Gran Turismo 5: One of 2010's Top RPGs?

[kouriichi]

not one bit xD
The entire time i played i felt disconnected. Like a bot designed to grind more hardcore then in WoW.

Sure, i could have pretended i was Speed racer, trying to be the best driver of all time. But id have to force myself to. For the player to make a story, there really needs to be a base for one. I mean, let me compare it to the latest Need For Speed. You can play as the Cops, or the street racers. Your Role is instantly defined. Your eather a cop, trying to clean the streets, or a racer, trying to win piles of cash for "Hoes and B*tches". There is no real story to the game, but there are atleast roles. Good and Evil. ((by general definition anyway))
But in GT5, you play Racer. Your job is "race". You "drive car fast on laps for money for which car purchasing for more race". Theres no story to it and no roles.

To be fair to gT5, you can also be a race manager that tells his driver to slow down so he doesn't crash.

Think of it like sending troops on missions in Final Fantasy Tactics advance. You choose the party (the driver), their equipment (car) and send them to perform a mission (race). And you hope they come back in one piece.

And I'll just be having fun with a racing game instead.

Err.... but even that doesnt work out so great. Your "Equiptment" is limited to the exact same thing everyone else has, the "mission" is the exact same thing as before, and the "party" isnt really a person, its an crash dummy with a racing suit on.

Your role in GT5 really extends to how deeply you want to force a role on it. You can eather drive and have no role, or "Be AWESOME Driver man, trying to be the best at something that is never pointed out." And in all honesty, thats not very good eather, because more people who like racing games start out AS the best racer ever >.>;

 

[Jekken6]

By this logic, the multiplayer in the recent Call of Duty games can count as RPG's

 

[Dj_Trip]

One real huge problem.

RPG= ROLE playing Game.

What ROLE are you actually playing? Because you seem to be suggesting you're playing the car?

You're playing a guy that wins money easily so he can buy a turbo and beat everybody without learning to drive his indestructible car.

I think it's cute when reviewers throw the RPG card at these games in a review to show how much depth they have, but c'mon. This is not even funny. Racing games might want to appeal to racing fans instead of collectors, how about that?

The damage system starts at level 20 and goes to full at level 40.

Everytime someone defends Polyphony Digital, I strangle seven kittens out of friendly rage.

rpg......?

i understand that can be a loose definition.

but come on.

its gran. fucking. turismo.

which i was highly dissappointed by this game..ill go back to mario kart and full auto, much better racing games imo

The hell? Its a simulation racing game. I'm very inclined to believe most of the people that have "played it" here are either lying through their teeth, or tried it for 5 minutes before ragequitting and crying about how difficult it is after the first few ranks (15+).

You buy a racing wheel, why? Its a simulation game and it slowly increases the difficulty curve the more you play. This is why the experience point system matters. You start out very arcadish, and move more and more to a simulation game to really up the difficulty. That is the point the author is trying to make. While it does seem like bit of a stretch, PD really did go out their their way to freshen their series up. At first glance it looks like the same shit, but the way it plays is very similar to many RPG games out there.

Start off with a crap car, and most likely not much driving sense except your lack of fear (Try racing for real, and you'll see what I mean, its a game), and whatever behind the wheel experience you yourself may have. At first it seems easy, you can bump your way through the levels. Basically not very sim or racing like for a game of its expected caliber.

Keep Playing.

You unlock more levels, more customization options, more cars, more tracks, and eventually more challenges. As you rank up the game suddenly welcomes you into the "real world" of racing. Damage has to be repaired, you can total your car, and you have to keep it in good condition and tuned if you're into that sort of thing. Eventually you hit a wall, and you need to get more XP to unlock more cars and challenges. The tracks get harder, more weather is introduced, and damage is fully realized.

Now you have the game that people expected when you first get into it. Honestly, once you get there, its hard as hell, and most people would have cried off and traded it in after 5 minutes of pure suck. Once you get used to it, and work on your skills, you start to feel like you've learned some serious driving techniques, rather than just smashed your way through it, like you did in the beginning.

If you've played it, you're more likely to agree with the Author's article, if you haven't, and its really easy to tell you've merely dabbled in it at best or are unobservant. You'll just spout off about mario kart. Enjoy your kart games, I'm going to go back to my racing sim.

and this is key. It's not even a standard racing game. It is a racing sim.

 

[tlozoot]

The car is not a character.
The car is not characterised.
The car has no personality.
The car displays no emotion.

...the car is simply not a character.

If there is no character, then there is no Role for you to Play during the Game. An RPG is not any game that has an experience bar and unlockable skills.

 

[linkvegeta]

After posting my opinion and reading everyones i thin we could all agree that GT5 is a Racing Sim not a RPG in anyway, we are not dissing the game, we are just putting it back in its proper genre. Hopefully in the future people wont get so confused and start calling Microsoft flight simulator a First person Shooter.

 

[Therumancer]

This is one of my concerns about people mis-using the term "RPG". A concern I've had for over a decade when they decided to develop "Action RPGs" and get real time action involved.

Leveling, gathering equipment, and similar things do not make a game an RPG. What makes a game an RPG is if the stats influance success or failure more than any abillity on the part of the player. This is definatly not the case with this game, where at it's core it's still a driving/racing Sim. Levels, experience points, and gear are simply trappings, what makes an RPG has to do with the core game play.

This is the crucial argument involved in whether or not games like "Mass Effect 2" can be considered true RPGs or shooters with some RPG elements (a big arguement). There was no doubt with the first game that your character's skill had a massive influance on your abillity to use weapons, as opposed to your aiming abillity. Something that went to the point of annoying FPS players who could line up perfect shots and still miss, because their abillity to twitch was largely irrelevent. In "Mass Effect 2" while there are skill selections and character classes, it's player skill rather than character builds and an intelelctual process that influances success or failure. A player can use any weapon allowed to the character class and hit/miss is determined by actually aiming the recticule. What's more it's no longer really possible to have a character build that would say have no skill with weapons at all (unable to hit anything with them, even if you tried), the most you could do in ME 2 would be to say choose to never fire a shot and try and play through with nothing but abillity selections, which is differant.

There is no doubt that what you are describing took some nods from RPG games and borrowed a few elements, but it's not even an action RPG because in the end success or failure is all about your abillity to steer the car at great speed, anything else is a relatively minor trapping, unlike an RPG where ultimatly your skills have a minor effect, and it's all about what the character itself is able to do.

To be honest there HAVE been car based RPG games out there before. Origin's "Audoduel" is one example (though it blurred the distinction at times), and of course the "Roadwar" and "Roadwar: Europa" games which were strategy games. Not to mention "Auto Assault" which was a pretty bad MMORPG overall, but it did manage to make it function as an action RPG (your abillity to drive and aim guns was fairly minimal, with things based on equipment, class, skills, etc... even if you had cars moving in real time shooting at other cars).

Today it seems everyone wants to throw in some RPG trappings as they give a sense of progession and show you earning something that matters a bit more than just a general score nobody is likely to ever see. That and there is still oddly enough some high brow appeal to something being an "RPG" as opposed to a pure twitch fest, as it suggests some intellectual abillity being needed. That said, despite the hype a few nods do not make something an RPG or even a hybrid.

 

[DSK-]

I don't qualify this as an RPG. In the same light, you could for example call Black Ops, PGR4 and Forza 2 (I haven't played 3) RPG's.

There are progressional elements that allow you access to more things (COD - weapons, playercard layers etc - PGR4 - using credits to unlock map packs and car packs - Forza 2 - unlocking access to cars) but really an RPG is about having a character with base stats/abilities/whatever and over the course of the game have that character increase in potential in some way.

From what I've read, it means that GT5, Black Ops, Forza 2 and PGR4 are essentially 'Materialistic RPGs' (MRPG's <- I'm totally copyrighting that) whereby your increasesd catalogue of...er...stuff enables you to enter more events (PGR, Forza) or gives you more weapons to deal death with (BO).

Honestly I don't really see it. If anything it's simply a progression system that staggers access to things. It may be for gameplay enhancing reasons (forcing the player to learn and adopt techniques in order to enable them to use them on better unlocks in the future) or just to give the player a sense of achievement.

I digress.

tl;dr DSK's Final Thought

I wouldn't consider it a traditional RPG.

 

[Juggern4ut20]

Wow, I'm going to assume you didn't play the game. Let me help you:

A. Racing, is a real life activity. The role you are playing is a Race Car Driver, more specifically, some one that is trying to be a professional race car driver. There IS no character. You pick a representation for yourself. Because it's YOU they are talking to. Not some elf, not some made up human. They specifically refer to YOU.

B. Your quest, is to gain pro status, as that is the main objective given to you. Many RPGs have singular "quests". Pokemon is a good example, you must "Become the best, and catch them all". There are several challenges given to you to complete. Very specific tasks. Your quest is fulfilled by completing the challenge given to you at hand by several different professional racers throughout the game. Yes there are races, but there are also specific challenges where you ARE COMPARED to other drivers and ranked accordingly. I don't mean NPCs either, also live statistics. The distinction is skill. Again, you're a race car driver.

C. There are a series of short non-fiction stories. The history of each track, car, challenge, and even tutorials teach you about driving. Its a REAL concept, NOT made out of fiction.

D. Because there is no character, only YOU, its YOUR progression. Suck at driving? You cannot make it very far, and you'll be stuck doing the challenges until you learn it. You are the progression. Racing is a finesse and a straight forward concept. You tweak your car, finances, and skills until you get it right. Its not just about the car, but about progressing yourself. They point this out in the game several times.

Where do you get off attacking the article and the company that wrote it without playing the game, or at least opening your mind to why it was written this way. Does the concept of a non-fiction RPG really seem so far fetched? You're an aspiring race car driver, you drive in races to get better, there are several challenges to help you get there, and you can compete with other people and tons of statistics are tracked to SHOW your progression. It may be a stretch or light on the concept, but its really there if you play it.

To call it a stretch or light on the concept is an understatement. A non-fiction RPG still has to have a story, has to have characters, and has to have role playing interaction in order to be considered even the slightest bit a role playing game. Also, whether or not i have played the game is irrelevant when i'm presenting my argument. My points are still valid even if i have fully completed the game or not played it at all.

A. There is no character. The player is not a character. I do not understand where you get the idea that controlling a car = character or a role. From what I've checked about the game, there is no plot at all, so stating that your role is an aspiring professional race car driver is unfounded because the only purpose for a role is to work within the plot.

B. This is what you are referring to when you talk about stretching. While you can view getting pro status as a quest, in the same light, you can look at anything as a quest. In Madden your quest is to win the super bowl. In order to do that you must win specific challenges in games each week against other opponents. So Madden must have RPG elements in it right? Breaking down the mean of a "quest" to such bare bones takes away any meaning it once had. Is racing tracks and competing in time trails online considered quests? No.

C. The history of a track, car, or even trail is not a series of non-fiction stories. It's a series of non-fiction facts. A story involves a narrative. EVEN if these little blurbs are written in a story-style instead of just a report, they are independent of the game play and have no affect on anything. So, they can be seen as THE story in the game.

D. Character progression has nothing to do with the skills of the character. It has nothing to do with how strong your character is at swinging a sword or driving a car. Character progression involves dramatic hero's journey and the change in character the protagonist takes over the course of the story. Now, character progression could mean different things in video games, but RPGs are different in that they tell stories, which involve the character progression i am referring to. A lot of RPGs do not have much progression of the main character, but the others around them do definitely have story arcs. All these aspects are not in GT5 at all.


All in all, there is no leg to stand on in this argument. GT5 does not have any real RPG qualities and should not be referred to as such. You know what the real shame is about this article. We are talking about whether it's a RPG or not, instead of talking about whether it's a good game or not.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

You silly, no one actually wore hats and helmets in DA:O, they were funny looking. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/6879-Stolen-Pixels-150-2-Shoes-of-Floppiness]
OT: GT 5 only has RPG elements which a lot of games use and can't be straight be labeled RPGs, such as FPS multiplayer modes in which you have perks, levels and whatnot, but they're still FPS-es.

 

[Kouen]

I Think your overthinking this one dude

But made me lol none the less

 

[Mastermoose]

It's a racing game. It has some RPG elements. But it is no way an RPG. As already stated. You need to be playing a role. By your logic, almost every game ever. Almost every game has "quests", Almost every game has an upgrade system. Not all RPG's have experience. Think before you speak

 

[shootthebandit]

One real huge problem.

RPG= ROLE playing Game.

What ROLE are you actually playing? Because you seem to be suggesting you're playing the car?

you are playing the role of the stig

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

I never understood why a game mechanic of any kind should be either sufficient or necessary to qualify a game as a RPG. So what if you gather experience, upgrade yourself/your gear/your mom and go on quests ?
As long as there is not story told, no meaningfull character interaction, no world building and no actual choice involved, you do not play a role. It would not be a RPG.

For example, if you just take out all the story and dialogue of Dragon Age, you would have a RTS and if you design a racing game with a deep story, f*cktons of dialogue, world building and choice, you would have a RPG that happens to implement its gameplay via racing (which GT5 doesn´t, which is why I would utterly disagree with the article itself).

It is not 1990 anymore, when a game could be labeled a RPG simply by virtue of the characters having hitpoints and a strength stat.
It´s 2010 (at least for a couple of days still), I think at this point we should stop debating whether or not Mass Effect or GT5 are RPGs (pro tip: one of those pretty obviously is and one is not) and start talking about whether or not Final Fantasy 13 might actually be an RTS with really nice world-building....

 

[twistedheat15]

wow there's a lot of butt hurt in this thread over the thought.

 

[GeorgW]

These days all games have RPG elements. And I like it. Ironically, it seems the RPGs have less RPG elements than other games. ME2 anyone?

 

[Yog Sothoth]

Forza Motorsport was doing the experience point thing six years ago, GT5 is late to the party.

 

[Eggsnham]

One real huge problem.

RPG= ROLE playing Game.

What ROLE are you actually playing? Because you seem to be suggesting you're playing the car?

I don't want to get involved in any argument about game classification.

I just wanted to say, that I absolutely love your avatar.

It perfectly embodies my relationship with my cat.

*Take a spoonful of cereal, cat wants the milk*

That's all.