GT6 Is Almost The Best Damn Driving Game Ever

Let's be honest, Gran Turismo 5 was a bit of a disappointment. For all their prowess making the cars drive in an authentic manner, Gran Turismo's Japanese creators skipped over making an enjoyable game. By the time the first major update came along to revitalise it, many of the seven million buyers had long since moved on.

So after a solid week playing its successor, how does Gran Turismo 6 compare?

The first thing you'll notice is that Gran Turismo 6 has ditched the entire user interface from GT5 and started anew. Gone is the clunky experience points system, replaced with a new career mode that logs your achievements by way of 'stars'.

Also ditched is the hideously complicated used car dealer system - all of the game's 1200+ cars are now available whenever you want to buy them. Polyphony Digital has taken some of the guesswork out of the car-buying process too, with a 'Recommended Car' garage giving you suggested cars to buy for different events and classes.

With Sony introducing 'microtransactions' - using real money to buy in-game credits - you may be concerned that GT6's economy encourages users to progress faster by emptying their wallets. However, if you'd rather hold on to your cash, there's enough credits on offer throughout the game to get by. Furthermore, this time out the reward cars actually make sense, allowing you to progress further into the game.

Gran Turismo's Achilles' heel has always been the sound effects, and while they're still not brilliant, the series has moved forward. On all but the cheapest TV speakers you will be able to hear the difference between a V6 Dino and a V12 Aston - though they may be drowned out by a new tyre squeal effect which is bloody loud. Supercharger whine is still criminally absent, and if you're into your Subaru boxer burble, you can forget it.

The AI has improved slightly, by getting worse. They no longer slavishly follow the racing line, and at Novice level may not even be familiar with the racing line at all. I've seen them willing to pass one another and create new lines through corners, but they'll still brake too much, park it on the apex and back off mid-corner when you're alongside them.

Online is, bizarrely, locked until you complete a certain standard in the offline mode. It's an almost nonsensical piece of game design - they may wish to ensure a certain standard of ability in online races to make a grid full of Pastor Maldonados less likely, but it's going to alienate gamers who just want to get on and play with their mates.

There's other weird design choices too. If you were a fan of the endurance racing Gran Turismo has always had to offer, you're going to be very disappointed. They've been scrubbed altogether and replaced with 10 lap or 24 minute races with grossly exaggerated tyre wear and fuel consumption. The good news is that the career mode has already been extended by way of update, so we may see some decent endurance racing in the future.

Despite a few gripes, what Gran Turismo does best has only got better. The actual driving is sublime, and new tyre and suspension models add nuances that were missing in previous versions. While playing with a proper steering wheel is an absolutely joyous experience, joypad users aren't as excluded as they were with GT5 - the game plays just fine without you having to drop hundreds on a wheel and stand.

Like its predecessor, GT6 will reveive regular updates. These will include much-heralded features like the new Course Maker - which will have a function to copy routes from a real-world GPS device and build in-game circuits around them - and to reintroduce the B-Spec AI driver training mode. Updates already released have brought a raised credit cap, new cars and new events for the career mode, so if you're thinking of holding off until a more definitive version is out it may be worth your while to do so.

We wish it had been released as a full package out of the box, however the negative press surrounding GT5's delayed release, as well as the recent release of Forza 5 on Xbox One, mean it's no surprise the team were keen to get the game on shelves. Fortunately, unlike with GT5, Gran Turismo 6 is a complete enough game to give you enjoyment until the full updates are out.