Soapbox Time?

I'm a huge fan of the Gran Turismo series. I'd almost go as far as to say I'm a fanboy, but I think I fall short in a few areas.

But there isn't a GT game that could ever be bad, in my opinion. I see people complaining everywhere that GT5 is incomplete, rehashed, downright horrible, pretty graphics on top of a bad game, whatever. But when I look at the series, I see something that Mr. Yamauchi is striving for. None of the games to date have been complete. None of them are perfect.

But Kaz wants perfection. PD has to launch a game every once in a while to allow Kaz to continue developing his vision. It wasn't clear to me until just today exactly what Kaz is looking to do. I read an article posted on GTPlanet about presentation Kaz did at D.I.C.E 2011 yesterday, and it started to make sense, but my confidence in the Gran Turismo community plummeted.

Kaz has a vision, and it is literally impossible to realize today. Kaz has a goal that is unattainable right now. But he is using everything he has at his disposal to make take the GT series closer and closer to that goal with every iteration. He faces hardware limitations, funding limitations, time limitations, and a bag chock full of much more.

There's a small class of people who really appreciate this fact. People like me who aren't necessarily satisfied with the current iteration of GT, but know that it isn't the result of bad direction, but a very well-thought out approach to realizing a vision.

Theory: GT must progress slowly. It has to. I remember the horrible reception Need For Speed: Pro Street had when it first launched. "Where is the free roam!?" was one of the most common questions I had seen in those days. A lot of people called Pro Street a spinoff, but I really think we need to look at it as a stepping-stone of sorts. The producers of NFS needed to try something new to introduce sanctioned events and such, but they didn't know exactly how to do it and have it received with any sort of credibility behind it. Pro Street was definitely a transition piece into the amazing NFS: Shift series.

But PD and Kaz aren't going about it that way. Kaz doesn't want to produce an entirely new game. What he is doing is adding pieces to the existing game while improving all of the core features of the game in parallel, with his goal in sight. GT5 brought to the table physical damage, online racing, track generation, and a bunch of other cool features. But the rest of the game has improved also. Since GT4 and GT5:P, the physics model has been greatly improved. The car models on a portion of the car list have been HUGELY improved. The AI has improved, but still isn't quite perfect.

I believe what Kaz and the team at PD have accomplished in 5 years is well worth an applause. But resources are limited. Kaz didn't have the manhours on hand to do Premium models for every one of the 1000 cars in the game. Between that and figuring out how to store/load the models, and you have a HUGE dilemma which I think Kaz has approached wisely. Instead of scrapping new features in the game to make time for more Premium cars, he allowed us a small selection of Premium cars to admire while more are modeled.

I feel as though he's been merciful. Online mode was not ready for launch, but contrary to his own well-known convictions, he launched GT5. A patch came along shortly after launch to "complete" the package. He could very well have left that out completely until it was ready, but he's giving us what he feels is important to show the progression of the series.


The community doesn't want to see it. All the community sees are the shortcomings. We refuse to see anything but the poor standard models and some of the lack-luster track models. We won't look past the repetitive grind at higher levels, or the AI that brakes sometimes at random locations on the track.

No one seems to care about Kaz's vision. No one wants to know what he wants to do. All that matters to nearly the entire GT community is what Kaz is going to do right now to make things better. "When is the next update?" "When will we get more Premium models?" "When will you fix the AI?" Those are all great questions, and to be honest I'm interested in the answers myself. But GT5 is NOT a horrible game, in my eyes, because it feels incomplete.

Besides, it isn't GT5 that's incomplete, it's the series that is incomplete. Chances are it will never be complete. But as long as Kaz is able to work toward his vision, there will be improvements and additions. Every single thing that Kaz has done right shines and will continue to shine in my eyes and overshadow things that are far from perfect, because I love the series. I love Gran Turismo.