-Mike

Two of the main things that separate a sim from a game are, 1 – what does the physics do, and, 2 – is there a damage model.

It is a LOT easier from a programming standpoint to have the "car" in the game be an invisible box, but what is seen by the player looks like a real car. You don't have to model and render fairly complex things like panel deformation and chassis damage effecting handling etc.

You can see this effect in the current release of GT; it's like there is an invisible box drawn around perimeter of any given car (length and width, and probably height). You can see when the car interacts with something, another car, a barrier on the track etc, it doesn't interact at a given point, say a wheel, but at a flat plane.

You can see what the programmers for Polyphony have done. The "car" is actually a box of approximate size to the car they're "modeling". Within that box, they put a rendered image of the car. You're actually driving the box, but they're showing you the rendered image of the car.

It's a clever trick and work around for not having to model dozens of individual cars, but it's still a trick. Much like having triggered effects in place of a real physics engine is a trick.

It's also cheaper and more cost effective to go that route.

Sure, real car nuts can tell the difference between something that has triggered effects in place of a real physics engine, but the vast majority of people would much rather see shiny shiny cars.

So, you put money into staffing up a bunch of 3D artists, rather than physics geeks.

Same goes for their AI (which to me is even more of a deal breaker).

The way you win at GT is build faster cars. Not DRIVE the cars better, but BUILD the cars better.

No matter what you do, your AI opponents always drive at a given level of skill. They don't get any better or worse, they just circulate at what seems to be predetermined lap times.The only way to beat them in GT is to build a faster car, not driver better than them.

If they were to have come up with a decent AI, I could have overlooked the physics and pretty vs. realistic failings, but I think the game has run its course with me.

You know what I didn't see?

Car damage or any demonstration of the game having anything approaching a viable opponent AI.

Polyphony have had FIVE iterations of this game, and they STILL haven't come out with a damage model or digital opponents that can drive better than me?

Why bother?