Last week’s Tweak It clearly indicated that Xboxers are still in a minority around here. Either that or most of you think the Xbox 360’s NXE is brilliant and doesn’t need changing. Fortunately there were a number of you who did have some tweaks. Here are the edited highlights:
- Remove the adverts. Predictably this was the most popular suggestion given the 360’s more prominent advertising on the primary level of the NXE through the Spotlight and three Marketplace ‘channels’.
- Allow copying of music and video files to the 360’s HDD. Given the 360’s superior custom soundtracks option the ability to drop all or part of your existing music library on it sure would be useful. ~ Mason_Mk, FPS_Rockstar, OneShotWook
- Remember where you were when you switch ‘channels’. One of my pet hates. “If you accidentally press up or down and get to another row, which happens quite often with the 360 dpad, then you have to scroll over to the option you want again as it always resets to the far left option” ~ hazelam
This week we are asking you how you would tweak Polyphony Digital’s self-proclaimed “real driving simulator”, Gran Turismo 5. This isn’t the first time I’ve turned a critical eye on GT5. Last December, almost a month after launch, I contrasted what I perceived as being the good and bad about it, asking whether it was sublime or ridiculous.
Since then two of the five fixes I wanted have been made during the many updates the game has received. Those updates have brought many other changes such as adding Seasonal Events and improving the AI. There are always more improvements that could be made though. With three of my earlier ones still outstanding I am still going to add a couple more to kick off this week’s Tweak It discussion:
- An option to display corner names for real-world tracks all the time, not just when you are playing certain Special Events.
- An option to run the rendering engine, during races, in 720p mode, using the extra resources made available to improve shadow and alpha resolution and reduce the horrific screen-tear. Then scale it and slap the 1080p H.U.D. back on it. I think that would result in a better looking game and improve the experience.
In the eight months since the game’s release many of you should have been able to spend a good deal of quality time with it. How would you tweak Gran Turismo 5?
ashw92
I think picking it up for a quick race should be a lot easier to do. The game is very slow to navigate and almost impossible to quickly hop online for some racing.
Also bringing in mid race saving for the endurance races is a must.
gideon1451
Make online work. It’s such a mess, I never bother to use it.
yiddo
This most definitely. It’s more of a mess than a katona/price lovechild.
cam the man
Never played online since the TSA tournament, got so peed off with the disconnections.
Kennykazey
– New tracks and premium cars should have been released as dlc a long time ago. It’s too late to start with it now unless they release a huge expansion to counter forza 4.
– A better car paintshop allowing vinyls to be added, and with the paint items sorted in a more user friendly way.
– Another optional install moving all the menus and tracks to the HDD for a speedup.
– I agree with the 720p rendering
– 4 player split-screen
– Ability to change car after loading a track.
– GT6
mynameisblair
One word:
Tag.
Danlord
Gran Turismo is my favourite franchise for PlayStation and has always been a great experience since the PS1, but I do feel that Gran Turismo 5 has somehow, slipped. There are numerous tweaks I personally would do that could enhance the experience further, because some aspects actually shine true to the GT experience;
– Replace Quincunx Anti-Aliasing to Morphological Anti-Aliasing
– Change to 1280x720p60 for rendering, with an upscaler to 1080p
– In Photo-mode, add an option for multiple cars like a showroom similar to Project Gotham Racing
– Let me rotate and navigate the car when in Buy Mode, also render in full 1080p.
– Every single car should be of highest quality, the ‘Standard’ cars are abysmal and I question the motive for that decision
– As highlighted by DR-DAVROS, a standing start for the Top Gear Test Track, and on that note also add all the reasonably priced cars
– Arcade Mode should let me use every car [except maybe the ultimate unlocks like the F1 cars and the Red Bull X1), because sometimes I just want to jump into the Nurburgring with a Bugatti Veyron for half an hour instead of the GT Mode.
– Improve the dreadful alpha mapping or whatever is causing the artifacts with smoke when a car passes in front of it
– Paint. I think it is utterly ridiculous that I cannot paint a car any colour I want because I haven’t unlocked it, I should be able to choose what colour I want.
– Custom Soundtrack when I am racing a game, so I can just pause the game and select specific tracks rather than having to do it my the settings menu out of race
– Upload to YouTube option for replays
– More cars that can have the racing decals purchased for
– Downloadable Content. I want to have a nice stream of cars added to the game, old and new. Additional photo-mode places, F1 vehicles from newer seasons,
– When you are awarded a car, I want it to be shown to me as soon as I finish the race like in Gran Turismo 3:A-Spec, not in the main menu as a ticket
– Remove the Credits limit
– Remove the level limits for cars
…and a partridge in a pear tree. I’m sorry for such a long post but I am very passionate about this specific franchise and I felt let down when it was released, so much was going for it yet it failed to hit the mark. Just to note, this is not a full list. I have many, many more stuff to add but I’m sure I’ll hit a character limit if I progress any further…
cam the man
I don’t think you need to apologise, I agree with everything you’ve listed.
I would also like the AI improved, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been spun or knocked off the track after/while overtaking. Codemasters manages to get all 23 AI cars in F1 2010 to ‘play fair’ so why can’t Polyphony get get half that many to do the same.
Demibeard
Much like Danlord, the GT series is one of my favourites, Personally I rather liked GT4 but there you go.
To tweak GT5, I would ask that the loading times are improved, they are appalling, have a random grid, or at least let me qualify, I think we could do that in GT3, why do I always have to start at the back.
I would have more standing starts (which if we do have, could we have penalties for jump starting).
Could the AI look in their mirrors every once in while rather than turning in on me and I get the penalty damn license tests.
Some DLC, new tracks and cars, actually some of the old tracks would be nice, I’m pretty sure it will arrive eventually.
I’d also like to have the credit limit removed.
Oh the main menu, yuk, what a nightmare of navigation, please let the left nub have free movement.
I’m now off to play a bit more to see if I can add stuff.
GTRsannin
More races like the earlier GT’s had in those you couldn’t even hope to get 50% completion in the time you get in GT5
Lymmusic
Remove the hideous invisible walls on top gear track.
Remove the standard cars and release gt4 hd on psn free to those with gt5
Increase credits won to remove most of the need to grind
Have the same engine sounds from the chase cam in dashboard view
Get rid of “you’ve won a car, this is it from the front with a man in it with some music for 15 seconds” animation every time you win a car. I will never get those minutes of my life back…
Increase the resolution of the raindrops on the windscreen, or just make them smaller.
Drop the resolution and rework the shadow alpha maps to be higher res.
Error check the texture filtering as some courses like the top gear track have texture problems where only the colour data is shown on the grass verges, looks like ms paint airbrush tool has been used to paint the textures like that vehicle level in mass effect 2…
OR
Release gt6
Lymmusic
And for christ sake polyphony get some more employees… I’m sure turn 10 have like ten times as many people helping to make their game. I’m sure sony will let you if it means people and shareholders don’t have to wait too long for their products…
rossthebassist
this is simple 1 real improvement left for me other than the ones mentiond.
have the top gear test track with a still start. how can i do a true top gear lap time if its a rolling start.