few of us got together and did “poses” of every single car we use! 8 cats, 3 mice, one bulldog. Most in three colours, a couple in two!

      If anyone wants information on our cat & mouse exploits, look up Jeffbocatandmouse on facebook.

    4. Terronium-12

      Let me just point something out: you see the bit after every mainstay feature that says “Have a suggestion for next week? Drop me a PM…” yeah, I’ve noticed most of the disagreements come from people who don’t use that feature to their advantage.

      Simply put, you’ve no room to criticize anything.

    5. infamousphil

      Right on Scotty Dawg (and T12?!!!). I knew some would take issue with what I had posted. It was the other poster that compared it to “cheating”. But that’s cool. I was only saying that GT5’s photo travel mode (or freeze frames) should be good enough to be nominated. Come on, its GT5! I had some great race pics that were lost to a snafu so…

      Hey T12… Really sweet for you to respond to my post and thanks for the suggestion. Hope to see you there. Most folk i meet online dont get my “GT1 or LMGTI’ve spent lots of time in all of GT’s photo modes… you should see my GT4

    6. infamousphil

      dang this phone texting crap!… “GT1 or LMGT” room (having no blutoot is a big hindrance) plus my texting skills aren’t good…

      … photo player (cain’t remember what it’s called). Miss having that option in GT5. I complain bout nothing with GTPlanet. Much respect

    7. Both Barrels

      Phil, are you talking about the Slideshow player? If so, there’s a PLAY button in the bottom lefthand corner of the photo screen. If not, then nevermind me…

    8. Terronium-12

      Criticism is fine. I just don’t take very kindly to criticism where I’m actively attempting to get the community involved – it just defeats the entire purpose of it all.

      Surely that’s understandable.

    9. infamousphil

      Slideshow! Yeah that’s it. GT5 is so confusing in some places. Thanks I’ll look it.

      Being able to experience GT5 online with friends and discussing it’s future here is an absolute pleasure.

  9. Magic Ayrton

    I certainly won’t be rushing to buy a Playstation 4 this christmas as
    .I have a very powerful PC and
    2.I am waiting for Gran turismo 6 to be released with proper sound and a review for it first.

    I bought my PS1,2 and 3 for Gran Turismo each time as many other people have done, not making the same mistakes again.

    1. mr_pepps

      Good point. Many buyers had GT firmly in mind as they purchased each console as did I.
      I think the capability of the new console is staggering but in my mind I doubt GT6 will be around until close to the jesus end of 2014.
      During the meantime it’s GT5 all the way :)

    2. Tatsuo76

      A bit off topic (sorry) but I do have to make a comment about the sound of GT5 and that many find it to be bad.
      Are some of you aware of the sound options in the menu that deal with the dynamics (small room, big living room, theatre or something along those lines?). Sure, it doesnt alter the type o sound from the car but it does change the relative loudness and to me it makes a huge difference.
      I put the option on theatre myself since I have medium size living room and a fairly advanced 7.1 set up. The differnce is huge when compared to the standard and compressed sound.
      If you haven’t tried it yet, please give it a go!
      Warning: try with low volume first due to the high dynamic differences. You don’t want to kill your speakers (or your relationship:)

  10. Crispy9001

    I guess custom soundtracks are incompatible at times on the PC, huh? LOL.

    I’m still pretty interested on what Kazunori Yamauchi will create of GT6 with this “blank canvas” he calls the PS4, espicially with the endless flaws of GT5: The paint chips, the chase-the-rabbit-AI, graphical inconsistency, tedious, bothersome menus and music, lack of RM’s and standard cars (don’t get any GT fan started), lack of a for-fun balanced GT1/2/3-style semi-sim or simcade driving style aside the full-on sim one, the rusty online structure, lack of events and actual things to do with cars causing unnecessary impromptu actions to find stuff to do with cars; THE LIST GOES ON AND ON!!!!!! I just hope PD can keep up with all the endless complaints the fans are telling them out with, and I’ll wait as long as possible (for at least a few years only) enjoying and completing the most out of the first six or so GT games (including PSP and maybe the concepts and prologues, even) before GT6 can be fully created and ready for full, earth-shattering potential unlocked.

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