E3'2003: Gran Turismo 4 Preview

Sony unveiled the latest title in its acclaimed driving simulator series at this years E3 event held in Los Angeles. Rumours of Gran Turismo 4 had escalated in the weeks leading up to the event, so thankfully we can now bring you the definitive word on one of the finest racing series ever created for wannabe racers and car enthusiasts across the globe.<br><br>Admitting that development of GT4 was harder then that of its predecessor and confirming that it would be hard to improve on the technology featured in GT3, the talented team at Polyphony Digital have had to work on ways to improve the actual game and not just rely on a graphical update; until we suspect the series makes its grand debut on the Playstation3.<br><br>If you were led to believe the rumours spread before the event, GT4 would feature an obscene 2000 different vehicles within the game; the reality is closer to the total amount in featured in Gran Turismo 2, as Kazunori Yamauchi CEO Polyphony Digital, assured us the game would top an impressive 500 different cars.<br><br>In a move that will make the car enthusiasts drool like a dog with a bone, Gran Turismo 4 will include a wide range of historically significant car models ranging from saloons to convertibles, from street racers to rally racers. Polyphony Digital have ambitiously dubbed the concept of GT4 is to “re-experience the history of cars, from its birth to present, in a way only possible with Gran Turismo”; audacious claims, but affectionately confirmed whenever you hear Polyphony Digital team members refer to car research as having ‘met’ the car. Whilst the allocation of cars featured in the demo shown to us at E3 had nowhere near to 500 vehicles, it certainly gave us some indication as to the variety on offer with cars dating from the 50’s to present day, from manufacturers across the globe.<br><br>It’s not just the range of cars that have increased as the team spent months navigating the globe collating track data from landscapes across the world and numerous renown racing circuits from Europe, Japan and the USA. Racing circuits appear to play a larger role in Gran Turismo 4 as Yamauchi-san assured us that improvements to the physics engine have allowed the team to include more tracks, whilst we’ve also noticed that pit-crews will feature heavily in GT4 and look fantastic from what we’ve seen. The demo on display at E3 gave us an indication of the varying racing modes on offer, giving us the choice of a street race in a fully realised New York, rally racing in the Grand Canyon and finally circuit racing on Japan’s Tsukuba circuit.<br><br>Despite the fact that GT4 may not feature too many technical enhancements in comparison to its predecessor, it’s credit to the artists that left us in constant search of the rewind button as we watched a recording of the games presentation to determine whether it was GT4 footage or real-life action that was spliced into the presentation. Nowhere illustrates this improvement more so then the luscious backgrounds featured within the game; ok this may only be a cosmetic touch, but the illusion of depth and quality that we witnessed in the Grand Canyon stage certainly left us forgetting about the lack of a damage engine and other significant improvements – well nearly.<br><br>The overall look is certainly an artistic improvement over GT3 from the environments to the car models; however don’t go expecting a radically different look as GT4 remains very close to its predecessor in terms of polygons shifted, visual effects and frame-rate. We were slightly disappointed by the lack of little touches featured in the game, collisions with netting used to designate the course simply resulted in your car stopping and nowhere near to the effect featured in Colin McRae 3 – just early days we hope.<br><br>The major improvement to the series comes in the way of an all-new physics engine – the first major refinement in Gran Turismo history. The changes have ensured GT4 remains very close to actual track data taken from across the globe; during the presentation Kazunori Yamauchi claimed that difference between GT4 lap times and that from real life varied from a difference of 1 second to around 0.4 seconds in certain driving conditions. You can certainly now understand why the engine is being used to test race drivers in Japan’s Volkswagen Lupo Cup, and why Polyphony Digital are boldly claiming that GT4 will act as an entry level for those seriously interested in motorsports driving.<br><br>The handling has been substantially changed from previous versions and closer to that of driving in actual life; a feature that Polyphony Digital believes will make it easier for people to pick up and play. You can certainly notice the change in handling and it’s fair to say the cars within the game behave similarly to driving in real-life, whilst the introduction of driving assists such as ‘Traction Control’ should give an indication of the advances made in this area.<br><br>Thankfully Polyphony Digital has taken a close look at the weakest aspect in the GT series and is in the process of renewing the AI engine for the first time in the series since 1997. Polyphony Digital are aiming to reduce the target time difference between computer driven opponents to humans to around 1 second, in comparison to 2.5 second time difference featured in GT3. Polyphony Digital assures us the final game will feature computer opponents that will display more human-like behaviour and not the ‘drone’ feeling from previous titles; we’re hoping that touches such as consideration for other drivers and the ability to learn from mistakes will improve the racing action, however it was difficult to notice at the show. Although Polyphony assured us that this feature was currently in-progress, we certainly found it difficult to notice from our playtest as opponents closely stuck to the racing line and displayed very little aggression on the track from the numerous times that we picked up the pad.<br><br>The final game will feature an extensive simulation mode, which Polyphony Digital has improved beyond compare. The ‘GT Universe’ is still heavily under wraps, but is expected to featured an all-new tuning feature, activities other then License Tests and Races, Museums to cater for the wide range of cars on offer and the return of Used Car Dealers after their omission from GT3. Kazunori Yamauchi told us that this aspect was still heavily in development and that more information would surface later in the year.<br><br>After the success of the GT3 Force-Feedback wheel, Polyphony Digital has once again teamed with LogiTech to create an all-new steering wheel for release alongside the game. Featuring a 900-degree rotation from lock-to-lock that is closer to standard cars today and stronger force feedback, this should certainly ensure the complete experience for driving nuts up and down the country. The new steering wheel will feature an independent gearshift lever instead of the butterfly gears featured in the last version, whilst Kazunori Yamauchi assures us the robustness has been improved to cater for gruelling rally races and the increased force feedback. No word on whether Sony plans to release this as a bundle similar to GT3, but we would certainly expect something along similar lines.<br><br>Although specific details on the online aspect were not mentioned during the presentation, we were able to check out the games multiplayer mode via an 8-player networked game over i-link. We’re certainly looking forward to hearing more details on this aspect of the game, and hope that some of the rumours which range from players trading cars and parts to online leagues and rankings materialise in the final game. The current build featured a worrying flickering effect on competitor cars in the networked mode, however we’ve been assured that the final game will eliminate this and offer lag-free online play.