 |
| Red Bull X2014 Junior (with a VERY LOUD 2.0 flat-four and no downforce fan) |
My right foot is pegged as I climb one of the many hills between me and
the finish line. Thankfully I tackled it at the right speed for a safe
landing, but I realise mid-flight that there's a problem with my choice
of direction: there's a smaller but steeper lump just ahead that I can't
avoid, what with a lack of air rudders and all. I hit it and start a
slow-motion backflip. My driver's-eye view spins upwards, and as I
glance at planet Earth, gliding across the starry sky, I think to myself
"well, shit. That's not gone well..." as I land upside down, reset
automagically, then pause and restart my Lunar Mission. Again.
Welcome to Gran Turismo 6.
After all the
previews
and exciting PR videos, I finally got my hands on Polyphony Digital's
latest title this Christmas, and it's done the usual trick of completely
sucking me in for days on end. Books have gone unread, films have gone
unseen, but before returning to Swansea this past Monday I had managed
to complete the final championship of the International-A events and
watched the ending credits video that follows. Seeing as that's the
fifth of six tiers of events finished, I feel I'm qualified to tell you
what this game is like. In many ways, it's excellent. Some of the hype
is thoroughly deserved. In other ways, perhaps not so much. On paper it
appeared to simply be an overhauled GT5, with updated this, improved
that and a couple of new features, and there are times when it does feel
like just that rather than a brand new game. All the cars and tracks
carry over, for example (with plenty of new ones added in), which makes
it feel a bit familiar every now and then. What's more, it's arguably
not even the finished game yet, as the Track Generator is completely
absent. This is because they've decided to get the main parts of the
game done on time for the 6th December release date and add the fun
little extras in later, rather than delay it continuously like they did
with GT5, a game which still turned out to be a bit disappointing in
places. The best description of GT5 I've heard is that it's "a 10/10
simulator in a 5/10 game," although updates probably upgraded it to a
6/10 game in the end. Polyphony seem to have recognised this and made an
effort to improve the game itself, while also overhauling their
trademark graphics and physics to be a step improved again.
I'll look at GT6 in isolation after this paragraph, but in comparison to
the previous game, noticeable improvements to the graphics include tyre
smoke that doesn't become all jagged where it meets the car emitting
it, and small circular car parts that aren't a series of small straight
edges but actual curves. In fact overall it looks much better in subtle
ways, like improved surface quality and lighting, but look closely and
it's clear that while cars and tracks new to Gran Turismo for this
edition have had so much attention lavished on them, the carry-overs are
merely up-scaled and not re-worked in any way beyond being subjected to
the new graphics engine. All the pictures in this review were taken by
yours truly using the game's Photo Mode (there are 27 at the bottom
because I got carried away), so you can get some idea of how it looks by
having a look at them, but if you just sit back and stop fussing over
details, it really is a gorgeous game. I don't think you could really
ask for much more from the now-seven-year-old Playstation 3, only that
Polyphony were more consistent in their execution.
One could argue that getting rid of the Standard Model cars (carried
over from GT4, which was a PS2 game lest we forget...) and spending time
upgrading the GT5 cars that little bit to GT6 quality would have been
more satisfying, even if it would mean chucking out ~750 of the ~1200
cars. The reason this argument can be made is that the range of Premium
Model cars is now big and diverse enough - with some of them being
remodeled cars that were previously only Standard models - that you
never actually need to use the GT4 cars at all. Sure, they couldn't brag
about having six times more cars than Forza 5, but as I say, when
you're only going to use just over a third or so of them, would it
really be a problem? Besides, the Japanese do not brag, and I'm pretty
sure Polyphony only exist in their own little bubble most of the time,
not looking at competitors on other consoles.
The game's creators claim that Gran Turismo 6 "pushes the PS3 to its
limit," and there are actually times when that seems apparent,
particularly in the graphics processing. There are times in races when
you're out on your own and it will momentarily run at what must be 60
frames per second, and it's incredibly smooth (the intro appears to be
in 60fps format too). Alas, it can only manage that some of the time,
and once during a replay of a NASCAR race at night when all 16 cars were
in shot, it started to judder and lag just slightly as it rendered
every car during a long panning shot down the back straight. Perhaps if
your PS3 is newer than my original 2007 one, you'll be treated to a
slightly smoother experience. Loading times aren't as bad as they were
in GT5, but starting a race can sometimes take up to around 30 seconds
after you pressed Start while it loads even more stuff. You can install
game data onto your PS3 to allegedly reduce loading times, which I
haven't done yet. Too busy racing!
 |
McLaren F1 GTR (1995 LM24 overall winner), Renaultsport Clio 200 and my fave racing gear.
Both of these cars are really excellent in their own way. That Clio is a giant-killer! |
But look, I don't want you to think that Gran Turismo 6 is a
disappointment like its predecessor was, because it really isn't. As
I've said above, it looks better, smoother and more realistic. The
driving physics have been overhauled too, with data on tyres, suspension
and aerodynamics from real-life companies to help them make the driving
experience more life-like than ever, which is saying something. With a
decent steering wheel I'd wager this is the most realistic racing game
this side of a serious PC simulator, and with the new PlayStation 4
essentially being a jumped-up PC, that bodes well for the eventual
seventh main title in the series too (potentially due in 2015). You can
feel the tyres load up and lose grip to such an extent that you usually
have just enough time do something about it if necessary, while weight
transfer is clearly communicated through the wheel as well (I'm using a
Logitec Driving Force GT, on which the Real-time Adjust feature still
works for changing brake bias, AWD torque-split and driving aid settings
on the fly). These two things mean that you know when the car's likely
to break loose, which is great when you're not using traction or
stability control (TC or ASM, to use the in-game acronyms) and you're
really on it.
One thing I don't enjoy, though, is that the weight transfer in some select MR-layout cars is
massive.
The Audi R8 LMS ultra in particular is so difficult to get round a fast
corner that I gave up on ever using it after repeatedly failing to hang
onto the rear end in the first two turns of Apricot Hill. However, it's
fair to say that I was still getting used to the new physics at that
point. The R18 TDI proved similarly tricky at first, but when I returned
to it later it turned out to be fine. The Lancia Stratos, on the other
hand, is not fine. Its weight transfer is compounded of course by its
absurdly short wheelbase and relatively high ride height, which makes it
change direction a lot more than you were expecting and then not have
as much control over its mass, despite said mass being very little. I
needed racing suspension set up for understeer and soft tyres before it
was even remotely trustworthy, and I still spun it! Apparently the real
one's a handful too, to be fair, so maybe that's just realistic. You
need a mix of smoothness and respect to lap that thing. Generally
though, I have noticed that even on Racing Hard tyres, mid-engined
racing cars can break away mid-turn on some long flat-out corners,
possibly because of that weight transfer. Having not driven such cars in
reality, I don't know how life-like that is. But if I ever win the
lottery and enter FIA GT3 races, it'll be in a front-engined car
(probably not a GT-R, as the 2013 Schulze car has too much understeer.
The SLS is pretty good, or the Z4 if you sort out the occasional
instability under braking). The thing is, though, that other MR-layout
cars like the McLaren F1 GTR, Honda NSX, Ford GT40 Mk.1 and Dino 246 GT
are lovely cars to drive. I'm not really sure how that works...
Before you can find all this out, though, you must buy a Honda Jazz. No,
seriously, every other car in the Dealership - even other cars you can
afford with your initial Cr.30,000 budget - is greyed-out until you buy
the Honda Fit RS (or Jazz Si as the real one's called in Britain). But
before you can even do
that, you're immediately thrown into a
Renaultsport Clio 200 in the pit lane at Brands Hatch. A couple of quick
welcome messages appear, then they show you the basic controls as you
roll down the pit lane and off you go to set a time around the short but
challenging Indy circuit, a BTCC classic that's a hoot in the RS Clio,
possibly my favourite hot hatch in the game and second only to the
razor-sharp Honda Integra Type-R in terms of front-wheel-drive handling
prowess. Happily, you win the Clio as a prize car early on. Anyway, with
your time set, you're presented with the new home screen. It's a much
cleaner layout than in GT5, with no tabs or jumble of rectangles to get
your head around. Each segment is grouped into columns and you simply
scroll across to reach each, while pressing Start lets you change or
adjust your car whenever you want. It doesn't take long to learn where
everything is. There aren't even separate Arcade and Career modes to
dive in and out of any more. Arcade races are accessed next to the
Career events, with "Single Player" and "Split Screen" options, the
latter being very welcome in a world hell-bent on replacing split-screen
multiplayer with Online functions instead. Of course, the online
component is very much there as well, again not quite finished to the
promised spec but revamped with the promise of further features in
future updates. Online Seasonal Events are already up and running, so if
you didn't get the Anniversary Edition and need an expensive car,
they're an easy way to make as much as seven figures for doing a few
weekly Time Trials (the prize money multiplier for signing in on
consecutive days remains too). Mercifully, there is a single dealership
with all the cars in it this time, divided up by world region with
Standard and Premium models mixed together. How progressive! If you
can't tell them apart, the "Gallery View" option is only available on
Premium Model cars.
Coming back to Career Mode though, one huge improvement is that they've
dropped the driver level system introduced in GT5. The system of
levelling up by gaining XP points through racing works fine in other
games like GRID 2 and Forza, but Gran Turismo has always used Licence
Tests tiered similarly to real FIA racing licences, and having both
systems in GT5 completely negated the need to do Licence Tests. This
time, it's much better-structured. You start out doing Novice events
that don't require a licence at all, gaining up to three stars per race
(one for finishing, one for a podium and one for a win). Once you gain
the requisite number of stars, you unlock National B Licence tests, of
which there are now five instead of the usual eight. If you've played GT
games before you'll recognise it instantly, as it starts with a simple
go-then-stop test and gets more complex from there. Passing every test
unlocks the National B tier of events and nets you a prize car, while
gold trophies in every test will win you another one. This cycle
continues through National A, International B, International A - after
which you see the "Ending Movie" - and finally Super Licence tests and
events, which I haven't tried yet due to being away from my PS3 at the
moment. Each series of events is more comprehensive and more competitive
than the last. They have managed to keep it interesting for you as you
plow through these events by having a wide variety of formats and rule
changes, like night races, timed events, wet-weather races and events
for specific types of cars, forcing you to try out the diverse range of
cars available, which is good as there's now a decent variety of every
type*. What's more, to space out the racing and make it less of a grind,
there are now little side missions you can do, unlockable by
accumulating stars. There are "Mission Races" where you overtake one or
more cars in a certain section of track in a given car, One-Make races
where you need a certain car or type of car (ideally, get the one in the
picture if you're given a choice, as that's what all the opponents will
be) and Coffee Break challenges. These include cone challenges (either
knock over as many as possible or avoid all of them), drift events and
economy challenges where you have to go as far or as fast as possible
using just one litre of fuel. Harder than you might think!
*
Top Tip: If the vast array of manufacturers and tuning companies
leaves you bewildered, then go instead to the "Recommended Cars" section
for a streamlined choice of relevant cars for each event tier, or cars
grouped by type (Supercars, Classics and "Hot" [trendy] Cars for road
cars, and Rally, GT, Super GT and NASCAR for racers). If you need a
go-kart then go to Gran Turismo in Dealership ->Asia-Pacific, where
you'll also find specially-modified cars from GT5 Prologue and the
extreme Red Bull X machines.
 |
Ferrari 250GT SWB and Audi R18 TDI 15th Anniversary, enjoying the new Ronda location in Photo Travel.
Curiously, none of the GT5 Photo Travel locations are in GT6, and almost all the locations there are are in Spain... |
But that's not all! As you progress through the main Career Mode events,
you'll unlock the Special Events to the right of the home screen.
Initially you'll be invited to take part in the Goodwood Festival Of
Speed, which - sorry to brag -
I've done in real life. Sort of.
In total there are five sets of three events, all of which involve
driving a given car, be it an obscure classic or a modern racer, up the
famous and surprisingly tough Goodwood Hillclimb Course, which is so
tough mostly because it's so bloody narrow! The final FOS challenge is
not for the impatient or slow-witted as you have to get the
1600-horsepower Red Bull X2010 fan car up the hill in under 30 seconds.
You will crash a lot. I thank my lucky stars that the one clean run I
managed was a gold-trophy time. Then of course there are the Lunar
Missions. There are only three of these (unless you unlock more during
Super events). Two follow a route traced by the real moon explorers,
where they give you a very wide route - limited at the edges by big red
boundaries you mustn't cross - that looks patronisingly simple on a map,
but can actually be extremely frustrating due to the terrain and the
reduced gravity. The
Moon Buggy Lunar Roving Vehicle
itself has four-wheel-steer and an electric motor in each wheel, which
sounds sporty, but the top speed is about 25mph and because the low
gravity means less weight on the wheels and thus less traction, its
reactions to your inputs are exceedingly slow. Like driving a rally car
round Chamonix in slow motion, you have to turn well before you actually
need to change direction, especially on the third challenge where you
need to knock down 30 cones in 90 seconds on a circular course. If
you've got the game and you haven't done them yet, here two bits of
important advice:
> DO NOT HIT THE ROCKS. You'll be OK if you get them between the
wheels, but if you catch a wheel on a rock (they're usually in
clusters), you
will do half a barrel roll, you
will land
upside down and you'll be reset automatically somewhere close to said
rocks, at 0mph, in a car that accelerates slower than a fat child at
Sports Day. This will impact on your time. If the rest of your driving
is good enough, you can get away with one or two resets and snatch a
gold trophy, but don't count on it.
> There are many Moon Dunes on these routes, which means you'll be
airborne
spaceborne quite a lot of the time. It's quite easy to take them as
ramps, and if you do that then do so in a straight line on a relatively
horizontal bit, lifting off the throttle or even dabbing the brakes just
before you jump. Otherwise you'll likely be in trouble, landing at who
knows what angle and probably rolling over. But hey, the replays will
look
cool.
Aside from those two things, though, lunar driving is strangely awesome.
I love that it's in the game, and it symbolises what's great about GT
because it lets you drive this incredible thing that you could only
dream about driving in reality. Sure you haven't actually done it, but
you'll have a much better idea of what it was like for astronauts on the
real Moon embarking on some of the most important car journeys in
history as they learned more about the universe. Magical.
 |
| Instead of a windscreen, you have a satellite dish in front of you. All-Wheel-Drive vital to help find any traction you can. |
There is, however, one thing that still manages to take the shine off
that magic for most of the cars, and it's one that has been present in
every Gran Turismo title: poor engine sounds. Obviously that's not a
problem on the moon, as there is no sound in space, but aside from a
select few of the 1190 or so engine-powered Earth cars, the sounds are
too synthetic or just plain wrong. The V12 Lamborghinis sound like the
V10 Lamborghinis (Countach and Miura aside). The SLS and Z4 GT3 racers
sounds like vacuum cleaners. The Audi Quattro rally car, famous the
world over for its five-cylinder bark, sounds like a tuned Skyline. The
Renaultsport Megane 250 sounds like it's got a V6 (it hasn't, unless
we're talking mid-engined Megane Trophy silhouette racer). The McLaren
F1 GTR racing cars sound like Peugeot 908 diesels, and the Peugeot 908
diesels in the game sound less like the real things than the McLarens
do! This is baffling, because some of them (Ford GT40 Mk.1, Jaguar XJ13,
Nissan Skyline GT-R and R35 GT-R, for example) sound exactly like their
real-life counterparts, while other ones (Mazda 787B and most RX-7s,
Ferrari 458, both Audi R8s and the C6 and C7 Corvettes among others) are
at least close, if still too synthetic, and ironically the entirely
fictional Red Bull X2010/11/14 cars sound incredible and pretty
realistic. So how are they getting the rest of them so wrong?! Most
baffling of all is the newly-added Pagani Huayra. From idle to 4000rpm,
it sounds identical to the real car, but from there to the red-line, it
sounds just as computer-generated as the others. You can change the
engine sound with an exhaust upgrade, but on the Huayra adding a Sports
Exhaust makes it sound like a Ferrari 458! The 15th Anniversary Huayra
has this exhaust fitted as standard, so it I want to hear a
semi-realistic Huayra sound, I'll have to drop Cr.1,350,000 on buying a
normal one. You can also spot when one generic race car soundtrack has
been used on more than one car.
This is the most frustrating flaw in the game for me, actually, more so
than the still very limited damage (which now looks a lot better with
crumpled metal effects, but is purely cosmetic). I can usually ignore it
if I'm concentrating on driving fast enough, but to finally get that
dream car and then find that it sounds completely wrong - repeatedly -
is not cool. I don't like to compare GT to Forza because few people have
both consoles and that renders the comparison pointless, but this is
one area - possibly
the one area - where Forza has Gran Turismo
squarely, unequivocally beaten. Most if not all of the car sounds in
Forza sound like they were actually recorded from the real engines, not
copied with computer sound effects. The reason for that is that they
generally are real recordings, or at least based on them. It would take
some pretty hard evidence to make me believe that Polyphony Digital does
the same, outside of perhaps the occasional special one-off like the
Jaguar XJ13. It's been a source of criticism for so long that I hate
bringing it up, but it's still there and it's not really acceptable
anymore. PD, if you ever read this,
get it together. The sound is
a major part of the driving experience, even in electric vehicles with
the novelty of near-silence at all times, and for it to be so wrong so
often is a mark against you. It's so annoying because the rest of the
actual driving simulation is
so good, including the looks (especially the looks) that the poor sound sticks out like a sore thumb...
 |
| There is only one Plymouth XNR in real life, making this scene impossible |
While I'm ranting, let's mention the AI cars. In the first four GT games
there were only five of them, and they were pretty tame. In GT5 you had
up to eleven, and they stuck religiously to the racing line, only
occasionally overtaking each other or having problems in certain
situations (worn tyres or rain, maybe). In GT6 things have improved, but
not by enough. As you ascend through each tier, you'll gain another two
AI opponents until there are 16 cars on track including yourself in the
International-A and Super events. They're more intelligent than before,
sometimes actually trying to overtake
you, but still more A than
I. If you try a fairly late move down the outside, they'll probably cut
you off and blindly push you off the circuit as they move over to brake
for the corner on the racing line, plus if you do get round the outside
and stay there through the middle of the corner, at which point you
gradually become on the racing line when previously you weren't, it
still freaks them out and makes them back off completely, spoiling the
racing. These things don't happen every time, but you notice when they
do.
As with GT5, almost all the races are begun with a rolling start, either
in double-file if it's karting, GT racers or NASCAR, or single-file for
road cars, and in the latter races they're often spaced quite far
apart, with one or more leading the pack quite far ahead. This means
that the racing can feel a bit contrived and more like a multi-lap
Licence Test (except you can go off the track without being
disqualified), as it's less of a race and more of a challenge to
overtake as quickly and cleanly as possible in order to catch up to the
leader(s) late on in the race. I get the feeling they did this because
they wanted to balance the difficulty for a range of players, making it
easy to get into the top five or top three, but then more challenging to
win. This is one reason why I think PD exist in their own little
bubble, because in every other current racing game on the planet, you
can choose the difficulty of the AI. Hell, you can even do that in GT6's
Single Player mode! Why the hell can't you do that for Career Mode and
just make the racing that bit more realistic? Ugh...
And yet.
And yet somehow, despite itself, Gran Turismo 6 is nonetheless a
bewitching racing game. Given that I've found three pretty big things to
complain about - the number of up-scaled PS2 cars, naff engine sounds
and fairly daft AI - the fact that the rest of the game kept me deeply
engaged from Christmas to last Saturday (save a two-day break to visit
family) says a lot. I think ultimately, while three elements of
Polyphony's execution are either inconsistent or just disappointing,
their intentions are good and this shines through in the sheer number of
improvements big and small over GT5, a game which I will now probably
never play again. I speculated last year that the latest edition of "The
Real Driving Simulator" would be everything the previous one should
have been, and about 90% of it is just that, which is very satisfying
indeed. The photo mode remains excellent, the user interface is
immeasurably better throughout, and the choice of cars will appeal to
just about every type of car fan. What's more, you now have slightly
more freedom to customise said cars, with more external options
including a flat floor/diffuser and enlarged wheels, as well as the
return of Nitrous Oxide and - gasp - brake upgrades!! Fancy that! As
another little aside, I really like that some of the menu music is
remixed from previous GT games. Given that they celebrated an
anniversary with this one, it's very apt and allows for a bit of
nostalgia.
Another 5% of the makeover is due to come along in future updates, along
with lots of extra content including 27 more Vision Gran Turismo cars
designed specially for the game by a range of automotive manufacturers,
plus Nike and Air Jordan for some promotional reason.
If we now say that GT5 was a 9/10 simulator in a 6/10 game, GT6 is a
9.9/10 simulator in an 8/10 game. They've managed to fix the problems
that were in 5 even if they haven't fixed all of the perennial
idiosyncrasies that run through the entire series. It's a game that
celebrates the automobile, on road, on track, even on the moon. It makes
cars into characters, each unique in their own way. In a gaming world
with far more fierce competition than there was 15 years ago, Gran
Turismo remains a unique proposition as much for its quirks as for its
traditional USPs of stunning graphics and physics that make part of you
believe that you are discovering what these dream cars, and a Honda
Jazz, are really like to drive.
It may have one or two sore spots, it's still the king.
Rating: 85/100
 |
| THOSE AIR CHANNELS |
 |
| There are no extra rally circuits in GT6, so Chamonix remains the only snowy location. Thankfully it's a pretty good one. |
 |
| This is what happens when you forget to change the Panning setting to Mode 3 for replay photos. Action shot! |
 |
| The Lamborghini Countach [green] is one of many cars that have been re-modeled for GT6 as a "Premium" (HD) Model |
 |
| If memory serves, this is the Sepia filter in action. The filters are the same as in GT5, but with two more X-Processing ones |
 |
Classic V12 Lamborghinis on cobbled Rome streets. What more do you want?
This Countach is an early "Periscopo" model from 1974, which has a mirror that looks out over the roof! |
 |
| Given how unpredictable some MR cars are, I'm very pleased that the Le Mans McLaren is such a sweet handler. |
 |
| But here's the question. Is the Clio big, or is the McLaren small? And how fabulous is that driver?! |
 |
| Proof that the above photo isn't a perception trick. I should've lined them up with the tiles better... |
 |
| Before I took
this photo, the Jazz was in perfect focus when viewed through the
windscreen. Alas, once snapped and processed, it was as out of focus as
the rest of the background... |
 |
| The Plymouth XNR Ghia Roadster '60 isn't the fastest classic car, but it looks brilliant |
 |
| It's like the cockpit is an escape pod! |
 |
| "Adaptive
Tessellation" means that once you focus the camera, the polygons in the
model readjust to give you very high detail regardless of how far away
the camera is. This is the XNR's right-hand indicator and wheelarch
flare |
 |
| The XNR is a reward for winning some Goodwood events. The Jazz - sorry, Fit - is yoru reward for buying GT6. Lucky you. |
 |
| This is the LCC Rocket overtaking a Honda NSX. The LCC Rocket is your friend. You like the LCC Rocket. |
 |
| No seriously,
this car is fantastic. Essentially Gordon Murray's attempt at a
four-wheeled superbike, it weighs an astonishingly light 380kg. As a
result, 170 horsepower is more than enough to tackle supercars with. |
 |
| So, er, where's the Traction Control on this thing? |
 |
| The XNR's chromed tail sort of looks like a Danish flag after wind tunnel testing |
