GT5: Academy Edition (PS3)

After a ten-year break from GT, forced upon me by the fact all my friends had 360s, all I can say is: It's Good to be Back!!!Where do I even start? It's a GT game through-and-through; something I realized when the first twenty minutes of playing were consumed by the nostalgic, yet crippling indecision experienced when choosing the first car. And because it's GT I chose the most ridiculous-looking Kei car I could lay hands on, simply because I could.Okay, I'm gonna use a bullet-point system to simplify this. Here's some things I really like:-The handling! The handling on GT is beautiful! After suffering under the boot of the trademark Forza under-steer for a decade, I had an indescribable feeling of joy when I flicked the stick to the left and the car actually TURNED at 70mph, instead of still traveling in a straight line!-The cars! This is one of GT's many coup de graces! Over a thousand cars, from hatchbacks to estates; from kei cars to muscle; ancient relics to cutting-edge supercars; too many to keep rambling! Some people hate the fact that GT has several versions of some cars; I love it! During the races you'll occasionally clap eyes on something new and exotic. The used car dealership is back in action as well, and Polyphony's attention to detail takes on a new level as used cars now come with mileage; usually requiring an oil change; they might even come with a decent set of tires and you can even overhaul the tired old engine!-Everything else! As a returning lifelong GT fan, driving around one of the GT original tracks is simply incredible. A lot of people [Forza fanatics] would complain that the graphics aren't good enough, etc., etc.; I've played Forza. GT 5 features some tracks that were used on Forza and they don't look much different. The only major graphical difference is that the cars aren't obsessively over-polished, which is a good thing! The only criticism for GT from extremely biased reviewers like IGN, amounts to the engine sounds, graphics, and - I kid you not - the crash impact sounds. If you'll complain about those, you'll complain about anything. Except IGN - being biased and all - of course glossed over the fact that Forza 5 had TWELVE tracks on release, with roughly 30% of the cars hidden behind a paywall - but that's okay because it's Forza!Things I don't like: Nothing! Just like the old GTs, I can't really find fault without being petty about it. This is THE best virtual driving experience, period! I thought I would find the B-Spec mode boring; nope! You generate your driver(s), let them use a car which compliments their strengths (or don't), and let them have at it. You can yell orders at them while they race, or leave them to get on with it.The only thing I don't like about the modern GT as a series is the fact they released their base games broken (not to worry; this edition of GT includes ALL of the patches, thankfully - shame they didn't do this with 6). I know this is a common trend among the gaming industry now, because if people are willing to buy broken games, why bother releasing them when they work, right? However I did expect more from Polyphony regarding this.It's worth noting that the game needs to be installed prior to playing. This takes around 30 minutes. You get the option to save the game to the HDD (or something along those lines) which improves loading times, etc. I don't know how long this takes because I haven't done it yet. Just waiting for a day out or whatever, and I'll leave it to fire away.I HIGHLY RECOMMEND: Get a Gioteck VX 3 controller, because it has TRIGGERS! And better yet, brand new, it's £8 - still cheaper than a pre-owned 3-axis! Just don't buy it off Amazon, because you'll more than likely end up with a cheap, faulty piece of plastic.

In the year 1997, one of the most popular game series of all time first appeared on the Playstation series called Gran Turismo. The Gran Turismo series is the most realistic racing simulator of all time with the ability to do Licence tests to enter into one of the championship series like the "FR challenge". It has the largest number of licensed cars, tracks, challenges and many more only available in the Playstation series. It became very popular with fans when it first arrived on the PS1 and since then increased in many sequels and and secondary releases with 70 million sales on the PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP. As the sequels increased the number of cars, tracks, challenges and many more.Gran Turismo 5: Academy edition is the upgraded version of Gran Turismo 5 as it was created to celebrate the success of GT Academy, where 36 participating gamers went to the famous Silverstone circuit after downloading a Gran Turismo 5 qualification demo to enter the competition and went into the national finals and then they went to Silverstone for GT Academy.The upgraded version of Gran Turismo 5 has new features, upgrades and downloadable content consisting of:1. Complete Pack (Racing Car Pack, Racing Gear Pack and Course Pack).2. Car Pack 2 (4 new cars).3. Car Pack 3 (6 new cars).4. Speed Test Pack (Acceleration and Top speed tests, the Special Stage Route X Oval Track)5. Nissan GT-R N24 GT Academy '12The Game is so well done. I have the original version of the Game but with the bonus content added, it makes it much more fun to play. It has 1083 cars, 31 tracks with 81 different track layouts, beautiful game modes and a very well done menu.Gran Turismo 6 is coming out December 6th and it will have 1200 cars, 33 tracks with 71 layouts and many more. If you a fan of Gran Turismo, buy Gran Turismo 5: Academy Editon and pre-order Gran Turismo 6 for christmas as I am going to pre-order Gran Turismo 6 as well. Happy Racing!

Good fun and (generally) good graphics but the gameplay is much the same as every other Gran Turismo game and many of the cars included are simply different versions of the same model (e.g. every single version of the Mazda MX5 is included, all 50 of them). Also, many of the cars have been brought over from PS2 and have less detail and blockier graphics, which looks downright peculiar when they appear in races with models created for this game. The racing itself is As others have pointed out, the DLC and online features are no longer available. The AI is better than previous games but still suprisingly basic - CPU cars are liable to try and stick to the perfect line and ram into you if you happen to be there. There is little qualifying - you generally start from a poor position and have to overtake everyone. If you own a previous version of the game, there's not much to persuade you to buy this.

Just gotta love this game. So MANY cars (over 1000, not exageratting). Also not every car is avaiable at Dealershop. Some cars randomly appears at used car lot and some may be only unlocked as prize from races. And every car feels unique in driving. But there are many similiar cars, just diferent editions or makes of them. AND BE AWARE, that online service is shut down since May. That means not only you cannot mmultiplayer, but also you cannot dowlnoad DLC anymore. But besides that, game is pretty awesome, good graphics, normal physics and lot of challenging stuff to do.Almost forgot, there are very many settings to change in driving options - game will be good either for pros and beginners.