Crash damage in games
 

I remember when Gran Turismo came out there was no crash damage as non of the manufacturers wanted their cars to be seen smashed up!. Funny then that on Toca Race Car Driver, which has a good number of the same cars, does have crash damage and they can get smashed up to the point of panels flying off.

So does this mean that the next incarnation of GT may include some crash damage, or will they keep the cars looking gleaming regardless?

Sony spin ;) PGR has had crash damage on Xbox for years

If I remember correctly with GT, most of the manufacturers were cool with it, there was just a handful that would not allow it...

PGR3 doesn't really have true damage.. Maybe the odd bent spoiler and that's about it.....

So instead of coding a realistic and challenging damage model, they make an arcade game with no damage model at all just so they can have the license to include one or two prestige supercars. Sums up the GT series really. All content and no trousers ;)

Personally, I'd rather have excellent driving, physics and damage models in the game than the possibility to "drive" a particular car. Does the inclusion of a particular brand really make any difference to the enjoyability of a game?

tbf

damage in games tends to piss most people off, as they are not racing drivers and will bend the car.

Crash damage in Forza improved my driving no end. In GT I could fly into a corner, bounce of the armco or ram another car and carry on as if it never happened. poor IMHO

I remember that the damage in PGR2 was always the same - run into something and the nose would always be bent the same way...

Polyphony have said that if they're going to damage to cars in GT that they want to "do it right" and the PS2 wasn't up to it, but damage is aparently one of the priorities in GT5 - although if it came down to a "damage" or "online" choice then it would be the latter for me everytime... imagine getting towards the end of an endurance race have a moment of brainfade - not good - I'd like to see a "performance meter" where you start at 100% and every shunt knocks it down a bit, requiring a pit stop to top it back up. Just my 2p worth.

The problem with damage in PGR for example is no matter what you do to the car, the performance of it doesnt change, which is why there are so many d!ckheads in the online races, if it did affect the car, like in the WRC games, it would be a huge step forward.

How does Forza compare to GT & PGR? I've quite fancied getting if it'll run on the 360.

Forza will run on the 360 :)

The damage model is great. It really affects the handling of the car (it's not just cosmetic), and so the online racing is a lot fairer than in pgr.

Yes, I'd go along with messiah, in that the reason Gran Turismo hasn't had crash damage was that Polyphony said it was too processor intensive to do "right" and that too many sacrifices (ai, graphic detail) would have to be made.

Expect to see it in GT5 as they literally HAVE to include it now so many "competitors" have it.

My guess is when Polyphony do get around to it, it'll be the most spectacular crash damage yet seen.

I'm not holding my breath. Every game in GT series has been basically an arcade game, despite them calling it a "simulation". I see no evidence to suggest this will be any different for GT5.

Apparently, the last of the manufacturers has decided to let Polyphony Digital, to do crash damage on their cars. So when Gran Tourismo 5 comes out on PS3 everyone should be failry happy. Except all the little kiddies who rely on wall riding to set fastest times.

Jase

My own thoughts are there will be NO crash damage in the next GT, but in the following game - Sony will push hard for PD to get the game out as quickly as possible cos they know it'll be the make or break title for their online ambitions.

If the next GT doesn't have an online mode then Sony's online experience is dead in the water if you ask me.

Incidentally - I'm under the impression that the next GT won't be GT5 (in name) but Vision GT, as it's running on the GT4 game engine (hence no crash damage) but with more bells & whistles & cars (22) - Vision GT will look no different to GT4 and GT5 is the true next-gen title.

There videos of the 2 games knocking about and they look totally different - the initial vids were all of Vision GT that had the bigger pit crews, more cars on track etc - the GT5 vid looks much closer in terms of graphics to PGR3 (also it only had 2 cars in it - RX8 & Evo 9)

Damage in Forza is pretty good, plus you can stop off in the pits to get it repaired if you wish, handy for those long endurance races, not so useful for the shorter ones.

In your opinion ;)

I never really got into Forza that much, the physics were never up to the stds of GT4, the cars stuck to the ground too much. :(

The AI in Forza was excellent though, and knocked the crappy GT4 AI for six. I always treated GT4 as a trackday sim, and Forza as the proper racer but with not as good physics.

Again all IMHO :)

Yep of course IMO ;)

I personally though the physics in Forza were much better than in GT4. Certainly, the car behaved much more like a real car that the GT4 ones ever did. You can do stuff in GT4 that would send a real car spinning off the track into the barriers. It's an arcade game. Nothing more, nothing less...

I think when making the next GT game they need to go back and look at GT2, IMO it had the better cars and tracks and when GT3 came out i was pretty disapointed. Half the US muscle cars had gone. I have GT4 but i cant get into it, theyve definatly messed the handling up, no way does an Impreza handle like that! Maybe theyve made it more realistic, i dunno but its not nearly as playable as GT/GT2.

Apparently Polyphony limited the cars on track as not to slow the game down, im not sure thats the real answer as im currently playing Toca Race Car on the PSP which has 20 cars on track at any one time as opposed to GT's 6. Now the PSP manages just fine with similar graphics so i dont see why GT cant have more cars?

The Burnout series has splendid crash damage :)

ah but that game revolves around crash damage, and am I right in thinking it doesn't have officially licensed cars so the developer can basically do what they want the cars.

It's a very poor excuse for not having crash damage though. There have been laods of games in the past with licensed cars and crash damage. Take Ferrari 355 challenge on the Dreamcast for example (vastly underrated imo), Forza on the xbox, GTR / GT legends on the PC etc...

I cannot see any real reason why they could not have done crash damage. I suspect in truth it's a excuse to cover the fact that their 3d engine isn't quick or advanced enough to handle it...

I think it was all to do with some manufacturers not giving permission to have beaten up versions of their cars in the game when some hadn't even been launched (IIRC Aston Martin & Pagani were 2, but that was as far back as GT3) so rather than have a "half and half" approach they decided on "one out all out", if all cars couldn't be damaged then none would be. I also feel it was neglected becasue Sony wanted the online stuff - and in the end it was that that got fooked up instead.

Agree, crash damage would improve the GT series no end, and like has already been said, it'll probably appear in GT5 because all its competitors have it.

Not sure about the 3D engine being up to the job - it was a totally new one for GT4 wasn't it?

Yes, but theres still the limitations of the hardware.

But there are other games (Burnout for example) on the ps2 on which the graphics look just as good as gt4, there are more cars, and there is crash damage. The hardware can cope just fine.

Just because it's a new engine, doesn't mean it's any good...