I'll start with the obvious, the graphics. They are fantastic, I had my dad take a look at it, he hasn't played video games since we first got our NES in the 80's. He was sitting watching it and was really confused about how they took footage of real cars driving and made it so I could control it, until I showed him the cockpit view and he realized it wasn't real.
At first I was really annoyed by the way the cars handle, until miir suggested I turn off all the driving assist stuff, which ended up making it quite a bit better. I turn ABS and traction control off completely, I'm not sure why the fuck you'd want that shit active in a car you were racing anyhow. I still feel that with many of the cars, I should be able to throw them into a turn more, but I may also just need to practice more - I haven't played a racing game forever.
The AI of the other drivers is good, which can be frustrating. They will try to cock block you any chance they get, and they are frequently successful. This frustration can be amplified 100 fold when you are doing some of the license/special races that require you to not go off the track or run into any other cars.
There are a ton of different game modes to play, off the top of my head. There is Arcade mode, then there is regular mode (forget what it's called). In the regular mode you have a ton of things to do; A Spec (usual races like in previous GT games) B Spec (you coach AI drivers to race for you), Special races (things like Kart racing, Nascar, AMG Academy, Top Gear track events, etc), and License tests like in previous GT games, and photo mode, where you can travel to different locations from around the world and take detailed photos of your cars with all the different manual adjustments you would have on a camera. There is also online racing, which I haven't touched - and track creation mode where you can make your own track and race on it with friends, etc.
You have a home page where you access all of this, and you customize it the way you want. This includes a picture (either from your pics on your ps3 or a picture you take in game), a background you choose, and some personal info and playstyle type stuff you set and can choose to have displayed to everyone or just your friends. Your friends or other people online can then come to your page and check all this out, as well as how many trophies you've got, etc.
Overall I'd say this is probably the racing game to get. I never get much into racing games, but there has always been something about Gran Turismo that appeals to me over others. I'll let you guys know how the online racing works when I get a chance to try it out, I'll have to show miir how to play one of these nights
