Sony was kind enough to invite us to a private showing of the latest in-production version of Gran Turismo 4, greatly improved over both Gran Turismo 4 Prologue (a Japan-only preview of GT4) and the version on display at last E3. For those unfamiliar, Gran Turismo 4 is the latest game in Sony\'s super-realistic car racing simulator series, and has in the past been featured for its online gameplay and greatly-improved support for driving wheels. (Logitech, at last E2, announced a new wheel specifically for GT4, with 900 degrees of rotation and much-improved force feedback.) Besides the polish that comes from another year\'s worth of development, Kasunori Yamauchi showed a new entirely new mode, something inspired by his latest hobby: photography.
The featured addition, Photo Mode, is an entirely new mode, a compliment to Arcade and GT modes. Photo Mode will allow players to take pictures from saved replays or from sixteen environments made specifically for the new mode. Several different games (most recently Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes) have had similar modes, and this isn\'t terribly special on its own, but the extent to which Mr. Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital have taken this new mode sets GT4 apart.
Besides taking pictures from saved replays, which is fairly straightforward, the player is free to pose shots in the Photo-exclusive environments in almost any way imaginable. Photo buffs will appreciate the options in the advanced mode, with features and controls aimed at the more-knowledgeable. Photos, once taken, will be able to be exchanged online, or even printed on supported printers, at print resolutions instead of screen resolutions. (The tenative plan is for images to render out to 1280 by 960 pixel jpegs, which is quality enough for any printer.)
Why would anyone want to take pictures of the cars and environments? Why, because Gran Turismo 4 is going to be absolutely beautiful. Just take a look at the screenshots Sony has made available to Gamenikki. None of these are renders or concept art or CGI; every single one is taken from actual gameplay (or Photo Mode.) It\'s easy to talk about lighting or special effects, but that doesn\'t really do Gran Turismo 4 justice. Seeing GT4 in motion is a dream, with fantastic-looking cars, fantastic-looking environments, and fantastic-looking people, and the improvements over the E2 2003 and Prologue versions are quite evident. It\'s often hard to tell that the image on the screen is a game, and that\'s an accomplishment to even the most fanatic gameplay-over-graphics hardcore.
One graphical shortcoming of Gran Turismo 4 Prologue were the crowds alongside the track and the fearless photographers who dodged in and out of traffic to get the perfect shot. In Prologue, people looked like cardboard cutouts, and moved fairly jerkily. Good news is that these were placeholders, as the version on display at this E3 has much better-looking models, given the same kind of attention that the cars have gotten. Likewise, the drivers have gotten similar attention, and one demo showed the driver of a convertible moving naturally, handling the steering wheel and leaning into turns, even jerking during a crash. For all the attention to character models, movement is still a tad iffy for the crowds; it seemed like every third person was doing the same thing at the same time. Hopefully this is a burr that Polyphony will buff out.
Of course, most people play racing games to actually race, and GT4 will have that, of course. At last count, Gran Turismo 4 will have at least 500 cars from over 80 manufacturers (counting defunct manufacturers), spanning 118 years of car design. The final version will have at least fifty tracks, in an as-of-yet undisclosed number of locations. A trio of new locations were unveiled for this E3, including a fantasy run through the Italian countryside, a highly-detailed run through downtown Hong Kong, and a hyper-realistic take on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, a world-famous test track. The Nurburgring track is extremely true to the real thing, with each part of the track scanned to within 15 cm of the real thing. It\'s so realistic, in fact, that the GT4 development teem has been using it as a benchmark for the realism of the racing engine, after a professional test driver got times within 1% difference of each other, between the real thing and Gran Turismo 4.
The largest addition to the racing itself are the new effects of a crash. In Prologue, bumping into a car or other obstacle would simply slow down the car doing the bumping for 10 seconds. (Mr. Yamauchi promised that Polyphony was balancing a system where the degree of impact would determine the length and severity of the speed penalty, but that wasn\'t evident in this version.) In this version, in addition to the screen penalty, banging into something will bang around the driver, causing a momentary motion blur effect. It\'s not a major penalty, but it\'s enough to even stun the player (not the fictional driver, but the player) for a moment, discouraging bump-and-run gameplay even more.
A few details of the online play have emerged, including a cap on head-to-head races (six players to a race) and the new multiplayer interface. While it wasn\'t finalized, players will have a range of options for customizing races, including restricting races by model year, manufacturer, camera view, and so on. Spectator mode, where non-racers can watch an on-going race is still going to be in the final version, but no reports on how many can be observing at a time. The only other addition of substance, as far as online play goes, is the addition of a Flea Market mode, where players can sell or trade parts for their cars.
Surprisingly, Gran Turismo 4 looks like an almost entirely different game from the previous versions, with the major graphical improvements and the oddball new Photo Mode. At this rate, it should be a very impressive game by this November, when it is slated to be released. Hard-core racing fans should mark their calendars, because Gran Turismo 4 will be something they\'ll be thankful for come this Thanksgiving.
Topic: Cool! GT4 spectator mode (Read 658 times)