Don't Call it a Demo
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue may not be the full game, but it's the real deal.
Published: April 20, 2008
As you move up in the class-based tiers, you'll notice these racers behaving a little more realistically, but you'll also notice something else: the old grind has returned. Gran Turismo is not without a fair amount of repetition; the nature of earning just so much money per race times the amount that some of the most exotic cars in the stable means you're going to have to race and re-race (even if you sell your other cars) to be able to afford it. There are a few plateaus in the earlier classes because you have to use one car on some races, and though these are smoother than the Japanese version, once you get to the A-Class races and have to buy things like a GT-R and F430, price and funds (or lack thereof) start to become a serious issue. By the time you see the kind of cars needed to race on the S-Class stuff, the feeling of inevitable impending grinding will sink in.
There is, to a degree, a way around this: playing online. Somehow, though the tracks are the same and often the true money-making races are actually shorter offline, playing against other people and the inherent unpredictability it brings makes the races more fun. Well, "fun" might be stretching it a little. The Japanese version of the game rigidly enforced proper driving, dinging you for cutting corners and hitting other drivers, and as the classes went up, so did the penalties. The US version, on the other hand, doesn't introduce these things until S-Class and when online, leading to people driving like complete. Effing. Retards.
They'll slam into you happily, plow into walls, cause roadblocks and generally just drive like a bunch of meth heads on a joyride with someone else's car. There are some basic rules that help to curtail it getting completely out of control like black flagging people that ram walls or other cars, and anyone who hits a wall, car or is in the middle of being flagged automatically goes see-through, so cars can pass through them, but it's not a perfect system. Often times another car would ram me, and I'd be the one hit with the limiter.
It's frustrating, and I can't help but think that there was a system in place to keep things fairly balanced until people could learn to virtually drive, and technically there still is. See, until you pass the A-Class races, you can't participate in anything but the beginner online events. Unfortunately, people can also download savegames and get that Ferrari Formula One car and go to town without first learning to drive like a non-mongoloid. Hopefully this is something that's patched, because not only is the process of earning the money to buy a car where you can compete part of the learning process, but it weeds out the more insane, impulsive racers a little too.
The online structure of the races at first seems a little busted, as matchmaking happens not on the main menu screens where you pick a race, nor after that track as loaded but instead after you confirm that, yes, you do want to race on that track. This was done mainly for Quick Tune reasons, since there are Performance Points limitations that won't let you just take an S2000 in and crank the horsepower up and the weight down, throw on racing slicks and go to town. Events have a PP limit, and some cars won't be allowed in. It's a great system, and along with the horsepower, tires and weight stuff, you can fine tune gear ratios, downforce and the like to really get technical.
Waiting until you've set all this stuff and then looking for races makes it a little more quick to jump and start racing, but first the system actually syncs you up with other people about to start. It might take a while at first, but you're guaranteed to start the race with everyone else, and now that the online servers are populated, it happens fairly quickly. As a bonus, when it spits you back out to that Quick Tune/track replay screen, you can jump back in and usually race with the same people in a matter of seconds.