Game director Kazunori Yamauchi is laughing. “In a way, like your Gran Turismo games, we were trying to enable sports driving using just the steering wheel and the brake pedal [so] anyone can have that type of fun, with confidence,” says a member of the design team behind the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, confirming that game and reality are merging. The interview is on one of Gran Turismo TV’s downloadable documentaries, HD validations of the series’ esteem for the automobile.

And with Prologue’s smooth front-end, they’ve never been presented so well. Every lustrous curve is even more lovingly shaped than before, and now they’re framed by picturesque Italian ruins, a Japanese manor house, and the timber-framed houses of the German town where Gottlieb Daimler was born, the camera softly panning around. The menus fade in and out with mesmerizing slowness as GT’s peculiar brand of jazz plays; everything is utterly polished. Attention, too, has been paid to navigation – selection of cars is now through a pop-up menu on the main screen rather than a new screen that requires loading.

It all serves to generate that special magic that Gran Turismo has always been so good at casting, a magic that makes gear ratios deeply compelling. By the time you’ve bought your first car, a transaction marked by a remarkably sensual purchase animation, the car gently inching forward into the light accompanied by a breathy chord of voices, it’s hard not to feel sucked in all over again.

Races are divided between Arcade and Event. Arcade includes races, time trials and drift trials (a return from Gran Turismo HD Concept and a new addition since the Japanese release of Prologue), though car selections are restricted to those bought using money earned from Events. Events are commendably varied, with single-lap attempts to pass as many competitors as possible and ten-minute time trials as well as races limited to car marque and class. The effect is to avoid the dryness suffered by GT4 Prologue, and even to move GT closer to the ethos behind Project Gotham, despite the need, now and then, for grinding to make the money to buy new cars.

Once on the track, and having adjusted the usual driving aids available, it’s clear that GT’s driving model has been further refined here. As usual, it’s hard to sense it in the slower cars, but once driving the likes of the Nissan GT-R Concept, with its enjoyable instability during high-speed corners, the model begins to come into its own. The new levels of nuance are proved by the degree to which the six tracks on offer are transformed simply by using a different car on them. Opponent AI, meanwhile, actually shows personality, with cars spinning out or under steering on corners with frequency.

As much as Gran Turismo TV and its front-end might push Prologue toward being a multimedia experience, the actual racing has become more of a game – a little less clinical, a little more diverse and characterful – without losing any of its earnestly profound love for cars. It’s a generous taster that is hard to ignore.

Verdict: 7/10

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