GRAN TURISMO HD CONCEPT REVIEW

In common with much of the rest of the PlayStation 3’s launch, Gran Turismo HD Concept has had a rather troubled entry into the world. At last year’s Tokyo Games Show, developer Polyphony Digital head honcho (and all-round God-like genius) Kazunori Yamauchi showed the game, and asserted that it would be available for a low box price, accompanied by a welter of downloadable items. Now Kazunori-san (as he is universally known) has backtracked somewhat – but that isn’t bad news for PS3 owners in the US and Japan, or prospective PS3 owners in the UK. Because GT HD Concept is now available free via the PlayStation Network, and Sony has stated that any accompanying downloads will also be free of charge. Effectively, the move allows Kazunori-san to concentrate on creating Gran Turismo 5 – perhaps THE most hotly anticipated PS3 game – and anything that might mean we get GT5 sooner than we otherwise would has got to be good in our book.

Even though we haven’t yet been able to get onto the PlayStation Network in the UK, we have been able to assess Gran Turismo HD Concept since Sony, thoughtfully, burned a copy of the download onto Blu-Ray disk for us. For those who care, it’s a 691Mb download – which isn’t too fearsome, even for those with bog-standard 1Mbps broadband. So it’s a fair bet that any early PS3 adopters will want to download it pretty soon after acquiring their new machines.

What they will find is a touch sketchy – it differs very little from the TGS demo of the game. Which is actually a good sign, as it suggests Kazunori-san turned his full concentration towards GT5 before Christmas. To be precise, what you get is one track – a road circuit set in the Alps, as demoed at TGS, called The Eiger Nordwand – and ten cars: a Suzuki Cappuccino, a 1989 Mazda Eunos (aka MX-5) Roadster, a 2004 Honda Integra Type R, a 1996 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV GSR, a 2006 Infiniti G35 Coupe, a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX GSR, a 2004 Lotus Elise 111R, a 1994 Nissan Skyline GT-R VSpec II, a 1995 Toyota Celica GT-Four rally car, and a 2006 Ferrari 599 (hurrah).

The actual gameplay is best described as minimal – the only game mode available to you when you first play GT HD Concept is Time Trial, which requires you to complete a lap within a target time. The first lap, you have no option but to drive the laughably underpowered Suzuki Cappuccino, but once you have completed a lap within the target time, you can exit, and you will win the next car. Once you have opened up all the cars, you are given access to Drift Trial mode and you can now opt to go round the track in the opposite direction. And, er, that’s it.

Which may sound a tad underwhelming, but bear this in mind: it’s Gran Turismo, it’s on the PS3, it runs in 1080p and it’s free. And it should keep you occupied for a fair while. There are a few points worth noting, too. Before you start each run, you can adjust your car’s paint-job, plus auto/manual transmission, stability management on/off, traction control level (up to 10), front and rear tyre types (there are three each, in normal, sport and racing varieties, making nine overall) and course direction.

The Drift Trial mode is quite fun: as you approach a corner and induce the tyres to unstick from the tarmac, a line of red flag outlines appears on the screen; as you sustain your drift, these fill up and, as long as you keep it on the road, you get a points score for your drift after the corner, which is added up to a total for each lap. Hit the fence, and you lose your drift points.

There is also support for a variety of steering wheels, and you can customise the control setup – which is pretty much typical for Gran Turismo, except that triangle is reverse, and you must press Select to change the view. As ever with a Gran Turismo game, it’s more controllable when you opt to steer with the D-Pad, rather than the left analogue stick. It does, naturally, look absolutely sumptuous, but then so it should.

Currently, there’s no news regarding what the first extra downloads for the game will be, nor when they will arrive. In its base state, then, it’s something of an academic exercise: it’s up to you to keep on improving your times in each car, on each track direction. And while you can’t yet play it online (eventually, you will be able to, and more tracks, cars and most importantly game modes will appear in the PlayStation Store), you can get an overall World Ranking in comparison with everybody else who has downloaded the game. But clearly, the main function of Gran Turismo HD Concept is to get everyone with a PS3 to get to grips with the PlayStation Network – after all, if you had a PS3, you’d be insane not to download it.

By Steve Boxer