This new Gran Turismo is everything you'd expect and not much more. You've played this game before, only now it looks prettier. On one hand, there is a certain comfort in the familiar. On the other, you can't help but want for something fresh.
The online play is technically functional but not very fun because in on-line gaming, as in real life, idiots abound, and while you're driving your perfect lap, passing others in a legitimate, skillful way, some ass-hat will inevitably hit you from behind and send you careening into last place. Frustration at its finest.
GTTV is in its infancy, but internet video is not. YouTube, Vimeo and several other companies have been streaming video for years, but GTTV forces you to download each video in its entirety, and on my 1.5kbps DSL connection that translated to over an hour of download time to watch an 11 minute piece. Not good. GTTV is a promising idea and I hope it evolves to include some of the rudimentary features we've come to expect from modern video delivery systems.
Graphics. Yes the game looks great, but not as great as I had hoped. There are problems with anti-aliasing here and there, especially with shadows falling across your car, and strange blurry zones can be seen around vehicles in certain camera angles. The major success graphically in GT5P is the in-car dashboard camera. It's the best of its kind that I've ever seen, going all the way back to the first Test Drive on the c64. I only wish I had a way to pan smoothly around the interior during a race.
The track selection is lackluster at best. Eiger Nordwand was lifted straight from the earlier (and free) Gran Turismo HD demo. All of the other tracks are old standards, except for one: The London course. Each of these tracks look great and offer different challenges, but for $40 I was hoping to see something new.
Speaking of that $40, the pricing feels a little high for what amounts to a well-developed demo. The downloadable, especially, should be $29.99 maximum. It just isn't full-featured enough to warrant a price-tag on par with, say, Warhawk.
End result: Buy it knowing you'll be playing Gran Turismo 4 in HD. There is nothing new here.
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