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Gran Turismo 5 Prologue) is the latest installment in the Gran Turismo series and a PlayStation 3 exclusive title which was announced at the E3 2007.

The game was released in Japan on both the PlayStation Store and Blu-ray Disc on December 13, 2007 to celebrate the series’ 10th anniversary. The PlayStation Store version requires just over 2.2 gigabytes of available hard disk space. The Blu-ray version may cut down on this. The Blu-ray version costs ¥4,980 (inc. tax) and the PS Store version costs ¥4,500 (inc. tax). The game will be released in North America on Blu-ray disc and via download from the Playstation Store on April 17, 2008. The Blu-Ray Disc version will offer added value with an exclusive High-Definition video feature called ‘Beyond the Apex’ and various other content such as new cars and tracks. The game will be released on March 28, 2008 in Europe via the PlayStation Store and on Blu-Ray Disc. Extra content (similar to North America’s extra content) will be included in the game.

A free playable demo version was available in the Japanese PlayStation Store from October 20 to November 30, 2007, and a North American special version was available at the 2007 SEMA Show on December 6, 2007.

Gameplay

New to the Gran Turismo series, is the ability to race with up to 16 cars at once. The AI has also improved from previous Gran Turismo games [citation needed].

Also new to the series, is the new, realistic in-car view feature. It includes functioning speedometers and odometers, reflecting rear-view mirrors, wing mirrors and real time in-car lighting effects (cast shadows). Players driving with a supported steering wheel have the ability to look left and right in the cockpit of the car by using the D-pad. Any PlayStation 3 compatible steering wheel works with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The engine also sounds different according to which view is selected among the available four. Back view is also specific with the in-car view.

European and North American players can look forward to being able to use a Drift Mode (similar to that of Gran Turismo HD), car tuning adjustments, and head to head two-player racing offline. New race events online and offline as well as new cars have also been confirmed for North American users.

Online Play became available by Christmas 2007. On the official GT5 Prologue Website on the 25 December 2007, players were able to download network battle updates for the game’s Arcade and Time Attack modes. Also available on this day was be a Museum mode, featuring histories of various car manufacturers.

In terms of game modes, a total of four were available at launch:

* Arcade (single player with 16 cars)
* Arcade (time trial version)
* Event Race (4 categories, 32 events)
* Dealer Race (one make races)

In terms of physics the game will allow simulation selection between “Standard” or the more realistic “Professional” gameplay, (this feature was not available in Gran Turismo HD Concept) along with adjustable Active Brake, Active Stability Management (ASM) and Traction Control System (TCS). All of these features are already available in the free playable demo.

Interface

The game has a totally new interface, called My Page. It acts as the player’s personalized menu for the game. The icons include; Race, Garage (where the players’ cars are viewed), TV (which will give the player access to real-life car related TV), Album (for viewing pictures taken in the photo mode), Option (various options settings for the game), Profile (the player’s online profile), Home (in conjunction with Sony’s ‘PlayStation Home’), and Calendar. The Calendar icon opens up a calendar with upcoming race events marked on it, a world map with the player’s play area marked in red, weather read-outs for major raceways, motor-sports related news, maps, and a clock. When the game starts up, the player is taken straight to the ‘My Page’ area.

The Home icon refers to Sony’s 3D virtual chat space, Home. The plan at the moment is to create a Gran Turismo universe in Home. Players will be able to jump in and out of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and back into Home as often as they wish. To coincide with this, Polyphony hope to add some sort of friends list and other social network features to the game. During online races players will have the option to enable voice chat.

Episodic content

Famitsu magazine’s latest update reveals that Prologue will include a new ‘GT.TV’ mode where real-life motoring shows like the BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ (the Top Gear test track will be a drivable track in GT5) and Japan’s ‘Car Graphic TV’ will be able to be viewed in episodic content. There will be a charge for this feature. On October 24, a press release confirmed that Top Gear will be featured in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Famitsu also reports that the game will employ a special rewards system similar to Achievements in Xbox 360 games. These new rewards will be added to the game episodically. Upon completing certain challenges, bonus cars, tracks, and content will be unlocked. The extra cars and tracks include vehicles and courses from Motor Toon Grand Prix and the mech from Omega Boost. The additional bonus content includes making-of videos, television commercials, and “ghost” races against development team members’ best times. Full versions of Omega Boost, Motor Toon Grand Prix, and Motor Toon Grand Prix 2 will eventually become available as downloadable rewards for special online racing events.

Confirmed car and track lists

37 cars from 21 worldwide manufacturers (including Nissan, Ferrari, Ford, Dodge and Audi) have been confirmed to be available in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Some are included in the demo, though most of them are not playable. The vehicle list is available on the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue official website. North American users will get the chance to race new cars such as the Mini Cooper S and various other region specific models.

Ten circuits are included in the game with reverse versions. Some of the tracks will have different versions instead of a reverse mode. For instance, the Fuji Speedway circuit has an “F” circuit and a “GT” circuit. The tracks (including their variations) are, Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka Circuit East Course, Fuji Speedway F, Fuji Speedway GT, Super Speedway Daytona, Road Course Daytona, Eiger Nordwand Course, Eiger Nordwand Course (reverse), London City Course, London City Course (reverse). Also, for European and North American users the Gran Turismo famous ‘High Speed Ring’ circuit will be available to race on. The track has featured in every GT game to date (bar special version such as GTHD).

Free playable demo

A free demo has been released on the Japanese PS Store on October 20, 2007 with the Suzuka Circuit and 7 new cars playable. The demo unlocked cars as they were unveiled at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show because the demo coincided with the large scale event. The free demo will come off the Store on November 30, 2007. Then the actual game will be released on Blu-ray Disc and PlayStation Store as a download on December 13. This demo replaces Gran Turismo HD Concept that was removed from the Japanese PS Store on September 30, no international release has been announced for the Prologue demo.

Input device support

The Gran Turismo 5 Prologue demo is the first PlayStation 3 release supporting both Dual Shock 3 controller vibration and racing wheels force feedback feature. Logicool, the Japanese branch of Logitech which is releasing official racing wheels for the Gran Turismo series has launched the G25 Racing Wheel for PS3 on October 25, 2007. This wheel is a rebranded version of the Logitech G25 Racing Wheel. It features a gated shifter with 6 forward ratios plus reverse, a clutch pedal and dual motor force feedback. The G25 is supported along with the previous GT designed models (Driving Force Pro, GT Force, Driving Force and Driving Force EX).

GT-TV

The new Gran Turismo TV feature was introduced in the demo version. This VOD service was activated on October 22 with three free SD trailers for motorsport TV programs (being Super GT, D1 Grand Prix or Best Motoring). Since October 24 “Gran Turismo TV Special” exclusive full-length HD videos are released for free, these include Tokyo Motor Show video reports and Kazunori Yamauchi interviews. DRM activated GT-TV videos are downloaded within the HDD, nevertheless GT-TV download service will end up on November 30, only HDD stored videos will remain available. Full-length videos of the free trailers will be available for purchase from the full version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologues GT-TV. On October 24, 2007 Top Gear have confirmed that select classic episodes will be available for viewing on Gran Turismo 5′s GT-TV mode. Starting on launch day (13/12 in Japan), distribution will begin on free video content with two programmes, “Tokyo Motor Show 2007″ and “First Impression Lancer Evolution X“. Before the end of this year (2007) more GT-TV content will be available to download. “The GT-R Legend Inside Story II” on 14/12 and “The GT-R Legend Inside Story III” later in December 2007.

Online service has ended on December 6th for the demo, as a result the GT-TV mode is now disabled as well as other online related contents like the “News” feature and the motorsports news related live RSS feed. Videos downloaded from the “>GT-TV mode’s servers are still saved within the demo’s HDD slot but are not available anymore. The demo’s original filesize was extended from 736MB with an empty GT-TV mode to 2.576GB including all six downloadable VOD files.

Photo mode

Among the real time “Autodemo” unplayable content are two courses (Fuji Speedway and the newly added Daytona Speedway), two dozens of old and new cars ranging from the 1990s to the 2000s and two Photo Mode stages set in the Nürburg town and castle. In this latter mode the selected car is set in a Full HD advanced 3D environment with a 360° camera work and the GUI’s real time zoom-in function is enabled.

Audio visual

The game outputs a 1080p Full HD resolution while it remains compatible with NTSC SDTV (480i). Although GUI display (MyGarage, Album, etc.) is widescreen full pixel 1080 60-frame progressive, in-game racing is anamorphic full screen. Replays are rendered at a reduced 30-frame progressive (anamorphic full screen) due to added music video-like visual effects.

Audio quality varies according to the selected output, from AV Multi’s analog 2ch to HDMI’s 7.1ch LPCM. S/PDIF optical output allows Dolby Digital 5.1ch.

The cars featured in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue are roughly made from over 200,000 polygons per car.

The demo’s main theme is “Check” taken from the Bring It On LP performed by Belgian band Goose.

SEMA Show 2007 demo

An alternative version of the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue downloadable demo was presented at Sony’s booth during the Las Vegas Convention Center|2007 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the first time the North American version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was unveiled.

Compared with the Japanese demo this North American version adds previously locked contents such as the rolling demo’s tracks (Daytona International Speedway and Fuji Speedway F) and American cars (Dodge Viper GTS ’02 and Ford Mustang V8 Coupe Premium ’07). The online Manual was removed from the Japanese version though.

An extra car, Art Morrison’s Chevrolet Corvette ’60 SEMA version 2006 was also included. New SEMA show cars have been selected by Kazunori Yamauchi to be featured in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 like it was done earlier with tuner cars in Gran Turismo 4 (e.g. the HPA Motorsports Golf R32). These 2007 Gran Turismo SEMA awarded cars are the Factory Five GTM ’07, Bully Dog Ram ’07, GReddy 350Z ’07, HPA Motorsports TT ’07 and the Ringbrothers Mustang Fastback ’67.

Developer: Polyphony Digital
Publisher : Sony Computer Entertainment
Distributor: Polyphony Digital
Designer: Kazunori Yamauchi
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: JP December 13, 2007,
AUS March 27, 2008
EU March 28, 2008
NA April 17,2008
Genre: Racing
Mode: Single player
16-player online multiplayer
ESRB: Rating Pending (RP)
Media: PlayStation Store, Blu-ray Disc
Input methods: SIXAXIS, DualShock 3, GT Force, Driving Force, Logitech Driving Force GT, Driving Force Pro, Driving Force EX, G25 Racing Wheel