Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

For the main series, see: Gran Turismo (series). For the full release of this game, see: Gran Turismo 5

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
The box art for the European version of the game.
Developer(s)	Polyphony Digital
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Designer(s)	Kazunori Yamauchi
Engine	Gran Turismo 5
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single player 16-player online multiplayer

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (グランツーリスモ5 プロローグ, guran tsūrisumo 5 purorōgu) 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'.. The game will be released on March 27 2008 in Europe via the PlayStation Store and March 28 2008 on Blu-Ray Disc. Extra content (similar to North America's extra content) will be included in the game. This short version title is a precursor to Polyphony Digital's planned Gran Turismo 5. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue features 16-player online races (starting in Christmas 2007), 37 cars, 5 tracks, and 7.1ch (LPCM) high definition sound.

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.

History

Concept

The "Prologue" suffix is a self-reference to the million seller Gran Turismo 4 Prologue released in Japan, Korea, South-East Asia and Europe one year before the full version of Gran Turismo 4 for PlayStation 2 which came out in 2004.

Overview

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.

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.

Interface

The actual My Page interface in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

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, motorsports 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.

Also Yamauchi explained to the magazine that the 16-player online play will probably be slow unless all players racing have a high-speed connection. On launch day, Prologue will experience some limitations to its online mode. Only one mode will be available to play at launch and that will be 'Arcade Free Battle' mode where players are chosen to race at random. More modes might be added later though, such as 'Chat' and 'Friend List'.

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 (not special version such as GTHD and GT3).

Free playable demo

File:Gran turismo prologue demo cover.png

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue demo cover.

A free demo (グランツーリスモ5 プロローグ 無料体験版) has been released on the Japanese PS Store on October 20, 2007 with the Suzuka Circuit and 7 new cars playable^[1]. 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.^[2] Then the actual game will be released on Blu-ray Disc and PlayStation Store as a download on December 13.^[3] This demo replaces Gran Turismo HD Concept that was removed from the Japanese PS Store on September 30^[4], no international release has been announced for the Prologue demo.

Tokyo Motor Show 2007

The demo initially only came with 4 playable cars, with the upcoming Mazda ATENZA Sport, Lexus IS-F and Subaru Impreza WRX STI marked as unlockable respectively. However, each of these cars have been progressively unlocked as they were unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show (10.23~25) simultaneously, along with the unmasking of the new 2009 Nissan GT-R, which had its defining panels concealed to prevent unwanted media attention and was renamed "GT-R Black Mask".^[5] The Black Mask was removed from the car section on October 23 to coincide with its official unveiling at the Tokyo Motor Show. The unveiled GT-R was available again on October 24 now with the in-car view enabled.

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)^[6]. 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^[7]. 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.

Official soundtrack

An official soundtrack to GT5 Prologue will be released in Japan only on Februaury 20th. The CD will include 18 tracks. The CD will by published by Village Music and will retail for a pre-tax price of ¥2,200 ($20.44). The famous Moon Over The Castle theme song from the Gran Turismo series will be included in the soundtrack, much to fans' desires. This new version of the song was recorded in Los Angeles, California, USA.. A track-listing can be found here

External links

Official websites:

• Gran Turismo Official Site
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - official videos
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - official car list
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue TV comercial (30s version)
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue TV comercial (15s version)