As I announced a few weeks ago, Electronic Arts invited GTPlanet to a “community day” event for their latest driving game, Shift 2: Unleashed. I took them up on the offer, and I’m eager to share my impressions of the game. There’s a lot of eyes on Shift 2 after the series’ first title, billed as a realistic simulator, was highly criticized by “sim racers” for its too-friendly physics. According to EA’s marketing, these issues have been addressed, going so far as to call it “the most realistic racer ever”.

GTPlanet is very excited to team up with Nissan to co-host a live Twitter question & answer session with Lucas Ordonez, the real-world racing star that’s emerged from the first GT Academy competition! As you know, Lucas and his Signatech Nissan team just finished second-in-class at the 12 Hours of Sebring, the first race in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup calendar. They’ll be participating in all the events around the world this year, including the ultimate endurance race – the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

[This video has been removed from YouTube.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnn41vo7A9k

The latest GT5 update, v1.08, has just gone live in Europe and North America (it became available in Asia earlier today). According to Polyphony Digital, this small patch only fixes one issue that has become something of a hot-topic in our forums over the past few days. Known as the “SSR7 glitch” or the “online money glitch”, it allowed players to quickly accumulate a lot of money and A-Spec experience points – check the video above to see how it was done.

After a short period of verification and clean-up, the official GTPlanet Registry Qualifier is once again open for submissions! 

GT Academy officially returns to Europe today, with a new, custom “Eifel” track specially designed for the competition by Kazunori Yamauchi himself. Participants will be piloting a Nissan 370Z around the new course, featuring sweeping, high-speed corners with plenty of helpful camber (check out the video above for a complete lap).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAW1oZXQnc