Title Gran Turismo HD Date 02.18.2006 Genre Driving Sim Platform PlayStation 3 Developer Polyphony Digital Publisher SCEA

At E3 2006, Polyphony released word of a next generation game for the PlayStation 3. Many people though this "game" was just a demo to Gran Turismo 5, only to be played at E3. That was until Polyphony announced that not only was it a technical demo, it's an actual game. Many people would have been thrilled about this if they also hadn't put in the feature of which 90% of the game you had to buy from the PlayStation Store ranging from 50 cents to $5.00 dollars. So in order to unlock everything in the game, you had to pay around $500-$1000 dollars. As many people could pre-determine, fans were far from willing to pay that much. Thus hearing this, Polyphony then brought the project to a free version of the game via the PlayStation Store on December 24, 2006. The current download version features online score recording, 10 cars that can be timed, trialed and drifted, and 10 tuned versions of those cars.

In order to get this game, you must download it from the PlayStation Store. In order to access the PlayStation Store, you need to hook up the PlayStation 3 to the internet. When you do so, access the PlayStation Store. When you do, go to games and look for "Gran Turismo HD Concept" and click on the download button. Wait 15 minutes and the first version of Gran Turismo HD is yours to keep.  The game can be played under the games file in your PlayStation 3 browser.

The sounds of the game are beautiful, especially in HD. Without HD, you can here a better quality of sounds than in the previous games quality. The magic, however, comes in when you hook up to an HD Television with Surround sound clarity. The engines are amazingly realistic and the music is a knock out to critics (Such as me). You can hear the crowd in the background while you are driving. You can hear in the most clarity on how you are shifting gears. All of this will lead to a nice, relaxing drive.

The gameplay for this game is a definite push from the past game for the PlayStation 2. The driving schemes haven't gotten a bit more real this time around. And by I mean real, I really mean harder to control. Fortunately, the user can switch between control schemes for their pleasure. So far, this game only contains one track to play on, forward and backwards. Not only that, but there are no actual "races." The only things available to do are Time trials, where you can compete or high-scores online or your own. Same deal for the other mode Drift, except you are competing for scores on drift skills. Once you beat time trial with all the default cars, you get to play with the tuned cars, aka better cars. It is unknown whether or not there will be races in future races.

The graphics, like the sounds, are a step up from the previous games. But, also like the sounds, the magic is released with HD. When you hook up to HD, you can see inside the car clearly and the driver with his helmet switching gears at points. The outside of the car is wonderful as well, the car is shining like it rolled out of the factory and was given a fresh wash. The chrome of the cars are also to be reckoned with.

The cars in this game, like the other games, are all licensed cars from real companies from around the globe. The quality put into these cars are really outdone, it really fits the PS3 standard abilities. There are slow cars for beginner’s races and sports cars which zoom real fast down the track. This area really shouldn't surprise any fan of the Gran Turismo series.

At this point in the release of the game, it's hard to put a definite mark on the game. So for now I give it a B until further releases and updates.

Game Score

B

Reviewed By: William Roebuck