WTCC Professional Racer Kevin Nai-Chia Chen’s Test Drive of Playstation 3 Gran Turismo 5

Details
Published on Thursday, 02 December 2010 16:12

Best Car Racing Game - Gran Turismo 5

After 5 years of waiting, Gran Turismo 5 has finally been released.  Gran Turismo is the most-played car racing game on the market.  Gran Turismo has over 1000 cars in its collection and the new GT5 has rain and night modes.  Sony Playstation Taiwan and Nextmedia invited WTCC pro race car driver Kevin Nai-Chia Chen from Taiwan to test drive the new GT5.


 

Kevin test drove with McLaren MP-12C as well as GTR G500.

 


Kevin Nai-Chia Chen's Profile.
Age: 31
2003/2004 SCCA T2/T1 Champion
2005: Fastest lap record for Willow Springs
2008: Asia Formula V6 Malaysia Stop 2nd place
2008: Asia Formula V6 Shanhai Stop 2nd place
2008-2009: Asia GP2 top 15
2009: Asia Formula v^ Malaysia Stop 2nd place
2009: Europe F3 Belize, Spain top 10
2010: WTCC Macau stop 4th place


Gran Turismo has a collection of over 1000 cars and over 20 world circuits. Kevin is very satisfied after viewing the lists.  He said: “most of them are street cars, including Le Mans, GT500, WRC race cars, however, Gran Turismo didn't include my WTCC race cars and doesn't have Asia tracks such as Macau as well as Malaysia.”

Kevin is very impressed with the Rain Mode.  He said that even the professional driving simulator "rFactor" doesn't have such mode.

However, Kevin believes that car damage could be a little bit more developed.  No matter how hard he crashed the car, only a few scratches and some dents in the bumpers appeared. A player thus has no understanding that in real life, if a race car driver gets into an accident,there will be costly –or even deadly-- damage.  Kevin believes that car damage should be more realistic.

Kevin says that GT5's most realistic driving is the rain mode.  The game simulates how the car performs under less tire friction, such as understeer, acceleration oversteer, and if traction control is turned off, you can’t even accelerate in a straight line.  If you turn the viewing mode to cockpit mode, it accurately simulates what I see on the actual tracks.

However, under dry mode, GT5 lacks realistic simulation because of the arcade feel of the car damage.  Because of the lack of  car damage, players can bump into other cars and use other cars on the track as brake assist, which makes this game feel more like arcade driving than race simulation.

Conclusion:

Kevin thinks that GT5 is very professional, it's almost close to a professional training program.  Compared to the last version, GT4, the graphics have improved dramatically.