Gran Turismo 4 - Under The Hood, Driving The Prologue

Thanks to Motor Trend for their feature documenting the extreme attention to detail being lavished on Gran Turismo 4 for PlayStation 2, as the franchise, which "has sold more than 30 million units worldwide", gears up to a 2004 release for this latest iteration. According to the article, "between 20,000 and 30,000 digital photographs are taken" to faithfully reproduce the real-life racetracks used in the game, and there's also a behind the scenes feature on a 150-vehicle capture session in Japan, each car being "systematically studied and logged so the design team could faithfully recreate [it in-game]." Elsewhere, 1UP has a hands-on look at the Japan-only Gran Turismo 4 Prologue, a budget-priced preview which they consider "isn't worth the purchase for any except the most obsessive Gran Turismo fans." Update: 12/12 16:18 GMT by S : Another hands-on look at GT4 Prologue from Game Informer adds detail and corrects a couple of inaccuracies.

Comments

This is a review?

[Lukey Boy]

I bought this last week and wrote about it, and the 1UP review has some bullshit that would lead me to believe they haven't played the game at all.

For example they say there's no playing against AI racers in the demo. Um, no. Three of the five maps have optional AI racers that can be turned on via the Options menu. Even if you don't read Japanese, it's pretty easy to just test out the different options.

Re:This is a review?

[rhs98]

You bought the cut down version, with many cars and tracks missing. This is not the same as the final version - it costs nearly half as much!

Anyway I found another interesting article - this one has pictures of the cars and a video feature(s) as well...

Re:This is a review?

[Lukey Boy]

No, I agree - it's called "Prologue" for a reason. My point was that there is competetive racing in the Prologue edition, and the 1UP review of Prologue says that there aren't.

Where's Ferrari?

[GrahamMastaFlash]

Does it bother anybody else that Ferrari won't ever let the GT games use their cars? What, are they worried that some Millionaire schmuck is going to buy the game instead of an Enzo?

"Well, now I don't have to drop $600K anymore becuase I've got the car right here on my PS2!" Plus, I'm sure that offering girls a ride on your PS2 is just as effective as an F150.

Wake up and smell the Espresso, Ferrari!

Re:Where's Ferrari?

[Anonymous Coward]

electronic arts "owns" the ferrari license

No vehicle damage

[Zed2K]

The absolute worst part is the whole no vehicle damage thing. The best thing in the past games was to use the other cars to push your car around the other cars to win races. May not get you the fastest times but it did make it easy to beat other players and the cpu players.

Re:Physics engine compromised?

[hawkstone]

I've read that GT4 will behave the same way

Out of curiosity, did you read the articles? They all talk about how you used to be able to bounce off opponents and walls in GT3 to better your time, and steps have been taken to alleviate it: while it's true that there is no collision damage, there are penalties for bumping too hard into either. I'll quote the GameInformer article.

Also, for all of you out there who go used to driving like a madman and slamming into walls and other cars, you're about to get a heavy schooling. Major impacts with walls and other cars will penalize you and after the collision you'll be forced to drive at a top speed of 50 km/hour for 10 seconds. So, you may want to think twice before using some poor opponent as a spring on a tight corner.

Re:Physics engine compromised?

[hawkstone]

Yeah, I'm a little torn as well. Take GT3's SSR11, for example. On those two 90-deg left-right corners, hitting a wall can be disastrous without any additional penalty. But on some of the longer, smoother corners (esp. the 180's), hitting the wall is almost guaranteed to make you go faster. So in one case there's no need to make life worse for you, and in the other, it's almost a necessity.

To be fair, though, even in GT3 there was some concept of damage -- the tires. Wall-bouncing could force you to pit a lot more often than normal. I find it hard to criticise any decision Polyphony has made, simply because the results have been spectacular as a whole, but I think just a progressive damage model -- just a little bit of texture modification, a little loss in HP/handling, and keeping the extra tire wear, might have been a good addition, and a little less suspension-of-disbelief reducing.

Re:WARNING /. Lies about "Anonymous" JIHAD tsarkon

[bogie]

I'd have to say some of this must be true, at least regarding getting banned from mod points. I've been a Slashdot user for years now. I've also had good Karma forever now. I had mod points once, used them well, and then never get mod points again.

From what I understand that's not supposed to happen. So they are either tracking posts I made as a AC where I Trolled a bit, or they blackballed me forever for something I modded up or down.

I never browse at -1 anymore so for all I know this post just gets posted 50 times every day, but regardless there has to be something behind the scenes going on.