trickytree

As if Jedward aren't obnoxious enough, or the unfathomable lies that suggest Terry Wogan and Dame Helen Mirren really do use the DS/Wii regularly, Nintendo's latest ad appears to suggest that the Wii now cures Parkinson's disease and all other known ailments World peace with an end to all wars next?

Your maths are going a bit wonky again - Moussi was fine deputising for Skip in the Cov game, and that wasn't 10 games ago It's time for Dele and Earnie to have a few games together (if they can manage it) - Dele's been tremendous this season, he basically rips new arseholes for any centre half who gets near him, then calmly lays the ball off - exactly what we need when we're not playing well. Earnie will score loads of goals if they get a run of games together. I also hope McCleary gets a few games instead of Anderson, who's been useless lately. Not exactly his fault, as he's usually asked to play on the left, when he's only just good enough to play on the right.

I reckon for those kind of features where you don't have much new info and the subject matter is fairly well known, instead of one long passage of text which gets a bit tedious, some kind of boxout layout with more pics and a few facts might be more interesting to read. The layout you use for Mr Campbell's game series features would be perfect, a boxout for each game with pictures and a short piece of text.

I agree with most of what you said, but things smashing into concrete-like ribbons, or bouncing off other cars dodgems-style are proper realism breakers, and have been done so much better in other racing games. Gran Turismo shouldn't get any special treatment just for being Gran Turismo.

Still waiting? The install sat on '3 seconds approx." for about 15 minutes!

No, the servers weren't up last time I checked. Makes sense as the proper release date isn't until tomorrow.

Had another hour or so with it, and: It seems most of the framerate/tearing issues are confined to cockpit view, bumper/roof cam stay smooth 99% of the time. Not yet got to any tracks with weather during GT mode, so don't know how they are affected. I might have been a tad harsh on the graphics - the cars and lighting effects are great. Trackside objects and shadows are rough though, and karting still looks horrible. Wasn't NASCAR at least supposed to have damage? Just had a couple of events (introduced by a zombie Jeff Gordon in a horrible 'cutscene') and it was the usual GT bumper cars routine. Sega's Daytona had better collisions/damage modelling! So far, so GT.

I had a quick bash at rallying in Arcade Mode and wasn't impressed - wide tracks, tape barriers acting like concrete, same as GT4 really. Nothing really to conclude of course until I try rallying in GT mode. My overall impression sadly is that the game is stuck in the past, the dev's comment about not looking at other racing games shows, and not in a positive way.

Forza sometimes looks a bit 'arcade racer', but it's technically a good deal 'tidier' than GT5 (fps/tearing/textures etc.). I hate to say it, but if there's any kind of built-up action in GT5 (ie. 2-3 cars close up, and/or weather/smoke effects) then the framerate drops and the tearing kicks in. Framerate doesn't seem to go below 30 in-race (it does in replays), but the fluctuation can be a bit jarring, especially as it's usually on a tricky corner in traffic when you need a consistent framerate the most! This is mostly why it feels unfinished.

That's a very odd way of doing things, it definitely takes away from the realism. You'll be pleased to know you can start driving in 'normal' competitions without having to do licenses or karting. There's an experience levelling system as in Forza, doing the license tests gives you experience so you can start driving at higher level competitions (as usual the opening races are 'win while half-asleep' difficulty). Higher levels also unlock 'special events', such as NASCAR and rally races - karting is one of these.

Cheers. It doesn't always look shite, but it does look and feel unfinished in many places. Sony definitely went down the 'release this now or not at all' route, as with the PSP version.

Ok then, 1080p PS2 graphics. Better? Really, you have to see the first kart race - shockingly bad. To summarise - anyone who said this will just be 'GT4 HD edition' is right, I have no idea why this has taken so long to be released. It's a solid enough Gran Turismo game but it's long since been overtaken by others - Dirt 2 and yes, Forza 3.

That's fan-boy central though, isn't it?

Read back through the thread, I've been looking forward to this as much as anyone. At the moment though I'm hugely underwhelmed I notice also that there's no online reviews for this yet... hmmm...

I tried it at 720p and there is less tearing/fps drops, but they're still there, and with extra fuzziness to boot.

Oof, the kart racing looks awful, sub-PS2 even. The stubbornness to support 1080p seems to have back-fired, the extra res just highlights the graphical cutbacks needed to hit that res in the first place. It's very much like running an ancient PC game at a super-high res, expecting it to look great but in reality it just looks more dated. This very often looks like a high-res PS2 game. My 'standard' MR-2 doesn't have a cockpit view, not even a generic one - chase, bumper and roof cams only. Is that how it is all for all 'standard model' cars?

This should probably go in the framerate thread, but this game has some major visual problems - the framerate regularly dips well below 60, there's a good dollop of mid-screen tearing (no hiding it at the top like Wipeout HD), textures are poor and anything in the distance is extremely fuzzy looking, probably due to the 'fake' upscaled 1080p. On the plus side, there are some lovely effects, the spectrum of colour when turning quickly past the sun is very nice, and the day-night transitions are well done too (although how the hell do I switch my lights on permanently?) Overall though it really doesn't have the wow factor of previous GTs - my jaw was on the floor for days watching GT3's demos.

Same for me too, the guy's hilarious and should have his own column. I can't quite believe you interview the guy who converted Donkey Kong to the VCS, commending him on his achievement, and then on the very next page say that it's a crap conversion even for the VCS! Love the interviews and the coin-op capers feature, but the wordy trudges through well known series (DKC this time) are as boring to read as ever.

Well, release day is tomorrow, not today. It's not Sony's fault places sell this early. EDIT: As Hawkeye just said

Not too keen on Side Arms, too many enemies attacking from behind messing with my instinct to hug the left border - I don't like the backwards shooting thing either. I'm also not keen on games where you shoot the power-up to get different weapons. Forgotten Worlds is a sort of stylistic sequel, and does the multi-direction thing much better. Best hori is a tie between Aero Blasters/Air Buster and Gynoug/Wings Of Wor

That could mean anything, like they've already decided GT6 will have cars in it.

Is that the secret love child of Gaia Seed and Giga Wing?

...and it's the same name as in the screenshot. 8-bit games liked doing this, it used some screen space up to reduce slowdown. A kind of retro sub-HD alternative.

Us PS3 owners can FINALLY export our RB2 tracks - the download is now there. Only cost 95p too, isn't it 800 points on 360? How much is that in proper money?

nullDC is progressing nicely, compatibility is considerably higher than it was a couple of years ago. Get the latest revision from www.emucr.com (currently 1.0.4 r84). You need the two BIOS files as Qazimod explained. I'd recommend you use GDI rather than CDI game images, GDI images are clean dumps whereas CDI versions are scene releases with stuff ripped/downsampled in many games.