I caved, I am weak. Kaz you really are the bad girlfriend I keep going back to. It will be different this time right baby?
Only played
three er four events and a coffee break, initial impressions are limited, but encouraging...or horrible depending where you sit on the GT fence. Haha.
Edit: For a point of reference. I play GT games to death, like, way too much. So anything about approachability or initial ease of play is going to be lost on me. Maybe the new starting format is refreshing for the GT casuals but it was annoying and completely lost on me. I just want to gold all licenses damn it! That is my jam when firing up a new GT game. So keep that in mind with the below points.
Edit2: Oh I forgot to add, in addition to cockpit only, I am also using my G27 100% of the time. I have no idea how much some of the handling characteristics translate to DS3.
Pros:
-Physics, feel and the tire model have substantially improved. FF cars, which used to be on rails of understeer, felt much more lively. Sliding the Miata around in the cone challenge with TCS off, and even the mandatory stability control on! it still felt night and day compared to GT5 in terms of letting you over cook it and get to the traction limit of the tires.
Within the first 20 minutes of playing, I felt handling characteristics that have never been in a GT game, and absent or not as well executed in current big PC sims. We are mostly dedicated GT fans in this thread (well, the people who fill the GT threads in the years between launches), and clearly we have been content to overlook the faults of this franchise, otherwise GT3 would have probably been the last one we owned. As a "game" it has a lot of problems, many of them frustratingly obvious and present for over a decade. However, as a driving simulator, so far the driving model seems improved enough to warrant the purchase alone. Can't wait to hit up Bathurst in a BRZ

-Bumps/Curbs matter. I was understeering hard into turn one of Brands Hatch with my front left tire taking all the weight. I hit the outside curb on track out and it completely disrupted the balance of my car and I had to catch a nasty snap oversteer. Finally! The curbs more realistically impact your handling. You just can't eat them alive.
-Tire sound effect, well although almost exactly the same sounding at full screech, much more subtle sounds in between little and full screen including a better and more informative vibrato sound with heavy lateral loads. This seemed to have been missing or toned down in the demo.
-Very nice looking for a PS3 game, but see cons for the cost of that
-I guess the game menus aren't as shitty to navigate? Still seems pretty archaic
-The feel of the cars, so far, even with the sad little starter cars is much more lively
Cons:
-
Yeah it looks amazing for a PS3 game but...the frame rate and tearing in cockpit view is atrocious. It is almost constantly at a level of the worst moments of tearing and frame drops in GT5 pre-patch. This is concerning, I started to get a headache from 30 minutes of game play. I am going to try 720p later today, but wow. I mean it is really really bad.
-Tired game design. Zero imagination. GT6 is a new trail through the same woods we all know by heart. Any hopes of a complete overhaul are going to once again be pushed to, "maybe next time" PD has no idea how to make the "game" part of these games.
-Sound is still shit, but we knew that. I do appreciate at least the more subtle variations of tire noises though.
-AI is dumb fuck awful garbage, but we knew that
-Feels out dated instantly. Nothing to do with the graphics, it is just their approach to game design. The ridiculous music, the substance-less flash at the cost of functionality, the idea that you can never have enough "cool" things and that more is always better. No amount of frame rate and P's are going to make this game feel next gen if it gets a PS4 port
-Still disappointingly limited menu options when in race or event pre-start menu.
-No adjusting of brake sensitivity.

Really needs this for the lower class cars. I breath on my brake pedal and the cars are at full deceleration.
-That intro video? The fuck? It made Senna feel corny and cheesey, that takes some effort to do. I thought I was watching a kickstarter video for a charity, not a GT game.
If you thought everything was going to change, and this game would fix all the GT issues, you will be sorely disappointed. If you are aware of the faults GT has had for ages now, but still love the experience of driving in a GT game and want a new play ground with new toys and the best physics in a GT game to date? You will be more than happy.