Codemasters Dev: GT5′s Grinding Gameplay Was Dissapointing

Codemasters’ Paul Coleman has complained the Gran Turismo 5 was too grindy and he was slightly disappointed with the long-awaited latest version.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Coleman said that “Gran Turismo is a massive game. It’s a phenomenon whenever it happens. Personally, I was slightly disappointed with this rendition, but it proved that if you put a game out of that status people will buy it still.”

Coleman noted that the “grindy levelling up mechanic” was disappointing and wished that the developers had gone with “the classic use of licenses to unlock events” rather than “doing the same race 15 times to then unlock the next race.”

I know they’re addressing [the grinding],” said Coleman, “but it seems strange that wasn’t addressed in a design meeting earlier on rather than as a reaction to how the community is responding to it”

His complaints are certainly valid. The game isn’t one where you can jump in and out, unlocking news cars with ease. Coleman’s comments are focused at the game’s progress design, but I’d argue that the actual driving mechanics are simply boring. Unless you’ve got a wheel (and even then it’s not great) you don’t seem to have much feel on the road. Compare that with other less realistic title such as GRID or Forza and you get a game that feels like it was developed five years ag- oh.

“With Gran Turismo it’s definitely something that’s going to develop. The game on the disc isn’t the final game,” said Coleman. “We’ll see how that develops over the next year or so, because I don’t think we’ll see another full release of Gran Turismo for another five or six years.”

While I think he’s trying to be diplomatic “the game on the disc isn’t the final game” is a pretty damaging assessment, especially after the hilariously long time it took them to release the damn thing.