Gran Turismo 5

[jim g]

My earlier post "hence my earlier post, this is not a racing game. If you like racing do not buy this" is based on the playing GT1,2,3,4, prologue. The best 'racing' I ever had with any GT game was having two PS2's linked and with two TV and two wheels and me and mate raced each other for hours and it was great fun.

But GT is a RPG racer and what was groundbreaking in 1997 is actually quite boring now. The main attraction to me was on-line racing, but sadly they have screwed that up.

So for me it is not a racing game in the sense you can have lots of races against opponents, hence my comment. And believe me I played the other GT's for weeks, but never enjoyed them apart from the network link experience.

So, horses for courses. If you enjoy the game then great. It is just not for me any more.

[crocky-chocky]

Best racing game I've played in some years, this.

The only real negative for me is that I'll often speed into first on the initial straight, and remain there the whole race lest I fudge a chicane. I love the dead restrictive special events like the VW camper van race though, and just the feel of driving certain cars is amazing. Spending the first few hours pootling around in an FTO then experiencing the vast leap in performance of something like a Lancer. Great stuff.

I love the sterile menus and distinctly un-firing menu music, too. Nice to play a racing game without shakey-cam, graffiti laden presentation, and no DJ Atomica telling me I've got 'mad skillz'.

Took a few hours to click then, but yeah, I loves it.

[oldskool]

The handling model, no game does it better than GT5. Should have given this at least a 9 in retrospect, becoming one of the best driving games I think I have ever played. I'm playing this with the R4 soundtrack and it is just incredible.

[Supergoal]

What driving view does everyone go for? I can't decide and keep switching mid-race only to end up crashing..

Is there anyway to set the BGM, tracks and volume for racing?

[vanpeebles]

Standard view with the see through two dials

[Supergoal]

Standard view with the see through two dials

Yeah that has the best sense of speed but I can't help noticing that it's sometimes hard to see the road ahead. Also I can't see my pretty car.

[Darwock]

I always use in-car view, just because this is what I always wanted to have in GT and now I finally have it. I think I'd be doing better with the two dials view though because that's what I always used in the past.

If I ever buy a standard car then I will use that one for sure. For now I'll stick to in-car.

(For some reason when I start a new game it always defaults to the two dials and I have to select in-car again.)

[JP]

Is it a race with such scripted AI? Scripted due to it being a bit of a calculated challenge. That and probably the rest of the challenges and licenses are set up for you to beat several cars at a corner by braking later and driving more intelligently (not hard) than the others. Then you may have to continue doing that along with some drafting to get to the next pack. It's a bit like Ridge Racer in the "packs" sense.

So, it does tend to come down to your driving in a way, using certain skills you had learned in licenses etc.

I've loved that VW challenge but I think the issue some people are having is thinking of it as a race, it's a test and the other cars are merely obstacles which just happen to be moving. They may as well be

If you try to compete with them as you would in a race you will fail. If they're nudging you to get past, let them as two laps is plenty of time to get where you need to.

I finished in 2nd place on my only completion although I did get disqualified nearly 20 times before I was able to complete the event.

I was able to get to the front of the pack before the end of the first lap on three occasions (DualShock) and each time I ended up being disqualified due to not concentrating and messing it up.

A few bits of advice which may help if people are still struggling:

• It's often quicker avoiding the racing line on the wider sections. The vans are slow so you don't really get the benefit of a wide sweeping line if you can cut inside to take a shorter line at full speed.
• It's not a race, it's a time trial with moving walls. Don't compete with the vans on the tighter sections as they will continue to do what they are doing irrelevant of what you do. If you find one nudging you, move out of it's way because it won't make any difference.
• It's sometimes better to take corners in a higher gear than is recommended, sometimes you'll need to take them with slightly less acceleration.
• Don't bloody forget to change gears! I've done this a few times due to the lack of change in engine sounds that you'd get from other engines and I imagine I'm not the only person who's done it.

[Mr M0by]

Okay something bizarre has happened. Haven't played the game since Friday when I was progressing quite nicely with golds across the first 16 licence tests but when I went back to it today, suddenly L2/R2 weren't working as brake/accelerate, or X & [] even, just the right stick. I have a 4 yr old who plays on this & Burnout/NFS etc sometimes when I'm at work so I thought perhaps he's accidentally re-mapped the controls but when I checked L2/R2 were still defined as before. So to avoid any confusion I selected the right stick actions as none & did the same for X & [] but all that happens is I slowly come to a stop at the start of rolling races, or roll back down the hill of my latest licence test etc. I've tried with a second controller & get the same. I've subsequently tried NFS with both aswell without issues.

Have googled but typically the only post of note that comes up is one I made to a member of another forum a couple of days ago, when I might have suggested it more likely to be his fault rather than the games. In that incident, he resolved it by de-selecting actions for the right stick but I'm not that lucky. Any ideas?

[Darwock]

Someone else here had a similar problem caused by having some weird device attached to their PS3. Not much help I guess.

[Mr M0by]

Someone else here had a similar problem caused by having some weird device attached to their PS3. Not much help I guess.

Yeah that's what I told this other guy on another forum too! I don't have such a device though. I was using the dongle for the Pro-Keys RB3 keyboard earlier but it wasn't connected at the same time. Will try again later.

[Kubrick]

It was me that had that problem earlier in the thread. BTW, it happened again today when I had my HRAP3 connected, so it seems you cannot have any kind of USB controller plugged-in when you play this.

[JU!]

Darwock, is the JPN version import-friendly? I mean it isn't entirely in Japanese text? I ask as when I saw you playing it earlier, the game name was written in Japanese, which is uncommon for recent PS3 games.

The PSP game displays in whatever language according to your system settings, so I wonder if this is the same?

I stated a while back lads. All in English when your machine (PS3) is set to English. Shame you can only use the stealth cars in Arcade and GT Mode in the Japanese vers. I was hoping to sell them and cash in.

[Mr M0by]

It was me that had that problem earlier in the thread. BTW, it happened again today when I had my HRAP3 connected, so it seems you cannot have any kind of USB controller plugged-in when you play this.

Yep that seems to be the case. It worked fine this evening. I had the RB dongle plugged in & I remember now that when I loaded GT earlier, my dualshock defaulted to controller two. Even though changed the controller to controller 1 and had removed the dongle, the fact that it had been present at the start seems to have scuppered the L2/R2 controls.

[Phar]

I wonder if it's possible the game is doing something with the USB ports in an attempt to block Jaibreak devices but is causing issues with some legit controllers.