Slow, progressive review of Gran Turismo 5: The Real Driving Simulator game

So I'm taking it very slow with this GT5: The Real Driving Simulator game, and I think the product is best appreciated that way. On every menu screen, where I may have been previously impatient, or bitchy about loading times, with this game I feel a genuine inclination to savor the entire experience. There are, like, 5 years of who-knows-how-many people it took to make this game, so I find it very easy to justify the contemplation of exactly what the hell is happening at each screen that is presented.

For example, they have a 'Special' section in the menus, where you can do more strange things than one may normally expect from a car racing game. The first one is Kart Racing, which gets unlocked once you reach level 2 or 3 (I forget), but while that is pretty interesting, what I was really blown away by was when I clicked into the 'Nascar' special event. Anybody who knows me knows how much I have laughed at Nascar in general, and also the people who pay good money to sit down and watch it. But in this game, when you enter the Nascar event, you get a substantial CG introduction that isn't so much about "Hey look, a CG with the top guy in Nascar" but some very compelling information about the sport itself--for example, they tell you how it was started around the 1940s or something (leaving you to wonder what these guys were thinking, in the middle of World War 2), and how the actual engineering of the frame of the car is what makes Nascar racing interesting to car enthusiasts. Then, the first event in the game is this awesome exercise in 'drafting', and as you are doing it, you fully realize exactly how well physics are being simulated here. Great experience.

Next on the list in the 'Special' section is a series of events held within a recreation of the 'Top Gear' test track, which you will see is actually an '8' shaped airfield. This also has an exclusive CG introduction, where they try and make sure you realize that there is one point (in the 8 shaped track) where the roads actually intersect, posing greater risk to drivers. The video ruminates on the issue that on pretty much every other track you basically have only two dynamics to really worry about--what is happening in front, and what is at the back. But in the Top Gear test track, you also have to look left and right. And if you think that isn't compelling enough, in that first event, you're driving a goddamned Volkswagon van. That's the thing that really got me.

Anyway, further exploration of the game will come about, slowly.