Dec 5, 2007

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is some way off, but tearing around the famous Suzuka course in a Nissan GT-R with the latest playable version of Sony’s Real Driving Simulator makes us want to hibernate to pass the time until its launch, like children who go to bed early on Christmas Eve in anticipation of the treats to come the next morning.

To say we’re fans of Polyphony’s racing series in an understatement. Playing GT HD was amusing enough (despite it being the tightest, skimpiest demo offering in the history of videogames), but instead of impressing us, it left us with a worry that the next generation of Gran Turismo would do little more than add a few extra pixels to the resolution. We were wrong to worry.

The newer version of the game we’ve played is only a very small portion of what Sony’s cooking up, but for racing nuts and series fans, it’s pretty astonishing. If there’s anyone out there that still needs a reason to justify the cash they dropped on the PS3 (Heavenly Sword notwithstanding), this will most certainly be it.