A Huge disappointment for this long time GT fan
As you can tell from the title and my rating, this is not going to be a positive review. (ya think?!?) But let me start off with THE one thing; the one EXTREMELY IMPORTANT thing, that GT developer Polyphony Digital got right: the driving physics. I cannot overstate the importance of that or its quality. If you are a sim-physics crazy person like i am, you know the giddy warm fuzzies you can only get from turning all the driving assists off and feeling the FAIR, but PUNISHINGLY REALISTIC driving physics of a great sim; and GT 5 has it. ...in spades. Even more so than Forza III. yup. ...which brings me to the "but..."
HOWEVER..... everything, and i do mean EVERYTHING surrounding those candy-delicious driving physics are BROKEN. the menus are labyrinthine, counter-intuitive and virtually unnavigable by any sane person. did i mention that the game took me OVER an HOUR to update and install to the PS3's HDD? most of the tracks are rehashes of the same old GT tracks you've been driving on for years; which are great, but after 5 iterations of this game, the lack of a substantial amount of new, original tracks makes its selection seem incomplete and repetitive. and MOST of the available cars, and i mean 75%+, are the low polygon count, PS2 looking models. honestly, this is the least of these complaints. i don't really mind the low poly cars. what i DO mind are all the OTHER graphical artifacts and weirdness, like the horribly aliased edges, including the shadows, which flicker oddly and unnaturally, to the point of distraction. their so called "damage models" seem like the least amount they could warp the polygons on the car, and still be able to legally include "damage models" in descriptions of the game. it really makes me wonder what Polyphony Digital were up to all these years while the game's been in development. oh, i know what they were doing... adding a bunch of extraneous features that no one asked for or cares about. like the B-Spec stuff, where you watch virtual drivers grinding for you, as you "encourage" them. and like their half hearted attempt at damage models, there's a half hearted "course maker".... that doesn't actually let you make courses, it just lets you make decisions to influence the CPU making courses FOR YOU.
i could go on and on picking out flaws in this game, but i only want to mention one more, that is definitely game-breaking. and that is GRINDING. you know, to a certain extent, if you feel you're making decent progress, in these types of games, i don't really mind a little grinding. but the progression is so broken in this game that it's disheartening and you're made to feel VERY AWARE that this game is simply WASTING YOUR TIME. they COULD have made the progression very gradual, but always moving forward, and i would have been ok with that, but you will inevitably run into a GIANT WALL OF GRIND. unfun.
to sum up, even if the green flag had dropped at the same time for Gran Turismo 5 and Forza III, not only would it *NOT* be a photo-finish, but GT5 is at least A LAP DOWN from its closest competition. and when you add the insult of squeezing their fans out of 30 dollars for the demo, Gran Turismo Prologue, i feel like Polyphony Digital just squeezed out a huge, corn-choked clevland steamer on my Playstation. albeit one with beautiful physics, but that only makes you resent the steaming pile of poo you're having to pick through to get at it.
Shame on you Polyphony Digital, and shame on you Sony.
