Firstly, I will preface this, I am a HUGE sim racing fan, I have owned EVERY GT since I paid £70 for the original Japanese import, I am not a fanboy of ANY system, and enjoy racing sims on every platform there is. 
Well, my PS3 came yesterday, and I have now spent a good amount of hours on GT5P, enough to make a decent enough impression of it.
Firstly, it's not as "good" as Forza 2 or LFS, there is more to it than that, but in a nutshell, thats it.
I won't go too much into content, simply because it's a (albeit full priced) demo, instead I will concentrate on 3 key areas, graphics, sound and physics.
I have yet to venture online, but so far my experiance with the PSN has been EXTREMELY poor, compared to XBL, it's really, really bad, XBL is one of those things that it is polished and so slick, that it just works (most of the time) out of the box, PSN isn't it's a real struggle to get working, and it's flakey, even more so than XBL (which isn't perfect).
Ok then, GT5P, graphics, wooooo, well, outstanding, the graphics are flipping amazing, especially in 1080i, it truely is photo realistic, we may have reached the pinnicle in race sim graphics here, it truely does look that good, although I have noticed some odd shadow texture problems, sometimes they "cycle" and sometimes they look quite jagged, but overall it's a gorgous looking piece of software.
The in-car cockpits are utterly amazing, best cockpits I have ever seen in a racing sim, a huge increase in immersion, the only thing I wish I could figure out is how to alter the HUD on the screen, other than that, top notch.
Sound, truthfully, it's a mixed bag, that tyre squeal is pretty poor, but the engines are "ok", the music is traditionally strange in GT games, all wierd jazz and cymbals, very odd, anyway, anyone with an interest in racing turns the music off straight away anyway
Lastly, physics, hmmm.........to be fair, not that bad, but they ain't great, lessons obviously haven't (or didn't want to) be learnt from earlier versions of GT, the cars have no feeling of "weight", the suspension doesn't seem to move at all, leading to the cars feeling like they are "skittering" around the road, bit like a skateboard.
FWD physics are pants, power on understeer seems to be canned (if power is greater than x then understeer, if power is less than x no understeer) it works like a switch, RWD physics are better, but there is just no impression of weight, or weight transfer, something Forza 2 does VERY well.
Yes, I had all aids off and physics on professional, but I am using a pad.
Overall, it's a nice game, looks amazing, sound is ok, and physics (bearly) passable, but it's no sim, and certainly no Forza beater.
But the graphics.............oh mumma..........
Well, my PS3 came yesterday, and I have now spent a good amount of hours on GT5P, enough to make a decent enough impression of it.
Firstly, it's not as "good" as Forza 2 or LFS, there is more to it than that, but in a nutshell, thats it.
I won't go too much into content, simply because it's a (albeit full priced) demo, instead I will concentrate on 3 key areas, graphics, sound and physics.
I have yet to venture online, but so far my experiance with the PSN has been EXTREMELY poor, compared to XBL, it's really, really bad, XBL is one of those things that it is polished and so slick, that it just works (most of the time) out of the box, PSN isn't it's a real struggle to get working, and it's flakey, even more so than XBL (which isn't perfect).
Ok then, GT5P, graphics, wooooo, well, outstanding, the graphics are flipping amazing, especially in 1080i, it truely is photo realistic, we may have reached the pinnicle in race sim graphics here, it truely does look that good, although I have noticed some odd shadow texture problems, sometimes they "cycle" and sometimes they look quite jagged, but overall it's a gorgous looking piece of software.
The in-car cockpits are utterly amazing, best cockpits I have ever seen in a racing sim, a huge increase in immersion, the only thing I wish I could figure out is how to alter the HUD on the screen, other than that, top notch.
Sound, truthfully, it's a mixed bag, that tyre squeal is pretty poor, but the engines are "ok", the music is traditionally strange in GT games, all wierd jazz and cymbals, very odd, anyway, anyone with an interest in racing turns the music off straight away anyway
Lastly, physics, hmmm.........to be fair, not that bad, but they ain't great, lessons obviously haven't (or didn't want to) be learnt from earlier versions of GT, the cars have no feeling of "weight", the suspension doesn't seem to move at all, leading to the cars feeling like they are "skittering" around the road, bit like a skateboard.
FWD physics are pants, power on understeer seems to be canned (if power is greater than x then understeer, if power is less than x no understeer) it works like a switch, RWD physics are better, but there is just no impression of weight, or weight transfer, something Forza 2 does VERY well.
Yes, I had all aids off and physics on professional, but I am using a pad.
Overall, it's a nice game, looks amazing, sound is ok, and physics (bearly) passable, but it's no sim, and certainly no Forza beater.
But the graphics.............oh mumma..........
With pad, it's always arcade... And some cars might be more near reality than others. There definately is feeling of weight in the cars when driven in pro mode and a wheel... As for skidding it entirely depends on the tires chosen for the car(and chosen physic model).
’s greatly improved physics while using the controller, but it REALLY blew me away once I hooked up my wheel. In my opinion this is how I’d rank my favorite driving simulators in terms of physics: