E3 06: Gran Turismo HD (working title) Hands-On

LOS ANGELES--Earlier today, at the end of Sony Computer Entertainment's pre-E3 conference, we had an opportunity to test-drive Gran Turismo HD (working title) on the PlayStation 3. Described as a prototype rather than an official PS3 product, the demo was essentially a small collection of vehicles and circuits borrowed from recent Gran Turismo games and Tourist Trophy. There were 10 different vehicles to choose from, including three bikes, an open-wheeled racing car, and half a dozen other cars that included everything from '60s sports cars and classics to rally cars and modern-day racers. The four circuits available in the demo included Tokyo, Circuit de la Sarthe, Grand Canyon, and the Nurburgring.

Although the visuals in the Gran Turismo HD demo were certainly a vast improvement over those in Gran Turismo 4, it was quite obvious (not that Sony made any secret of the fact) that the demo made use of reworked assets from last year's game rather than all-new textures. From a distance, all of the cars and environmental features looked really impressive, but up close it was difficult not to be distracted by the occasional jaggy and the textured liveries of the race cars that clearly weren't designed with anything like resolutions of 1920x1080p in mind. The suicidal spectators on the Grand Canyon rally track also gave away the demo's roots, since their low-poly models and PlayStation 2 textures appeared to have received very little PS3 love ahead of today's event.

If you've ever played Gran Turismo 4, you'd feel right at home taking the controls of Gran Turismo HD since nothing has really changed. The only difference, of course, is that we were playing the game with an extremely light wireless PS3 controller. The new controller has apparently only been in the hands of first-party developers for a week or so, and since Gran Turismo HD doesn't take advantage of its "six-axis sensing system," there's really very little to report as far as its performance is concerned. If anything, the analog sticks on the new controller felt even more sensitive than those on its PS2 counterpart. But we were slightly disappointed to learn that the new controller has no rumble feature, apparently because it would interfere with the aforementioned tilt sensors.

As great as Gran Turismo HD looked, and as much as we were pleased to see and play it, it seemed like a strange offering for Sony to open its pre-E3 event with. Polyphony Digital is, of course, working on a Gran Turismo game for the PS3, but we'll be very surprised if the final product ends up looking anything like today's demo. We've got our fingers crossed for something resembling artificial intelligence this time around as well, though the promised online play will at least go some way in appeasing those of us with a penchant for actual racing. We'll bring you more information as soon as it becomes available.