Well, my worse fears came true.
The demo looks amazing, it's VERY pretty to look at...
Makes me wish i had a 1080p set, even though one can only imagine just how good PD would've made it look at 720p. (PGR4 is an extremley good example of how a balanced graphics aproach can come up with stunning results, in some regards it looks better than GT5, worse of course in what PD concentrated on though.)
Anyway, the new "simulation" mode is completley underwhelming, this doesn't feel that much different from GT4.
I've disabled evry aid (i use DFP only.) and i'm using regular tires as oposed to the racing ones, while this gets the grip somewhat realistic, it still feels very loose as oposed to a real car or other sims out there. (you don't get feedback to tell just when you're about to lose grip... just like in GT4.)
In short, it's not even close to EPR physics, and this is very dissapointing to me. Specially when you consider the difference in hardware between the ps2 and ps3, good graphics are important, but the point of having new hardware is so you can change the gameplay where it was lacking. (online support will still keep me playing this though, the physics are decent enough that if they get the cars/tracks and online support right it will last a long time.)
So, at least as far as GT5 prologue goes, we can now confirm that the new physics engine is nothing more than a modified mode of the old physics engine, which of course is the problem to begin with.
PD needs a whole new physics engine to appeal to the people that are true sim fans, and just keep the arcade and new mode for intermediate and casual players.
The sounds are also a complete dissapointment, again, it's been 3 generations of hardware. on the PS1 i could understand the crappy sounds and physics, but there's no excuse, not anymore.
One can only hope this is changed by the time GT5 final is released.
So, those are my main complains, the Quality of the interface, graphics and attention to detail is what we've come to expect from PD.
So not much room to complain here, it looks amazing.
I just wish developers would realize that they have to evolve their games and not just add more eye candy to them.
Sure, the gameplay wasn't that bad to begin with. but new hardware allows for so much new stuff you can only wonder why that's not their main focus.
(Tekken 6 and other franchises that came out with the PS1 are very good examples of this.)
Man, PD would have an allmost flawless game if they just licenced the physics engine from the EPR guys.
Anyway, as far as the online options i hope they add a lot of stuff, such as racing against downloadable ghosts with cars with similar configurations of yours. (such as tyre selection, power weight ratio, etc.)
It's shaping up to look extremley good, but they need to eliminate aspects of the franchise that have no place in a PS3 simulator.