Either you buy the retail version or the playstation network one, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is nothing else but an extended version of Gran Turismo HD. Instead of 10 cars you'll have 71, which is already a huge collection of cars compared to other titles, but only 6 tracks to race. High Speed Ring, Daytona, Fuji Speedway, Eiger Nordwand from Gran Turismo HD Concept, Suzuka Circuit and central London with their reversed versions at your disposal.

Suzuka, Daytona and Fuji Speedway feature two different layouts which are reproduced in detail from the original tracks. Suzuka comes with a shorter version of the original track while Daytona Speedway comes also with the GT version. The second variation of Fuji comes with a slightly different approach of a ninety degree curve which is transformed into a chicane. So if you don't have tracks, at least you have cars to test. 71 licensed cars are offered to race in a three groups championship. And if you are a good player a bonus group will be unlocked giving you the chance to compete like a real pro with all speed penalties activated: hit the wall penalty, hit the opponent penalty and cut the track penalty. In this way you will not be able to apply old Gran Turismo technics, such as slide your car along barriers or walls, collide violently with opponent's cars, in order to bounce off faster without any penalties. These deliberate physics errors always have brought new debates in the fans' community and the game was criticized several times of its lack of realism although for every new game from the franchise the simulation factor was always aggressively advertised. Still, Gran Turismo remains a racing game based more on the simulation aspect, although if you enable all the assistants parameters the handling of the car becomes similar to Need for Speed series or Test Drive series. GT5 Prologue makes no exception in handling and physics, and Polyphony applies the success receipt from previous episodes. The only difference is that now you drive a 200,000 polygons car instead of 4,000 polygons present in GT4.

You will begin with a small amount of money forcing you to acquire one of the small models such as Daihatsu Sirion, Citroen C4, Ford Focus, etc. Each group will have one or two demanding cars which have to be acquired in order to complete the single mark challenges (time trial, or one lap race). Cars like Suzuki Cappuccino, Honda Civic Type R, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, have to be acquired as fast as possible to complete the challenges and other races which are related to them. In this way you will not spend too much money and you will slowly progress further into the game. Besides the usual brands, tuner brands or exotic ones (Blitz, Art Morrison, Mine's, etc) will make you want to complete new laps on the same tracks. Those tracks that made me think if I should continue the game or just leave it be. At least if there would have been more challenges to complete. Unfortunately you will swing between classic races (between one, three, or five laps) and time-trial challenges (limited by usual 10 minutes).

Physics vs Graphics

So if the races don't represent any addiction to the player, what has this game that makes us want more. First of all the handling of the cars. Either you use a wheel or just the PS3 controller, the sensitivity of your actions are extremely well reproduced in the game. There are no dead moments while you perform a rotation of the wheel or any action with the analog stick. Everything is precise so you better train your fingertips instead of blaming the controller! The cars react like in real world, or at least very similar to the originals. There are no scripted movements. Everything is influenced by a very well calculated physics engine. And this realism still doesn't affect the simple and natural feeling of driving any of the cars. The slipstream effect is very obvious implemented in the physics engine and some of the races will force you to make use of it (especially on the Daytona Speedway). But in some cases the use of it is exaggerated. Graphics represent another turning point for the series. As I already mentioned the cars are extremely well recreated and the environment sometimes tends to be photo realistic.

The problem is that the graphics lacks of any stylized elements, making the game in some places to look too artificial. Anyway it is obvious that the graphics are concentrated towards the cars and towards the geometry of the circuits. Every bump, ramp, or border will change the car's trajectory and will influence the handling. Imagine a situation in which you slipstream the front car and at the same time you want to enter a bumpy curve on the right/left. Most of the time, in such cases, you lose the back of your car because the lack of air force that should react upon the bodywork. I assure you that such situations are frequently present in this game.

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Online Mode

The third and last positive aspect of the game would be the online mode which supports up to 16 players. The concept is pretty basic. You just choose one of the server's tasks and wait for the connection. Pay attention that the online mode is regional locked, so you should check out your profile details before attending the online mode. If you buy the retail version, you are forced to install an update before launching the online mode. This update will not be completed if you play a version of the game which isn't compatible with the region you are registered in the PlaystationNetwork. Otherwise the game runs smoothly in multiplayer and Polyphony regularly refreshes the range of tasks. So probably in the finals version of GT5, the online mode would be much more complex than it is now.

My Page

Compared to positive aspects, negative aspects are equal in number, so the quality balance is even. First time when you enter the game, you will get accommodate with the new interface called My Page. It has a classy design, but it's not very functional.

If you want to change your car you have to exit the race interface back to My Page, choose Garage, choose the vehicle, enter the showroom screen and confirm the change, get back to My Page and then again enter in the events and choose the correspondent race. Same goes for the option menu which is again accessible only from My Page interface. This is frustrating and gets irritating as you progress in the game. At least you can restart or replay the race directly from the race menu. Besides Events, Garage and Options tabs, My Page includes also a split-screen tab, Ranking tab, Dealership tab, Manual tab, Arcade tab, Save tab and a GT-TV tab. This is a new addition to the series and brings the possibility of viewing videos in HD format like: the opening and ending movies, real-life new models tests, car documentaries, etc. Every video is free of charge. If you want to view any technical stats you will spend a lot of time by entering the garage tab, select the car and wait for a moment to view them. The stats are displayed in a subtitle manner, which makes you wonder how much more can endure to navigate through that stupid but still classy interface?

Conclusion

GT5 Prologue is definitely not a complete game, but more a sample of what GT5 will be. It's a sign that the Gran Turismo legend continues and that the franchise is still a turning point in the graphics domain. Obviously the final version of the game will be a hit, but that's not gonna change my impression about its prologue version:

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Gameplay: 70

Extremely boring in less than hour of playing. The game brings nothing new in terms of gameplay. Just the same classic races which swings from one lap to 5 laps length. At least you get a bonus group race if you complete the other three and a range of 71 vehicles to play on those repetitive six tracks. The drift events are present only in the arcade menu, and are implemented as stand-alone events. Every track, with one exception (Daytona), has a drift zone which is divided in score sectors. This is where you have to perform the most outrageous drifts in order to score points. If in GT HD Concept you had the chance to drift in an unlimited number of laps, Prologue brings the limitation of one lap per each drift event.

Graphics: 92

Photo-realistic graphics combined with a high-performance physics engine. This is the core of every Gran Turismo game and still is. Unfortunately the environmental design lacks of any stylized approach which makes the game to look too artificial and cold in some places.

Play the game with any wheel supported by the game, eliminating all driving assists and you will get one of the best realistic driving approach. If you are a simulator maniac, and you are not convinced of what I've written, try the drift events and feel how many parameters have been included in the physical engine in order to simulate all the forces that operates on the car in different situations.

Multiplayer: 80

Support up to 16 players online. But at the same time it is extremely basic, new additions being awaited from Polyphony. At this point it is hard to compare it with what Forza Motorsport 2 or Project Gotham Racing 4 has in terms of what they can offer.

Sound: 79

No way you can customize the soundtrack of the game. At least the tracks are quite mellow so they are not incredibly irritating. The only problem is that the songs repeat themselves during a race. Same song goes over an over again until you end the event.

Hardware: 85

A plus for the online mode which runs smooth. But a minus for the loading times which are long even if you exit a race. I still blame that My Page idea.