Great sneak peek into things to come, couple of things needing attention before gt5 though! Namely, PENALTIES!
But anyway onto this game...
Over sixty cars, from a few top manufacturers, a good amount for most normal games, but never the less I was greedy for more. The cars themselves look fantastic, as we all know they would coming from the designers that have always pushed the limitations. And I absolutely love the cock-pit view, which is so detailed and precise, you can even see the stitching in the leathers, as like many others (mostly us looking for the genuine racing experience) this became my view of choice, even though, in some cars, over half the screen is taken up by detail. But when its all said and done, how much of the road do you actually need to see; car in front, where the next corner is. it all just makes it the more realistic, I actually found myself leaning with the corners.
As for the track, I felt it was a tad light, and would have happily give up some ten or so cars to see another of my favourite tracks make it into this game. But with six in all, forward and reverse in most cases, we cant complain too much. they look great, the crowd detail is fantastic and I love the flash affect from road side photographers. Adds a nice touch. obvious thing to point out is the lack of weather and light conditions, but we knew we weren't getting it this time anyway. The only thing I've could fault here is the checkerboard pattern you sometimes get in the dust kick up. Never the less, its a great effect and leaves you driving blind at times.
I only have another couple of issue, its the penalties you get hit with at the harder levels of the game. It really isn't fun getting penalised when an opponent hits you, then again after you try to get back on track for taking some apparent short cut that actually would have lost you at least eight places. It only takes one tiny little bump from an opponent and your forced to slow down, with him speeding off into the sunset. This does make you step up your game, but sometimes it just seems one-sided, unfair and most times, extremely frustrating. And the resulting disappearing car trick is totally absurd, I thought the point here was to make a true to life driving simulator, yes, then why does my car suddenly become a ghost passing through all others unnoticed.
I can see the point though. In previous GT games all you had to do was jump in a big car and crash and smash your way through, and I agree this needed some attention, after all we cant have unskilled drivers, playing the game and winning races all too easy, and probably having some degree of fun while they're at it. Where's the challenge! But surely there's a better way to achieve this. They are definitely on the right lines with the power points though. I just hope we see a couple of new tracks on PSN and some more events. Laguna Seca please! You've got to love that corkscrew!
If you read all this, you've achieved more than I could!