We talked about the sceainvites website over the weekend, and it appears this site has a nugget about GT5, too. Which is a clear pointer to the notion that, perhaps, Polyphony Digital and Sony are ready to unleash their game – or at least, the date – to the world at the up-coming E3 show.

We’ll keep you posted, and be sure to post the date of the release, or the announcement of the date of the release right here.

Daniel Collins, who no doubt also couldn’t play his Playstation yesterday either, has managed to race his way into the final four of the competition. Have a look at the academy diaries below. Good luck Daniel!

It's ok to drink if it's only virtual driving. GT Champagne makes you go faster anyway...

Limerick gamer, Daniel Collins from Rathkeale, drove his way to victory to become Ireland’s GT Academy 2010 Champion this weekend. Thirty one year old Collins beat the top 20 fastest gamers in the country at a live gaming event in Dublin on Saturday 13th February and will now represent Ireland in the grand final in Silverstone, UK, at the end of the month. With a fastest lap time of 1:38.599, Collins held out to win the overall title, beating stiff competition in the process.

GT Academy, a joint collaboration between PlayStation 3 and Nissan, launched last December and set out to unearth a real racing driver from the virtual world of the hugely successful Gran Turismo racing game. Collins was one of over ten thousand Irish gamers who downloaded the GT Academy Time Trial onto their PlayStation 3 console and completed and posted their fastest lap times in an attempt to make it through to the national final. The top 20 finalists came from throughout the country and had to race each other on a selection of GT race tracks to determine the overall winner.

As Ireland’s national champion, Collins will attend an intensive week long training camp in Silverstone at the end of February to compete for one of just two places in the final stage of the competition. If successful, he will remain at Silverstone for a further 8 weeks to attain his International Racing Licence. One lucky driver will then go on to race a full season as part of the Nissan team in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z car. GT Academy 2009 changed the life of Spanish student Lucas Ordonez who entered the competition and emerged a fully fledged member of the Nissan race team.

Commenting on the final, Niall O’Hanrahan, Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Ireland, said: “We would like to congratulate Daniel on winning the national final and becoming the GT Academy 2010 Irish champion. He beat the fastest gamers in the country to win the competition and we wish him all the very best as he goes on to represent Ireland in Silverstone”.

Good luck to Daniel in the finals. Despite being from Limerick he managed to keep his hands away from the knife and win the competition fairly.

- Deformation for every car in the game although race cars will see more damage.
- 1,000+ vehicles, all with modeled interiors
- Up to 16 players online
- Indy cars and tracks will be included
- Some WRC cars and tracks will be included
- Head tracking is reconfirmed and it’s for use during racing
- Multi display is back (using 3 PS3′s for a wider view)
- HD uploads to YouTube
- Different weather types
- Night racing for all tracks

This is pretty much a list of things Forza was missing, and what everyone wanted from GT5. Realistically this makes the game one of the absolute must-haves on PS3, let alone for 2010. Scans of the magazine are below.

[Source]

The tuned car looks lovely

This preview is much like the GT academy that ran during the Prologue press campaign, where Sony and Polyphony go to the virtual driving world to find a series of drivers worthy of their time, and money, to travel the world with a Playstation-branded Nissan team driving races globally.

Last year, PlayStation and Nissan’s GT Academy transformed the life of Spanish student Lucas Ordoñez, who entered the GT Academy and emerged a fully fledged member of the Nissan race team, winning his spurs at the Dubai 24H. This is your chance to follow his steps as a virtual-to-real racecar driver. This is your chance to join him. Download the Gran Turismo 5 time trial on December 17 and try to beat the clock. Your best time will be uploaded to a national leaderboard – and you can keep improving it, again and again, until the demo is taken down in late January. When that happens, the 20 fastest drivers will be invited to a national final, where they’ll race head-to-head on Gran Turismo 5 and undergo a series of aptitude tests. From there, the winners will be taken to Silverstone, where they’ll get behind the wheel of a Nissan 370Z for real as part of 2010’s GT Academy.

The car in question is the same this time around, a Nissan 370Z. The demo offers two options, a standard 370Z and a tuned one, both to take out in a time trial on the Indianapolis road circuit.

Menu system is rather like the PSP one

The car, for people who’ve played with it in video games before, is jerky, jittery and a lot of fun, but hard to stick to the track when accelerating from tight corners. Which is why they chose this circuit, no doubt. Plenty of corners to throw the driver off track. While it is a lot of fun, it’s frustrating to see the number 1 time of Yamamuchi on each car being set so high. My best time in the tuned car (granted, my second lap in total) was 1:47, which put me over 10 seconds behind the GT creators time. However, I was the second person in the world with my time. Which says either I’m great or that proper talented drivers hadn’t jumped on.

The demo is using the GT5 engine, which feels flawless. Sadly no damage is found in this demo, likely because it’s not there to be a game but rather a test to find real world drivers. The car jerks and moves exactly as you would expect, and is best experienced with the cockpit-view. No head tracking is available via eyetoy here either, undoubtedly being saved for a later date to show off. It feels like it should, brilliant. Looks superb as per usual, but also feels like it would benefit greatly from usage of a steering wheel setup.

The menu system is familiar territory, but uses the GT: Portable system with more bouncy graphics to show information rather then the sleek, clean style shown in Prologue. The menu works well but in this case, is dog slow. This is probably due to the system consistently updating online ranking data, but if I was the only one who set a time so far, and the system was still incredibly slow, I cannot imagine how slow it will get when it’s unleashed to the public in a few days.

One car, two flavours, one track.

All in all this is a great experience, but people will be disappointed because the demo isn’t a demo per se, more a trial for Nissan and Sony to find fledgling drivers through their simulator. No crash damage, head tracking or other cars to race with will make some shout and complain online when in reality, that was never the purpose of this. They just want to remind you that they’re the best at making a driving game, and also that their full product is “coming soon”.

As said before, the full demo arrives to PSN on Thursday.

Zoom Zoom

They went on to state that the West should expect the game to race onto shelves no sooner then “summer 2010″. No word on whether or not this includes Europe, who typically gets GT games before America (GT4 came to Europe before Japan and was a huge success, beyond Sony’s expectations).

If we hear any more on this, specifically if the revised date for “the West” does, indeed include fortress Europa, we’ll let you know!

This offer is available to new and current owners of the console too, so no one is left out of the digitally downloaded joy!

Yamauchi reveals his dark secret: He loves to cycle.

Gran Turismo supremo Kazunori Yamauchi showed up to some car show called SEMA, where an awards show sponsored by the yet-to-be released title GT5 was held among other things.

In an interview with AutoWeek, he revealed a few new tidbits about the Spring-2010 bound game…

What other features will GT5 have?

There will be 400,000 polygons per car, 100 times more than were present on GT4. GT4 had 4,000 polygons per car. You can customize and tune the cars, too.

You have NASCAR and WRC in the game. Does this include the complete list of all tracks in those series?

The NASCAR series is so large it would be impossible to put everything in the game. We will have select courses and select cars in the game. You will also be able to race the stock cars on a number of tracks not found on the NASCAR calendar. In speaking with NASCAR, they said they’d like to see their cars able to race on other tracks, and you can do that [in GT5].

Have you played Forza Motorsport 3?

I was watching the guys at our company trying it out in the office. I tried it a little bit. It’s very similar in a lot of aspects to Gran Turismo. Some base components of the game are very different from Gran Turismo. It’s a little bit different from what a simulator is. You can feel it when you drive it.

Will there be a Gran Turismo 6?

Yes. You won’t have to wait as long as you did for GT5. GT5 represents a whole new operating system. GT6 is just new apps that run on the GT5 system.

Of all the cars available, this one should be avoided

The first – and most obvious – thing to discuss is the graphics. Car games have always had incredible graphics, because they’re rendering inanimate objects that we all recognise but have very little true complexity in their textures. So as such, it’s quite easy to impress and trick the eye with a car game. Forza 2 did this quite well, tricking the user into thinking they’re seeing something amazing until a game with really large polygons came along. Compared to 2, the new installment is stunning. Gone are the awful sunburst flares hitting the cars obtrusively, and in are sleek, clean graphics that really show off what the 360 can do.

That is, of course, until you stop looking at the cars. Ground textures and crowd animations are typically lack-luster. You won’t be pining about the stunning environment graphics, despite Turn 10 pre-release saying they did a lot of work on that stuff. Some tracks look amazing. Turn 10 even conjoured up some fake tracks to add extra environmental effects just to be fancy. These work quite well in a lot of cases, but when you look out over a beautiful expanse of water, the only thing you notice is how wishy-washy the texture is for the “distant mountain” or “big city” is. It looks like an oil painting sometimes. Of course, at 200KPH, it’s hard to notice these things – but crash or slow down and they become apparent.

Another complaint of mine graphically is the damage. When bits fall off it’s always impressive, and the bumps-n-bruises damage modelling is lovely, with a lot of texture warping that can often look scarily authentic, but sometimes (particularly on smaller, lower-spec cars). However, my big gripe is the decolouration and lack of realism when it comes to scrapes on the cars. It happens too easily, and often doesn’t look as realistic as other parts of the damage model. On top of that, lights seem to pop off and break very easily, but I’ve yet to actually see a small animation to show the glass breaking. Or even a sound effect to indicate it’s happening!

Evo's and Impreza's are still fun

Car handling is sublime to say the least. Turn 10 worked hard on giving the physics engine a drive by simulating how the tyre’s touch the road, how they warp on surfaces, etc. This comes across when racing, and really makes a huge shift between Forza 2 and 3. It’s not as easy to over-take anymore without taking heed and paying attention because you can’t just throw your car around the track.

The first few races you’ll complete in a slow everyday kind of car, as expected. Each series of races is conducted by class, which ranks from A to F, F being the lowest grade cars (think Toyota Yaris), and A being the top-notch stuff (Audi R8). It’s not until you reach class D or C that the action really picks up, but anyone half decent will get there in a few hours. Ford Focuses, Subaru Impreza’s and Mitsubishi Lancers all around the place. Great fun. And that’s not even mentioning the always-entertainingly-difficult American muscle cars.

Once you go through various stages and get to A, the difficult cranks up a notch. A-class races are typically done with cars that haven’t been heavily modified just yet. Ferrari’s, Audi R8′s and Porche’s reside here. However, very quickly, and with a bit of upgrading, you can move on to the S-class races. These are the top end cars, where Bugatti Veyrons are usually found alongside proper GT and touring car spec machines. Here the racing is intense, and the laps are done over much, much bigger tracks.

Race cards are presented like Motrostorm, only classier

At the beginning of the game you’ll rarely play through an entire track. Instead, you’ll race on smaller versions of tracks. Most of which will be familiar to anyone who likes racing, or anyone who has played Forza. These tracks are fine, if not a little uninspired, but they’re never long enough races to get you bored. You can also up the difficulty level to give yourself a challenge early on.

As you go through events you accumulate money, or “XP” points. These can be used to buy upgrades or even new cars as you progress. One innovation in this game is the ability to go to an eBay style auction house that’s community-driven. Instead of buying and selling from dealers, you buy and sell from users. This means your car can come pre-upgraded, tuned and kitted out with a paint job, often cheaper then the store-price in the game. It also means that the lower price point can get you a car far superior to your budget. Buying is as easy as placing down your interest. The system will highlight cars you can afford, and when you show interest you’ll bid 10,000XP more then the previous bidder. A timer dictates when the auction will end. This is usually minutes, but for higher-class cars it could be hours. It depends on the seller. There is also a buy out option to buy the car outright rather then bid, which still can end up cheaper then the normal price.

You can also gain extra XP points by turning off driving aids in the game and turning up the difficulty a notch. “Hard” is hard, but any veteran of a racing title will be able to handle it. It really is the only option for proper racing challenges.

Interiors are recreated lovingly, but you can't have a look around properly

Online this game does very well. It’s only let down is in public games when idiots smash and bash their way to glory. And more often then not people are completely unskilled and don’t want to have a real race, rather investing their time in a good looking version of Mario Kart. Playing with friends is something I didn’t get much opportunity to try since I had the game before the general populous joined in. Often you get penalised for being smashed into, rather then the other way around. For example, if a foe smashes into your vehicle and knocks you off into grass, he can plunder along the track gleefully while the grass unnaturally slows your car down as if it was in a gravel pit, ruining your race.

Undoubtedly these are issues all racing sims have. Online communities are difficult to manage, especially early on when everyone and their brother are playing. In a few months these niggles online will be gone back to Halo, so we can enjoy some real racing.

Of course, it’s hard to address this game without making note of it’s competition – and in many ways, the game Forza aims to be. Gran Turismo has been delayed until Spring 2010. At first this seems an unwise idea, but now it makes sense. Coming into Christmas, Forza is drumming up a lot of excitement – rightly so – and is pressing the right buttons between arcade action and sim racing, bringing a whole new audience to the fold. This is an audience GT can capitalise on next year, but address anything that may crop up from Forza as a beta program.

You see, Forza is easier then GT. If you scrub a lap or get over-taken, you can hit the much-touted rewind button. This is great for new players, but veterans like myself will find it annoying that this feature exists because it takes away the heart-pounding fear of ruining your final lap as you barely clinch the lead spot in a race. If you spin out, over-cook it on a corner or simply crash, you can undo the problem. Of course, the game will log your rewinds and not reward you as much, but it still exists and means you can easily fix your mistakes, Prince of Persia style.

Tracks can be beautiful on the surface, but can be slightly uglier in the distance

This is what leads me to believe that Forza will act as a training ground for new recruits. All veterans will play Gran Turismo anyway, but now there’ll be this whole new install base with Christmas vouchers for game stores to snap up and get into a “real driving sim”. And this is what will hurt Forza. It doesn’t quite know what it is. It’s always been a slightly arcadey experience. Any game that features the addition of vynl stickers on your car will be arcadey, but Forza feels like a sim at heart. But now, by being forgiving and using the tag “racing for everyone”, the game could potentially loose its real target. Moving closer to Need for Speed isn’t going to push the game forward with fans, but is likely to, unfortunately for realism fans, sell more units at retail.

With that in mind, this game is the perfect balance for newbies to racing sims, and an ideal re-introduction to the genre for jaded old GT-heads like myself. It’s a great stop-gap until the big brother of GT comes along. Which is why it all plays out perfectly for both Microsoft and Sony, ironically. Both games will sell more then they probably would otherwise – with people eagerly awaiting GT on one hand, and people eagerly wanting a more accessible experience.

Forza doesn’t have the polish on all of it’s facets, but it’s enough to look impressive. But it does play beautifully. It can be too easy at times, and rewind is too much of a get-out-of-jail card, but that doesn’t detract from the basic premise that Turn 10 have churned out a real winner in terms of fun racing experiences and a smooth online experience (I include the auction house there too). Customising your cars, importing custom soundtracks and rewinds shouldn’t scare away potential petrol-heads – the racing in this game is really, really sublime. It’s the bits around it that stop it being perfect.

Then again, other people will completely disagree and love this game for being easier to jump into bed with.

Forza Motorsport 3 is out now exclusively on the Xbox 360.

It certainly didn't race through development

Gran Turismo has always been held high by racing enthusiasts as a truly brilliant simulation of precision wheel-to-wheel racetrack driving. For most of it’s career, it has been unchallenged in the market of simulators. This, of course, has changed of late, but none of it’s nay-sayers or rival developers have dared to try and create something for a mobile platform like the PSP.

Coming along just in time for the PSP Go! launch (free to us European early-adopters, too!), new Playstation Portable owners can enjoy a really solid racing title on the platform, while old hat PSP users like myself (I have my launch-version PSP fat) can finally herald the arrival of a proper racing title on the device.

At it’s core, this game is very much like the big-brother console versions. In fact, this game looks and feels a lot like GT3 or 4 on the PS2. Not as many cars or tracks available, but still feels the same. GT veterans will feel right at home with this title. Controls are the same, there is no crash damage and the tracks are likely to be familiar, from Laguna Seca to the always-challenging Nurembergring.

The PSP nub is easy to use, but knowing some still can’t grasp analogue control mechanisms, Polyphony Digital still allow you to steer your metallic steed with the directional buttons. X provides your accelerometer while square provides your breaks. As always with the PSP, these controls are not contexual, i.e. you cannot gently accelerate with the X button like the PS3 version.

Unlike previous iterations of the game, this title does not feature license-acquisition to ease you into the gameplay with challenging (and often unchallenging) license tests. Here, instead, there are a plethora of challenges. These are not necessarily license tests, but are just a career-type mode to help you earn money and earn freebie cars.

Racing features absolutely no career mode. Just individual races, which is rather disappointing, even for a mobile platform. Money is earned during races, but given only 4 cars are in a race it’s not hard to earn any money.

Menu system is nice and function, but not that eye-pleasing

New and old PSP users will know the PSP’s screen is stunning. The DS doesn’t even compare to it. It’s here, then that you can see why Polyphony Digital pushed the devices graphical grunt to the limit with 60 frames per second (which really shows off how smooth gaming can be on the bus/train). However, they managed to somehow make clunky and uninteresting menu systems. And given the load times in the game from one contextual menu to the other, you would hope they would provide something a bit prettier.

This game’s number one issue is that there’s no career mode. Racing is as good as GT can be. Not as sublime as the big-brother versions because there are only a handful of cars on the circuit at one time, and the challenges can be quite challenging indeed, but more often then not are frustratingly difficult or frustratingly easy and pointless. This means the one thing that hooked you into previous titles in the series is gone. This is because pretty much all the cars are unlocked from the get-go in the racing section, with all tracks available to use.

On top of this disappointing blow to the game, buying cars is made difficult by only providing four individual manufacturers available to purchase from each in-game day. Sometimes this will come up trumps, but more often then not you’ll end up with four manufacturers that don’t inspire you in any way. That, or when a company you do want to buy from arrives, you won’t have the cash and have to wait for the game to reveal the manufacturer to you again.

All-in-all, this is an excellent attempt at racing on a mobile platform. It’s probably the best example of it to date. But don’t get your hopes up for a full conversion of GT on the PSP. This is very much a “lite” version with no real challenge and a lot of clunkiness to ruin your expectations.

The game is out now, free to new PSP Go owners and available in most retailers on UMD for us old-schoolers.