Shall we take a look under the hood? (Preview)
Does exactly what it says on the tin, it's a Prologue to the full retail game.
With this in mind we'll treat this as a Preview or a "Hands on" if you will.
Right then...Lets look under the hood.
First thing you'll notice is the graphics they are...Wow to put a finer word to it. They are the best graphics on a racing game to date, reflections come off cars more or less perfect to the point where you'll see the curb reflected off your opponents cars. The textures are eye pleasing and the cars are the most detailed I've ever seen. That said there have been a few issues at 1080p with framerate mainly when entering corners and there are a few screen tearing issues.
This issue is mostly resolved by playing at 720p...But that wasn't what we were promised now was it...But alas this is a preview of the full game they have time to sort it.
Next stop, Cars!
The cars are modelled realistically as I said earlier and they handle quite well, I wouldn't know how a Dodge Viper hands in reality but it does the job of convincing me.
Another addition to the cars is the new cockpit view which is a welcome entry into the series with each car having its own dash and little buttons which you can't press but feels like you almost could.
Although the cars you start with feel like an electric wheelchair or moped speed wise thats to be expected, the later cars feel fast!
Next, AI
This is where the game is let down seriously, the AI has not been improved in my honest opinion it's very very much a let down. Doing an overtaking move on a car and theres a wall to a tunnel infront, you can't quite get past the car far enough to cut in front to avoid hitting the wall - in reality it would be the opponents car that should slow down to avoid accident or open up the raceline a bit...In GT5P's case the car will follow the racing line and push you into the oncoming wall.
This is the sort of thing that makes you realise this game/demo whatever you want to call it needs work before retail release.
Now for Online features...Prepare yourselves if you actually like this feature
I'll start by listing online features.
- Race with strangers.
Thats it, no voice comms no friend inviting no private matches only race against strangers which most of which do NOT follow the game ethics of racing simulation.
They'll ram you and they - for the most part - get away with it because they turn into a ghost meaning any retaliation is null. This is something that frustrated me somewhat as others tend to ram you from behind you turn into a ghost and they just drive through you...Blocking is impossible so excitement is not really present.
Hopefully this feature will be refined before the game hits gold.
Now an additional feature of this title was GT-TV...Which had on release the intro movie in and nothing else.
There are a few videos to watch but nothing that really interested me so I can't really comment on this.
Also I feel I should mention there was a patch on release day, now normally I'd say thats lazy development but this again is a preview...
Also another thing I should mention and this is a very important factor to me.
On the box it said this game took up a mear 250kb of your PS3's HDD memory.
THIS IS INCORRECT...ITS 6GB....
THATS roughly 6291456kb.
I mean I don't quite know who did the math at the studio but it must of been the person that programmed the AI as its roughly 6291206kb out...
A 25 minute installation is unacceptable and 6gb install is out of line.
If the final product has an install time/size this large and a release day patch that will be unpleasing to say the least.
Overall I'd say as a preview this game requires work, alot of work.
If you buy this demo remember that the online isn't fuctional so don't buy it for that.
Buy it for a teaser on what to expect if anything.