Game Reviews

Polyphony Digital has long been the king of simulation racing. Its Gran Turismo franchise broke onto the scene a decade ago on the original PlayStation and revolutionized what a videogame racing title could be. The second game pushed the envelope, while the third and fourth hit the PlayStation 2 and pushed the genre to unparalleled heights. Some 47 million shipped copies later, Gran Turismo is making its first official "full" release on the PlayStation 3 with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Much like GT4 Prologue, the game serves as something of a taster for the full Gran Turismo 5 experience, which is still a year or so out. Some folks are calling it a demo, which I don't think is entirely correct. While it's true that the amount of content pales in comparison to what we'll see with the full GT5 release, Prologue still includes roughly 70 cars and a half-dozen tracks, a couple of which feature alternative routes that drastically change their layout, bumping the number of "unique" courses closer to 10, and that's not counting reverse routes.