- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue gets off to flying start in London
- Date: 6th April 2008
- Summary: CROWD WATCHING DRIVER PLAY GRAN TURISMO (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) GAMER AND GT5 COMPETITION WINNER, DREW FORSTER, SAYING: "It's much better, um, the graphics, the engines -- a lot faster. The physics and -- it actually handles like a real car, which Gran Turismo has always been famous for, but now even more so. It does actually behave as you'd expect a car to."
- Embargoed: 21st April 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Lifestyle
- Reuters ID: LVAEJG7AY4DPOIDZLE6NHWJHF9SO
- Story Text: Virtual London streets serve as the setting for the new preview to Sony PlayStation's new Gran Turismo game.
A national competition, a selection of real super cars and a mocked up "pit lane" in London greeted the European preview of Sony PlayStation's newest version of race driving videogame Gran Turismo this week.
Red Ferraris, a yellow Lotus convertible and the newly unveiled Nissan GT-R were some of the 17 cars assembled in an underground car park in central London decorated to look like a pit lane and packed with gamers, models, a bar with staff dressed as pit crew and a DJ pumping out music.
Guests were invited to test out the latest versi on of the game in four arcade-style "cars" at the Thursday evening event.
Any one of 71 cars can be raced virtually in 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue', which is, as the title suggests, an introduction to the full game.
There are six tracks, including a route through central London that would make most of London's boy racers salivate, and gamers can also challenge other rev-heads world-wide thanks to an online function.
Sony is hoping games such as Gran Turismo will help PlayStation 3 claw back market share lost to cheaper consoles produced by rivals, including Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox. The company says more than 50 million copies of previous versions of Gran Turismo have been sold worldwide.
"The team reiterate the game every few years," said Simon Roberts, senior producer for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. "Every single car has its own sound, its own feel, its own weight, its own behaviour, its own stopping distance, its own turning angle - all these different things - and when the player actually plays the car they feel that from the model.
That's the whole point of having all the different cars, it's not just the that they look great, it's the fact they all feel different."
Self-confessed geek gamer and winner of a nation-wide GT5 competition, Drew Forster, agreed the game makes for a realistic experience.
"'It's much better, um, the graphics, the engines -- a lot faster," Forster said. It actually handles like a real car, which Gran Turismo has always been famous for, but now even more so. It does actually behave as you'd expect a car to."
As the GT-5 champion, Forster took home a trophy and two tickets to the Le Mans 24-hour race in June - although whether he'll make it to the race remains to be seen.
"As I said, I will give it to my Dad and go with him if I can but I might have exams at the time, so we'll have to see," he told Reuters.
Gran Turismo 5 release date is still a secret, but it is expected to come out within the next year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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