I downloaded this demo. Tried out the racing and tried out the drifting.
Equipment - Logitech G25 wheel with shifter.
Thoughts - I'll described how the wheel is supported, what I think of the gameplay, and then what I think of the physics in drifting.
It supports the shifter, but no clutch. They implemented clutch for TOCA, I can't believe it's not here. Maybe I'm missing it somewhere in options.
Steering feels awkward, very awkward. Messed with the options a bit, made some adjustments and it helped some, but was still not perfect. Good enough, and 10x better than their default setting. Which is ridiculous that the standard setup has such a floating boat like steering response off the shelf. Maybe this is because their design is to be sensitive for sixaxis game play, just a guess, they could at least provide some suggestions for the proper adjustments when using wheels because off the shelf the settings are horrible for a wheel. I hadn't tried the game with sixaxis.
The gameplay was typical. It's racing. Drive better than your opponents and win. Straight forward enough. After adjusting the wheel some, I was able to drive the car much better than before. Graphics are not up to par with Gran Turismo. mehhhh not many games are. I play on. I like racing around a new course so for a minute I'm having some fun, but I still am not happy with the steering wheel. It's not adjusted perfect, but I play on with the closest setting I was able to get for it.
The physics of driving is there. It's trying and with the drifting mode I can have a better review of how well it's done. I'm drifting up the score like crazy now and having some fun on the drift course. Lots of angle and control. But steering is way different from GT5, oh well....this goes back to my point that the steering wheel is not properly adjusted, anyways, it's still doable. Just I wouldn't want to keep doing this and have my muscles adapt to this improper feel of steering control because I know it's wrong as I'm drifting, I know this is wrong, but I'm having some fun at it. The steering wheel being off is making me want to quit playing but I keep at it. The drifting is too easy to control. It's going to make kids think drifting is a breeze. I guess so, if it were too realistic I suppose it would be too hard. I play a few more rounds trying to top my best score and I like the course, the background and scenery. It's different from your typical track / circuit. Pretty cool for doing it this way. Replays don't look realistic, but it's detailed. You can see the driver steering and making adjustments same as when you were doing it, however the car's motion just doesn't look realistic to me. I have the same feeling when I watch DiRT replays and when the cars go sideways. Something about it doesn't look right.
Back to the wheel issue. I havn't touched the game since, but I've been meaning to go back to it and try to make more adjustments to find a better setting that might have me enjoying the steering wheel play of it more. Outside of the steering the game approaches racing from the perspective of being rough, tough and dangerous. I think it's audience is geared towards the gear heads that want to see things crash, break, flip, and sheet metal and body frame damaged during a hard fought race. To each his own, it's a different breed, but I wish the steering wheel support felt more realistic.
6/10