01 Apr 08
The main one-player game is structured into classes of events, in each of which you have to get bronze or better to proceed to the next class up. Some events restrict the cars allowed to participate, which means you need to populate your garage with a few lumbering skips alongside your swanky roadsters in order to ensure entry every event. It's a cunning way to prevent you from blitzing everywhere in a star car, but in practice it's poorly implemented and feels nannying. A more intelligent and interesting selection of events and corresponding restrictions would have lessened the damage.
Does the lack of circuits matter? We're here, after all, for the metal. However, as the cars need to be earned through prize money, getting to buy the best cars involves a lot of repeat races to run. You even win cash for relatively poor results and there are numerous helper features (racing line, suggested speed and gear going into corners, etc) to keep you on top of things, so what the game demands of you is more time than skill. And slogging through the same old tracks over and over against unimaginative AI drivers to earn that pretty red Skyline can quickly exhaust your patience.
Streamlining the game has been useful for the beginner put off by the previous versions of the game with their 'you cannot race until you pass a series of challenges' approach. But at the same time the number of cars available in the arcade mode and two-player split-screen has been restricted to cars you have earned in the event mode. This is irritating, as is the fact you can't tune your car until you've won classes A-C, whereupon you can only progress further by tuning like mad.
Put some time into Prologue, though, and the game keeps on finding little ways to impress. The exhaust notes are every bit as heart-stopping as you'd demand. Browsing for and buying a new car feels like a big deal. Each new car always feels different to the last - the physics guys have done a comprehensive and satisfying job, something only slightly spoiled by an analogue pad that never seems sensitive enough. And you can genuinely feel your skills building with every race - hell, you may eventually even learn to avoid hitting that bloody tyre wall at the end of the epic Suzuka circuit.
Prologue is a fully realised experience that has been whittled down to something that feels like a complete game, but with unaccountable flaws that baffle and frustrate. And the question remains: if the nuts and bolts of this prelude are already so good, why do we need to wait until 2009 for the full game? Good gravy shouldn't have this many lumps.
Final score:
Video:
Game Trailer: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
