[PS2] GT 4 Online

[.:|Physalis|:.]

Articolo di IGN

QUI

The dream of online Gran Turismo came closer to reality this past week as Sony Computer Entertainment and Polyphony Digital shipped out beta copies of Gran Turismo 4 Online for the PlayStation 2 to a lucky chosen few. IGN managed to tag along for the ride and can deliver impressions and movies of GT4 being played over the 'net.

First, just to clear up some confusion, the title Polyphony is testing here isn't actually set for release. There may have been talk of an online PlayStation 2 update to Gran Turismo 4 in the past, but as of this writing, Polyphony has yet to formally announce such a product. Similar to the Gran Turismo HD demo from E3, Gran Turismo 4 Online is being used by Polyphony to test its technology for future games. The game may eventually be released for the PS2, or the technology may end up being used on the PlayStation 3. We'll have to wait and see what Sony announces in the coming months.

GT4 Online is, simply put, Gran Turismo 4 with online play. Beta testers have been given what appears to be a functional GT4 disk with one new option included from the main menu: Online. Select this, and you're first taken through a quick initialization process. The game, expectedly, recognizes your Online connection automatically. While you're required to input your GranTurismo.com login and password, this is saved after the first input and is no longer prompted for again. Presumably, even this initial step will be done away with on the PS3, which will have a common login and billing system.

Get through the initialization, and you're taken to the game's Online Home hub screen. From here, you can access a quick garage to change your current car, access a settings editor to change the settings on your current car, and choose to go into a number of different race modes.

You can also adjust your profile from the hub screen, changing your age, adding a comment, and managing your friends and ignore lists. The friend and ignore lists can be appended from anywhere in the hub by selecting another player and viewing his profile. As with the login, friend list management is an area that will presumably be tied in with an overall account on the PS3, although it's handled smoothly in GT4 as is.

Those who want to get into an online race quickly can select from Quick Race and Tuned Car Race. In Quick Race, you select from pre-designed race events and use pre-chosen cars. Once you've selected an event -- the beta had just four when we played -- you're automatically grouped together with other racers and are taken to a chat room where you can start off your race.

Tuned Car Race is similar, but you use your own car. The events require that your car meet certain requirements in terms of specifications, or you're not allowed to enter.

The greatest amount of activity seemed to take place in the Private Race mode. In this mode, players can create their own chat lobby, assigning a password in order to keep the lobby locked to friends. At most 100 people can enter a chat room at once. When we played, most of the activity seemed to take place in a couple of the chat rooms, but this is probably because only 500 people were connected. We noticed people creating themed rooms, some requiring that you have particular cars and some targeting beginners. Some rooms listed themselves as being for chat-purposes only.

Once you're in a room, you're free to chat, check out rival profiles, join a race that's seeking out entrants, or create your own race. The race creation lets you select course type, lap number and player number (up to six, as with the game's Offline mode). You can set up a password if you like and choose to allow or disallow voice chat. Races that have been created are listed on the main chat screen along with information on current number of participants and icons indicating if the race allows for voice chat, or if the members are currently racing.

Regardless of your race preferences, prior to an actual race, you're taken to a chat interface. From here, you can modify your car color, change your car (depending on the type of race), set the lap count, and get the dirt on your opponents. You can also, of course, chat! The game allows for USB keyboard, software keyboard, voice chat, and chat via pre-written messages. We couldn't find anyone actually engaging in voice chat, so we couldn't test this out. Most of our fellow players seemed to be using the pre-set phrases, although a few obviously had keyboards.

Get into a race, and you'll find the same Gran Turismo experience we've known for years, although with a few rough areas. The game, while still one of the finest technical achievements on the PS2, drops from its slick 60 frames per second frame rate when playing Online. We also noticed bits of stutter here and there, visible in our videos, presumably due to lag. It didn't really get in the way of gameplay, but we're hoping Polyphony will be able to refine things to make the experience as smooth as possible.

GT4 Online proves to be an enjoyable racing experience, especially when you have six racers in some of the narrower city tracks. The more expansive tracks weren't as exciting, but that would likely change when racing with friends and using voice chat.

On top of all the online content, the beta title includes a surprising amount of Offline content. In addition to adjusting all the options from the original GT4 (this includes setting the game to play in 1080i) and playing through arcade mode, we found much of Gran Turismo Mode unlocked and billions of credits waiting to be used for purchases. This shouldn't really be that big a deal for Sony's bottom line, as the people chosen for the beta program are members of the Gran Turismo Online fan club, and they've probably played GT4 to death.

Polyphony's first test with online Gran Turismo seems to be a success. The game's interface is fast and intuitive, and the actual racing portion, while suffering from occasional lag, is lots of fun. With Online racing being this polished on the PS2, it would be a shame to see this technology be postponed for the PS3. Either way, we can't wait until online Gran Turismo becomes accessible to everyone.

[Kiwi]

non ho voglia di leggerlo, ma dalle prime righe mi sembra quello che ho letto pochi giorni fa
se è quello in poche parole dice che alcuni beta testers americani hanno ricevuto il gioco, ma non sarà mai pubblicato, infatti, come GT4HD( :notte:) si tratta di un semplice progetto per testare delle funzionalità (in questo caso l'online) che saranno presenti sul prossimo capitolo.

[.:|Physalis|:.]

Alla faccia dei pionieri tecnologici eh... :lol2:

[Turrican3]

Letto tutto. (again! )

Mi sembra una mossa un po' tardiva, qualora decidessero davvero di pubblicarlo (a che prezzo poi?! :boom:).

La storia del frame rate sotto i 60fps nell'online mode poi non mi piace per niente...

(eventuale, poco probabile) acquisto da valutare con estrema attenzione per quanto mi riguarda.

[Biggy]

La storia del frame rate sotto i 60fps nell'online mode poi non mi piace per niente...

E secondo te perchè l'hanno cannato da quella sottospecie di datadisk  ?

Io invece spero che un GTHD con online nuove modalità, danni, + auto in pista e AI all'altezza venga rilasciato, anche senza grosse modifiche alla grafica e al parco macchine.

Magari più che HD potrebbero chiamarlo Online o Network, o "Gran Turismo HD Online" 

GT4 era veramente lacunoso, potrebbero rimediare

[Kiwi]

niente GTHD, era solo un "esperimento" (imho per romperci le palle durante la conferenza  :teach:) per provare alcune cose su PS3

[Turrican3]

niente GTHD, era solo un "esperimento" (imho per romperci le palle durante la conferenza  :teach:) per provare alcune cose su PS3

Spero che questo "esperimento" non venga messo in vendita come accaduto con il Prologue... (che sono pure riuscito a comprare :ohno: :serio:)

[Kiwi]

da quanto so, niente vendita!
in teoria GT5 dovrebbe uscire nel 2007, speriamo

[.:|Physalis|:.]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! :lol2:

LINK

[Biggy]

Beh siamo alle solite.

[Turrican3]

Comunque è sempre TheInquirer... le prenderei con le pinze queste notizie :boom:

[.:|Physalis|:.]

Almeno fanno colore... :silvio: