Gran Turismo 5 will get your motor running

To immerse yourself in the world of Gran Turismo 5, you have to be in the mood for something beyond the simple pedal-to-the-metal approach. In GT5, we had to learn to drive. We had to learn the nuances between taking a tight turn in a lightweight European roadster as opposed to power-drifting through the same turn in an American muscle car. These differences matter in GT5, and you won't progress far without paying attention to them.

Our confidence was boosted early with a first-place finish in a 2007 Nissan March 12 SR. But the 4,100 credits and 240 experience points earned still left us with a lowly Level 0 driver rating.

The menu navigation is more intuitive than previous games in the Gran Turismo series, which took too much time to sell one car and begin using another.

The graphics are as true-to-life as you could hope for in a driving sim. Sunlight rippled through tree branches and glowed in a soft sheen on the asphalt as we sped through one race. The car bodies and interiors are acutely detailed as well.

One very cool feature is GT5's "data logger." In this section of the game, you are able to examine a data-heavy recap of your driving performance to analyze gear-shifting habits as well as gas and braking techniques for each inch of the course driven.