But that’s changed with Gran Turismo 5 – both Kotaku and Playstation LifeStyle are carrying pictures uploaded by a Photobucket user called Asane99 which were apparently taken at a Best Buy where a demo pod is already being set up.

So take a look at Gran Turismo 5′s attempts at damage modelling and let us know what you think below…

And as always, if you haven’t pre-ordered you copy yet, and fancy supporting ORD in the process (without costing you anything extra), then we can help:
Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (amazon) (Pre-order includes Mecedes SLS AMG Stealth)

Gran Turismo 5 collectors edition (amazon) (Pre-order includes Mercedes SLS AMG Stealth)

Gran Turismo 5 Standard edition (Game)

Gran Turismo 5 Signature edition (Game)

Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (Gamestop) (Pre-order: McLaren F1 stealth and GameStop NASCAR car with Gran Turismo 5 logos.

Gran Turismo 5 signature edition (Gamestop) Pre-order: McLaren F1 stealth and GameStop NASCAR car with Gran Turismo 5 logos.

Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (Play.com) (Pre-Order: Mercedes SLS AMG and Nissan GT-R GT500 Stealth models)

Gran Turismo 5 Collectors edition (Play.com)

Different Gran Turismo Packages:

Collector’s Edition: Game, Custom-etched keychain, 1:43 scale model of the Nissan GTR Spec-V, 300 page book, voucher for 5 DLC cars, Certificate of Authenticity.

Signature Edition (Exclusive to Europe/Australian): Steel case, book, Gran Turisimo wallet, 1:43 scale Mercedes Benz SLS, voucher for six ‘Stealth’ cars and more.

Tragically this follows the death of 13-year-old rising 125cc star Peter Lenz, who died after an accident in the support race for the Indianapolis round of the MotoGP series.  Our thoughts and condolences are with the families and friends of both riders.

In fact, three racing games will play a part, with Trackmania for the PC, and Asphalt 5 for mobile gamers.

As one of the UK writers for ORD, I’ll be cheering on Daveyskills who will be representing us in Forza 3, and Shaw in Trackmania.

Buy Forza Motorsport 3 from:

• Amazon
• Play.com
• Gamestop
• Game

Buy Trackmania from:

• Amazon
• Play.com
• Game

This is the motorsports event of the year in the great north woods, and one I always attend with my trusty and knowledgeable sidekick “Cuda500″ (a.k.a. Warren). Rather than give you a boring list of names of winners and losers from a sport that I realize many of you have no knowledge of, I’ll just caption the following pictures for you.

Well, I hope I wasn’t too brief and that you all enjoyed the pictures. I can’t show you what happened each every night after the races, but drinking adult beverages was high on the list.

Full Throttle,

GTDon

The first up is the fact GT5 will include an optional hard drive install to run the game more effectively. Kazunori Yamauchi (Polyphony Digital CEO) revealed the news via his Twitter account, which says that to run the game, you’ll need just 256 MB, but for a ‘smooth play experience’ he’s recommending the install which requires 10 GB free. That’s one of the biggest memory requirements for any Playstation 3 game, and you might want to check you’ve got the space free before the game arrives!

Gran Turismo gets management mode:

But if you make the space available, you’re getting a lot of game. It’s been revealed that in addition to the standard racing game, there’s also a B-Spec ‘Management Mode’ which will allow you to train and manage an AI driver to lead them to pro racing. You can nurture or intimidate the drivers during practice run via a heads up display with a range of commands to issue as they tackle a course.

You can ask them to speed up, match pace, overtake over drivers and slow down. And if you overload them with orders, they may end up in a panic or ignoring you altogether.

Forza Motorsport 2 had an interesting method of training an AI driver by following your own driving performance, but this was dropped for Forza 3 – could this prompt the feature to return in the future?

Shorter wait for Gran Turismo 6:

Yamauchi revealed work is already underway for Gran Turismo 6 at Gamescom 2010, and that the new kart racing element was actually planned for the sixth instalment in the series – but was moved up to Gran Turismo 5 after it was leaked.

The promise is that you won’t have to wait as long for Gran Turismo 6. Building GT5 was about creating a whole new operating system, but GT6 will be like building new applications on top of it.

Gran Turismo back as the best?

Since the last full Gran Turismo game, the best console racing game has been Forza Motorsport on the Xbox. But those of us who rushed out to grab the first Gran Turismo game on the Playstation when it was first released can remember the revolution that occurred in terms of graphics and handling combining to create what was then the ultimate racing game.

The time taken to deliver GT5 has been of epic, and almost comical, length, but with the amount of cars, tracks, kart racing, track creator and rpg modes, it seems like Gran Turismo will again be king.

Not pre-ordered Gran Turismo 5 yet?

Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (amazon) (Pre-order includes Mecedes SLS AMG Stealth)

Gran Turismo 5 collectors edition (amazon) (Pre-order includes Mercedes SLS AMG Stealth)

Gran Turismo 5 Standard edition (Game)

Gran Turismo 5 Signature edition (Game)

Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (Gamestop) (Pre-order: McLaren F1 stealth and GameStop NASCAR car with Gran Turismo 5 logos.

Gran Turismo 5 signature edition (Gamestop) Pre-order: McLaren F1 stealth and GameStop NASCAR car with Gran Turismo 5 logos.

Gran Turismo 5 standard edition (Play.com) (Pre-Order: Mercedes SLS AMG and Nissan GT-R GT500 Stealth models)

Gran Turismo 5 Collectors edition (Play.com)

Different Gran Turismo Packages:

Collector’s Edition: Game, Custom-etched keychain, 1:43 scale model of the Nissan GTR Spec-V, 300 page book, voucher for 5 DLC cars, Certificate of Authenticity.

Signature Edition (Exclusive to Europe/Australian): Steel case, book, Gran Turisimo wallet, 1:43 scale Mercedes Benz SLS, voucher for six ‘Stealth’ cars and more.

The name suggests a new physical release which includes all of the DLC car packs since launch, and there’s the chance Turn 10 could cram in a few more extras to make the most of the Christmas market and to see if they can go up against the long, long, long-awaited release of Gran Turismo 5 at the start of November. (Assuming no added delays due to angry Italian flag fans).

Hopefully any extras will also be released via Xbox Live to existing owners, and here’s hoping they also bundle up the existing car packs in a more affordable way to ensure equality across all the current and new Forza fans – there’s only so much difference between available cars and tracks that any game can accommodate.

The reason is that the Piazza del Campo is featured as the site of the Palio di Siena, which is a bareback horse race run around a D-shaped course in the piazza since 1656. And GT5 no only features the course, but also the flags and colours of the 17 districts which take part in the race.

Apparently the Consortium for the Protection of the Palio are upset, saying there will be a ‘diplomatic request’ to Sony to resolve the matter, but if that isn’t satisfactory, the city may ask lawyers to seize Gran Turismo 5 at its release. Apparently the problem comes from the unauthorized use of the district flags. And if you’re wondering why the race is so important, here’s a handy link to Wikipedia.

Considering Gran Turismo 5 has taken so long to get this close to release, I can imagine that either flags are being removed as I type, or someone is flying to Italy with a briefcase full of cash.

In the meantime, you can always remind yourself why ORD’s Tom Bowker is ‘pulling himself off in anticipation‘. Or make sure you get a copy by pre-ordering from the likes of Amazon, Game, or Play.com (which comes with an exclusive stealth model car pack featuring the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG and the Nissan GT-R GT500).