Been playing all day. The game is extremely competent. And I mean that in the best possible way. There are many things that I wish were there but are not. But what is there is flawless.

GOOD STUFF

• The Microtransaction stuff is practically invisible.
• Money gain is good.
• Career Progression is great no grinding. You can skip whole chunks of the career if you don't want to do some races.
• New physics are really good.
• Tire grip feels very well done and the sound effects are good too. Its got that batman begins kinda tire squealing. You can really hear the tires fighting for grip when you push the car to its limits.

Not so good stuff:

• Rally is back in its corner. As in totally neglected. I really wish GT games were like half rally the off road physics are soo damn good.
• Online is the same as gt5 but improved by alot. Though they didn't make the kinds of changes I wanted to see.

What are your guy's impressions?

Very mixed. Most disappointing for me is the technical aspect of the game. I get noticable frame rate drops, especially in cockpit view, and that is with what seems like a slight graphical downgrade from 5. Career progression and menus are a lot better than 5 though, so that's a plus. Also love the side stuff so far.

Would love to be able to give some Impressions on the Game. Unfortunately when it was released on the 5th December in Asia, particularly Thailand and Malaysia there were no Stocks of this game available from the officially listed sony Stores that were to supply the Pre Order.. The Pre Order was denied and Sony Playstation Asia and Sony Store Thailand are ignoring and neglecting to comment on the situation.

Even commenting on there facebook page and sending numerous complaints falls upon deaf ears.

Hope you guys are enjoying the game. God knows when we going to be able to get it here.

I think the game is incredibly good so far. Playing with Logitech G25 (playing with controller is the worst idea).

- The sense of weight and body roll in the cars is fantastic. Really feels like you're wrestling some fat RWD hog round a corner.

- Soundtrack is awesome from everything I've heard. From the little Rock tune when loading into a race to the fun Dance bit after the race during the confetti (I find myself dancing in my chair every time this plays). All the little songs I recognize from old GT games. The menu music having a great mix of the classic GT jazz to some real chill ambient sort of tracks.

-The UI seems pretty good so far. Only complaint is I guess there not being a menu shortcut during the license tests to go to the next one.

- Goodwood events are fun. Nothing too hard yet but the fastest cars have been the easiest oddly lol. Anything with street tires is a death trap.

- Tire sound effects are pretty good. A wide range of tone from the screeching. Someone probably can't appreciate it unless using a wheel that lets you turn smoothly and not like an on/off switch of a joystick. Also the sound effect when you dip a tire off into the dirt/sand looking stuff and the noise of rocks and crap hitting the undercarriage.

- Night time lighting is great from what I've seen. Haven't seen too much of it yet.

- The career progression seems great so far.

Overall yea I just find myself grinning from awesome stuff. The game still has the usual lack of specific features we're all already aware of. They seemed to mess with the rim selection.. added some good ones (with some actual offset) but also seem to have lost a bunch and they filled it in with all those generic "GT" rims that all kinda suck. Some engine sounds could use some work but I believe Polyphony said they are already working on better sounds but probably not for this game, though a possibility of patching them in? /shrug

That's how I feel so far after about 12 hours of non-stop playing - Golds on everything up to National A section now which I just hit.

Ugh, I bought too much so I can't pick this up. Maybe I'll hold out for a PS4 version? o_O

@seikenfreak: i haven't bothered to hook up my wheel yet.

The menu navigation is much improved (I will echo the sentiment that you should be able to move directly to the next license test without exiting the current one).

I haven't played enough to notice major differences from GT5. The consensus so far seems to be that your opinion of GT as a series will determine how much you like this version ...

Some of the standard cars still stand out as eye sours, but other than that I think the game looks pretty good. I've only done the first two series of the first cup and the track that is in the desert looks fantastic. I forget the name of it.

I need to watch Load Our Last Soul and then I'm going to play some more.

Love everything about the game, but what really pisses me off is that there ain't no B-SPEC, a feature wich worked in GT4 and 5 but they need to bring it in a update in this game, hopefully it will be worth the wait and it will be much more improved than the old ones.

Nine Inch Nails is in this game, it just got slightly better in my opinion. :)

@voodoopc: I wish they would bring in standard tracks or something. I just want MORE content. I don't care how good it looks. as long as its gt

I like thus gane so much more then 5. The menus are great, the progression is much easier and more fun, the music, all of it, fits perfectly and most of it is nice to hear, and the cars feel less weighed down then before. It's just a fun game and everything just feels responsive and nice. They did a fantastic job fixing the problems of the last game. I just wish it looked better.

Well, I haven't played a GT game since 3, so know that this is where I'm coming from (but also that neither 4 or 5 appealed to me enough to want to pick them up), but I'm loving 6 so far. The game has a playful energy to it, and the driving seems as solid as ever. Music's pretty good too, though I'm particularly fond of the menu jazz, as always. Seems like there are a ton of super low-level cars, which I don't totally understand though. Maybe it's fun to customize them, but it just seems a little silly to me. Anyway, I'm excited to continue playing.

@gold_skulltulla: I guess coming from GT3 it had alot less cars. GT2,4,5,6 all have a ton of cars. I think Kaz at some point thought people would care about getting a specific model of a car so thats why now there are like three full pages of Miatas is GT6.

Also if you're feeling the music make sure to go into the gallery and check out the rest of the music thats not in the playlists for racing/replays. I added a bunch more of it to my race playlist. soo much daiki kasho. love it. daiki kasho is basically the new moon over the castle. I hope true gt fans will get that one lol.

Likes:

• General control and feel of the car while racing is pretty good despite the looseness of the PS3 Dualshock controller
• There's a TON of cars and tracks to choose from (especially compared to Forza 5).
• Lots of different events that cover pretty much every car class - even the Moon!
• Personal BGM - This is a big one for me. You can switch the background music to whatever music you have saved on the PS3.
• A slick, but more efficient user interface makes for less downtime inbetween races.

Dislikes:

• No way to add decals or a more customized paint job to your car (though you can buy cars with preset decals/paintjobs)
• The graphics are looking a bit dated.
• The PP rating seems to be more of an issue in this game. I couldn't take a econo sedan, modify it to 500hp, and then expect to enter it into races with other "econo" cars. Yeah, I know it would be ridiculous, but hey, thats why I like doing it. I don't remember the PP rating being a big thing in GT5 (perhaps it was only used in online matches in gt5?)

I was planning on skipping this one, but the reviews swayed me to pick it up and I'm glad I did. GT6 brings fun back to the GT series.

The good:

• Complete overhaul of the UI. The new UI is well laid out and looks modern, plus no more terrible smooth jazz.
• Numerous special events.
• Riffling the licenses tests into the career mode.
• Much better pacing. Doing a few career races typically unlocks a new special event. Big events such as the Goodwood trials unlock throughout the career as well. After enough races are won, the license for the next tier is unlocked. All these combine nicely to break up the gameplay. Its not race after race after race.
• Large selection of cars.
• Huge track list. I never feel like I'm racing the same track over and over throughout the events.
• Nice graphics for last gen.
• Great steering wheel support. I've been using my G27. I refuse to buy anymore damn steering wheels, stupid ass forza.
• Lots of easy ways to adjust the performance of the car such as a power limiters so you don't have to fiddle with all the upgrades to try to get the car's PP low enough to qualify.
• The music is better, but still not great.

The bad:

• Some cars don't sound realistic.
• There are still low poly cars in the game, but most are not very popular. All the big name cars look great.
• Frame rate issues in certain situations.

Peeves:

• Prices do not align to the cost of cars. A DeLorean is 500,000cr. I'm pretty sure you can get one for 30,000 in real life. I wish they priced the cars according to real world values instead of some strange exclusivity/performance metric.
• No rewind. I like having the option to correct a mistake especially if the race is very long.
• Upgrade options seem slim this time. Maybe I'm used to Forza, but there are very few engine upgrade options.

I'm really enjoying it, much more so than GT5.

I haven't played a GT game since GT3, but I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Only maybe 4-5 hours invested so far, but I have few complaints about my time with it. After what I saw of the terrible UI in GT5, the UI in GT6 is a pleasant surprise. Pleased to notice that the (in)famous jazzy menu BGM hasn't gone anywhere. The coffee break events are a nice addition and the career is still as varied as ever.

If microtransactions were handled in all games like they are in GT6, I'll have next to no problems with them whatsoever. The in-game economy seems well-balanced even when you don't participate in microtransactions whatsoever, and the inclusion of microtransactions is completely invisible inside of the game; absolutely no prompts, no reminders, no advertisements, nothing. And even after just a few hours of basic play, I already have more cars than I know what to do with, including a few that far outclass any of my competition. There's definitely no feeling so far that they're artificially restricting my progression just so I'll be motivated to buy credits.

My only complaints would be that collisions still don't feel natural, and that the graphics (aside from the premium cars) can be iffy at times.

@cloudymusic: Nice to meet someone else who hasn't picked up the series since 3. Seems like you're coming away with similar impressions to my own. I'm with you that some of the graphics look rough in places (shadows in particular) but it kind of makes the game have an air of arcade-y-ness, aesthetically. I dunno, there's something kind of Daytona USA about those shadows and the thunk sound the cars make upon impact. It feels dated, but I think I might like it anyway.

@devil240z: They're going to force me into a "Roadster Race" (read: Miata Race) at some point, aren't they? Some things never change.

@gold_skulltulla: Sadly I haven't seen one. Those are some of the most fun cars to drive.

@devil240z: Indeed. People love to hate on the Miata until they drive one in real life. Super fun cars and a huuuuge part of the automotive enthusiast and racing community. There is in fact a "One Make" race though for Miatas in the game.

So I've been playing a ton more since my impressions post. I'm all golds up to the International - A races that I just unlocked. The more I drive various types of cars in this, the more I love the handling.

Overall the game is fantastic but my minor complaints so far are:

• You still have to turn Traction Control off for every single car you get into. This dumb little issue has been annoying me for what seems like forever. I think GT4 did it right? Its been so long I can't remember.
• During the license tests you still have to exit to the menu after completing one and then load into the next one. I think GT4 let you just go directly to the next one? Just a weird little dumb annoyance and once you're done with the tests it doesn't matter of course.
• The tire squealing noises for Racing Slicks gets a bit irritating. I've never driven on slicks in real life so I can't say if they do sound like this or squeal this much. It feels like you can be going in a straight line and they are just howling away. And there isn't as much variation in the tone but that makes sense as the tire is one solid smooth surface compared to a normally treaded tire. Again, this could be amazingly realistic, but just making an observation that they get irritating during longer races.
• I still find the paint chip thing cool and frustrating at the same time. I really like that I can get exact factory colors and place them on a car. But when I want to paint something like a rim, I can't just pick a bronze ish color from a palette.
• I'm kinda wishing the payouts would be a bit higher. They are the about the same as GT5 or any GT game so it isn't that they cut back for the stupid microtransactions stuff. But there are sooooo many cars I want. When they first implemented Seasonal Events in GT5, you could win giant amounts (like 750,000 for a few mins) of credits for minimal effort and that was when I was able to buy a bunch of stuff. They eventually nerfed this in GT5 and cut it way back down but I think they were still decent? The three Seasonal Events in GT6 so far all have tiny payouts.
• I wish there was more online connectivity stuff with friends. The only thing I've heard of (from my friend) is that he can see my line during license tests. I would like to at be able to pop open a menu and see what cars your friends have used for that race. Better than that would be if I could have his ghost from that race in my race. And then even better, and I think ultimate situation, is if we could both queue up for the same Career race and it'll put both of us in the race with the AI.

But yea I still think the game is a fantastic Gran Turismo game. I'm excited to see what they do with PS4 hardware.

I like this so much more than 5! It feels alive! I keep finding myself reaching for this over Forza which... if you would have told me that 6 months ago I would have said was crazy talk. They need the paint features of Forza. But the progression is much more fun and feels much more like a real career. and so so many tracks and cars! Really enjoying it so far.

I have really enjoyed parts of it. The graphics are great for a last generation game, although coming off the heels of playing Forza 5, the game looks a bit dim by comparison. But, overall the track and car detail are much better than GT5. The G25 wheel integration is great and the car variety is pretty staggering. The menus are still awful and changing settings is still incredibly arcane. All things considered, this is a much better Gran Turismo experience and I can't wait to keep digging in and finding more to love.

Happy racing!

@hosstile17: why do people keep saying "for a last gen game". The first thing I thought when I started playing Battlefield 4 on ps4 is wow this looks pretty much the same. the "current" gen is more of a memory upgrade and processing power upgrade than a graphical one.

Also I completely disagree with you about the menus and changing settings, I actually think they are fantastic. I love that you can just hit start and have access to all the settings and upgrades for your car.

The cars are much more detailed to a pretty wild degree in Forza 5. I own a Dodge Challenger SRT and all of the text on all of the gauges is correct, even down to the Sirius XM logo on the navigation system. It is exact to a degree that GT either can't or doesn't aim for. Also, GT6 has a good degree of aliasing in it that is common with last generation games. In addition to that, GT6 suffers from the same issues that you see when games are upscaled from a lower resolution, it just comes off a little dark. The game looks fantastic. But, there is a better looking racing game out there. However, there are room for both of them in all our hearts.

Also, designing that game like a web page from the 90s and hamstringing every one of those menus with a "DUDE, ARE YOU SURE!?" confirmation boxes sucks. I wish people would stop doing that.

I'm really enjoying it. After the disappointment that was Forza 5 this is a refreshing change.