GC '07: [UPDATE] Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Hands-On
The new menu system in Prologue runs across the bottom of the screen and features the following different choices: race, garage, TV, album, profile, and Home. As Yamauchi explained, race is where you'll encounter the different race events in the game, and garage will house the cars available to you in the game (which totals 22 as of this writing, listed above).
Where things get interesting is with some of the other menu items, including TV and album. The TV option will allow you to choose from various automobile-related video content, including everything from race replays to videos from car manufacturers. On the other hand, the album feature will let players take photos of their cars in various GT locales, or during GT races, and share them with other people. No word yet on whether the "TV" option will allow users to share their own created videos from the game, or where all of that video content is going to come from, but we can expect more announcements about this feature at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show.
The final menu option Yamauchi touched on was the mysterious "Home" icon. While no details were given on just how Prologue would interact with the PlayStation 3's upcoming integrated online service, he did say that the goal is to create as seamless an experience between the game and the Home service as possible. We have no idea what that means, but we're glad to see someone finally talking about the Home service in real, if minimal, terms.
Other aspects of the front end are worth mentioning. The map and calendar that we mentioned in our original look at the game are more than window dressing. Your friends--who will list their location in their game profile--will show up as dots on the map. As for the calendar, you'll be able to keep track of both official race tournaments, as well as organize race events between you and your friends using this tool.
We were taken next in the presentation to the gorgeous car models that will be found in Prologue. Whereas cars in Gran Turismo 4 were comprised of approximately 4,000 polygons, cars in the fifth game in the series have been bumped up to an astonishing 200,000 polygons. That number comes to life when you look closely at the details in the models themselves: everything from the subtle reflections in a car's headlights to the stitching in the interior leather of a Ferrari F430 speak to the care and precision the Polyphony Digital developers have taken with every car on the roster. There's still work to do--the team is busy adding things such as gear-change animations for the drivers' hands and making sure the interior mirrors are functioning properly. Because the parts that comprise the cars are individually constructed, developers think that it's not a stretch to say that you could one day have upgraded replacement parts available for your car thanks to the new system. It also follows, it seems, that individual parts could open the door to a functional damage model at some point in GT5's future.
So what about other big points of interest such as artificial intelligence improvements, online racing, and the aforementioned damage modeling? Of the three, Yamauchi addressed the game's artificial intelligence most directly, saying it has been one of the primary concerns with the development of GT 5 Prologue. Because races will now be comprised of 16 cars, improvements to the AI were warranted, Yamauchi said. As he put it, cars will be much more aware of the positions of their rivals on the track and will do their best to swerve out of the way to avoid accidents where possible. Essentially, the AI has been remodeled from scratch this time around, and Yamauchi said that after the game is released, future updates will continually improve the AI.
These updates will typically come packaged in with PS3 system updates, Yamauchi said, and in addition to AI upgrades, it's possible that additional improvements, such as damage modeling, could be a part of a future update to the game somewhere down the line. As for online racing, based on what we've seen it seems like it's going to be a part of GT 5 Prologue. We say "seems" because Yamauchi gave a rather cryptic answer when asked about the online features in the game, stating in essence that "the basics are there" for what fans would expect from online features in a racing game. Perhaps we'll learn more about those online features at the Tokyo Game Show as well.
When asked about the improvements to the physics in Prologue, Yamauchi pointed out the improved ability to slide cars around corners--and maintain that drift as you go through the turn--as a big indicator of development. To prove his point, Yamauchi took control of a Ferrari F430 and guided it around the twisting turns of Japan's Suzuka, managing to kick up some tire smoke as he sped around the course.
It's obvious Yamauchi is speaking from the heart when he discusses his racing creation, and while we still have a lot of questions about Prologue and the eventual full version of Gran Turismo 5, it's hard not to be taken in by his obvious continued affection for the nearly 10-year old series. With lots more information coming on GT 5 Prologue in the coming months, you can be sure we'll be on top of all the latest news.
– GameSpot
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