First of all, there is no damage only in prologue. GT5 final will have damage and not just scrapes and bumps. full on chassis damage. the physics are amazing. i can tell this because i spend my day driving real cars and i kick arse in this game as a result. the graphics are amazing. especially with an HDTV. i bought a whole new tv just for this game. and VERY much worth it. everything about this game is amazing. the realism is outstanding. i was reading that the GT people put in so much work into this. they digitalise every bit of body work. they made the manufacturer ship them even the headlights and all the bits. each car has 6 months of work put into it. if you are serious about driving and love this game buy it!

Regarding Neil's comments, I largely agree… although I can't comment on the physics too much as I don't use a driving wheel, and generally turn the driving aids off.. and there is a lot of debate on forums over the physics.

However, there are definately flaws with the online mode. Hopefully as this is only the “Prologue”, the final released version of GT5 will fix some of those issues, although I don't expect we will ever see damage in a Gran Turismo game… so it will probably always be disadvantaged to Forza in that regard. Wall riding, dodgem cars and using other cars to assist your line, braking and direction will sadly always be present unless at the very least a better penalty system is implemented.

As for tyres and fuel, bear in mind this is not the final game, it is just an overblown demo. The final game will feature tyre wear, possibly fuel… and if past games are anything to go by, parts modification and tuning, endurance events, time trials, skills events, license tests, rally events will all hopefully be there.

I had high hopes with previous reviews talking about the realism of the handling and how it's quite difficult to control the car with all the driver aids off.

So I disabled all the aids, chose sim mode and went racing.

GT5 looks gorgeous (but they REALLY screwed up on the AA or AF – there's flickering lines everywhere!) and sounds ok, but for anyone looking for a realistic driving sim, you have to look elsewhere for the following reasons.

• There's no car damage – this means that on several circuits, the fastest line is to bounce off the walls and other cars. This is unacceptable.
• Wall sliding barely slows the car
• It's hard to spin most of the cars without trying
• Tyres don't appear to wear, fuel doesn't seem to get used
• The cars you drive aren't matched evenly to the AI. If I come around a corner and step out of line slightly, there's no way I should be able to catch and pass an identical car on the next straight, but invariably I can.

Online functionality is also currently a joke – I tried to race properly, but if you're in front of more than a couple of people and brake for a corner at the right place, you _WILL_ get hit by the horde of people behind you not bothering to brake and heading for the armco to slide around.

So GT5 is a pretty game, but for a proper sim experience, go get GTR2 or rFactor or even Live for Speed. There's still no realistic Sim for the PS3…

I know why Sony have done this – the game will appeal to more people than a sim, but it's frustrating that they haven't included a genuinely realistic handling mode when all the hard work had already been done.

Cheers – N