It’s all hoodwinking and bamboozling these days it seems. If it’s not one site trying to get one up on another, it’s famed developers faking their own screenshots. Case in point: check out a recent image from Gran Turismo 5 and the veritable cavalcade of discrepancies eagle-eyed conspiracy theorists have noticed.
Taken verbatim from Andriasang:
1. The mini map appears to show the player’s car in the incorrect area.
2. There are four cars in front of the player, but these are not on the mini map.
3. The mini map shows 20 cars when the position display lists 16 cars.
4. Even though this is the first lap, there are cars scattered about the mini map.
5. If this is the Suzuka Circuit, it shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes to get through a full course. Why does the timer show 5:25?
6. If this is the first lap, why is “Last Lap” shown in the upper right?
7. If this is the first lap, why is there a Best Lap time shown? (The image creator notes that the game could be including past lap times.)
8. Why does the white car in front not have its break lights flashing when it’s going into a hairpin turn?
9. Why do the analogue and digital speed readouts differ? (The image creator notes that this could be due to the analogue pointer being simulated properly.)
Producer Kazunori Yamauchi has responded to the ‘scandal’ on Twitter, apologising for the possible misdirection but explaining that the doctored screens are simply early design images. He goes on to suggest that, next time, maybe they should take some actual screenshots during online play. Pro-tip there, Kaz.
Continuing with controversy, Yamauchi has also responded to the use of certain flags in the game’s Siena track; iconic imagery Italy’s Consortium for the Protection of the Palio have since stated must be removed. With authorisation for their inclusion in the game not given to Sony, the touchy Italians could cause Polyphony some headaches. Yamauchi confirms, however, that a LittleBigPlanet style delay is not on the cards:
“We can delete it in an instant, but the flags of the city’s various wards, which serve as one part of the beautiful background of ancient Siena, are vivid and beautiful. It’s unfortunate to have them removed.”
Hey, Yamauchi-san, don’t fight this one and just remove the bloody flags. We’ve waited long enough.
Source: Andriasang
badgersnapper68
Some magazines have far too much time on their hands.
dude90
Bloody hell, i saw this and thought it may have been a deliberate mistake.
cc_star
Nothing wrong with mockups, ever.
As long as they are labelled as such, passing stuff off as something its not is wrong.
On a side note (and said slightly tongue in cheek, but with an element of truth) They pass off replay mode footage as gameplay, and always have done.
Even though the replay mode has loads of post-processing effects added that aren’t possible in real time.
bunimomike
I remind my clients regularly that my mockups for them are illustrative and show layout/function/etc, as oppose to correct details (eg. text in a dropdown, etc).
Most understand but some have to reply and pull it apart. *yawns* They just won’t listen.
shields_t
Right there with you CC_Star, I mean it isn’t as if the final product (if we ever see it) is going to report cars in wrong places around the track, get the wrong times, cock up the breaklights etc.
bajere
same here, you need to do that in the early stages
Paranoimia
That’s not just Polyphony, though. All racers are advertised the same way. GT, Forza, Dirt, Blur, NFS… they’re all advertised using some form of replay/external camera and the effects they entail.
No-one in their right mind is going to think that replays are gameplay footage – you couldn’t possibly play the game from those angles.
And while we don’t mind when we’re playing, showing actual gameplay footage consisting almost solely of either a clear track or the back end of the car in front is no way to advertise a racing game.
That said, replays are part of playing the game, so essentially they are gameplay footage.
cc_star
Just the same as we all know cgi cutscenes aren’t worth a diddly squat when judging a game, replay modes aren’t either.
However companies are happy to let people’s misconception permeate that replay modes are gameplay rather than just an enhanced mode of in-game footage.
Kinda like airbrushing models in magazines… It needs labelling as to what it is
Deathbrin
If you can view a replay in game, it _is_ in-game footage.
Deathbrin
Sorry, misread that one. Discard.
Paranoimia
Do people really need to be told? Wouldn’t that be a bit like putting a ‘may contain nuts’ warning on a bag of KP?
Granted, with a photo, unless you’re an expert, you don’t know for sure that it’s been retouched/airbrushed.
But with a racing game, it should be fairly obvious that you don’t actually play the game from the point of view of a track-side camera. So perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t see how people can confuse replay footage with actual gameplay.
(Reading that back, it sounds like I’m being terribly sarcastic… but it’s not intended that way.)
Having said that, the quality of the replays has always been a very large part of the attraction of the Gran Turismo series, right from the very first game on PS1 – so it’s not surprising that Polyphony leverage it when plugging the game.
My personal opinion is that, with other genres, you can get a feel for the game by watching a video of actual gameplay, but that’s not the case with racing games.
The main attractions of any racing sim are the handling, the selection of cars available, and the tracks. No ‘actual gameplay’ video is ever going to successfully communicate the feel of the handling, so when publicising a game, they go with the other two – and the selection of cars and tracks are infinitely better served when shown from an external, replay-style camera.
Mick939
Remember the killzone 2 ‘mock up video’ the real thing was just the same
BIGAL-1992
I’m more concerned about this flag debacle. We’ve waited FIVE years for this game. If it gets delayed, the person responsible will need an armour-plated car and a hell of a lot of bodyguards.
Ryan1991
Removing flags from a game can be done in minutes.
Kovacs
Indeed – as Kaz confirmed himself (see above).
ii3illy
Those orphaned children in Pakistan must be so angry at this right now..
seedaripper1973
*claps*
You must be a fan of doug Stanhope (i certainly am)
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/172855/Doug-Stanhope-Deadbeat-Hero.html
cc_star
Doug Stanhope is brilliant, I loved his pieces on Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe
Kovacs
Also:
“Why does the white car in front not have its break lights flashing when it’s going into a hairpin turn?”
You can brake in racing games?
;)
cc_star
Just T-bone the car in front, no breaks required
Kovacs
That’s what I’m thinking …
hazelam
br… eak. o_O
what is this word break?
you mean slowing down by hitting the barriers?
bunimomike
It’s “brake” you gaggle of illiterate slags! :-p
cc_star
That’s what happens when I’ve been looking at a PC monitor for 9hrs straight.
Anyway I’m glad our esteemed News Editor got it wrong before me, although I could hit the edit button and make your post gibberish ;)
Also, it’s not a gaggle of slags but a stable of slags… or was that prostitutes, I can’t remember.
teflon
you don’t need to be able to spell to slag it up…
3shirts
Maybe they are referring to the introduction of damage?
bunimomike
@cc – I remember Paul Kaye (he who was Dennis Pennis) referring to the collective noun as follows:
A Westlife of Co**suckers! Hahaha! Still makes me laugh.
Sorry, as you were. :-)
gazzagb
I really don’t care that they’ve faked a screenshot. You can’t judge a game by a screenshot, I mainly judge games gameplay videos if Demo’s arent available.
teflon
Don’t really care here either.
Aside from the inconsistencies, will the game look this good when it’s released? I think we all know that yes it will.
fps_d0minat0r
“8. Why does the white car in front not have its break lights flashing when it’s going into a hairpin turn?”
because he wants to die…..atleast that ones explainable.
“3. The mini map shows 20 cars when the position display lists 16 cars.”
4 killed them selves but it takes a second to remove them from the map and the screenshot was taken right in between that second.
two down seven to go!
KeRaSh
Wow, some people just love to stare at things and find faults in them. I don’t think I’d have spotted any mistakes when looking at the screenshot because I simply wouldn’t expect any…