With little more than a week before Gran Turismo 5 Prologue finally hits Europe, anticipation for the game is reaching fever pitch. Sony has certainly pulled out all the stops for the series' unveiling on the PlayStation 3; it's nearly impossible to avoid the TV advertising campaign in the UK, and if you're a car fanatic then you've probably heard that the first British showing of the Nissan GT-R will take place at a Gran Turismo media event on March 27. With so much excitement around, it was nice to receive a surprise email from Sony this week inviting us to download the game. Naturally, we wasted no time in doing so to report back.

As with all previous games in the series, Gran Turismo's love of cars is obvious from the moment you load it up. If you're a casual racing fan, you might actually find this automobile obsession almost to the game's fault, given that it prevents you from actually racing anything before you've spent a good few minutes setting everything up. This isn't helped by the car-selection setup, which doesn't filter out the cars that you can't actually afford. With a measly 35,000 credits to spend at the beginning of the game, your choice is quite restricted, and you have to root through the various cheaper manufacturers to find something such as a Mini to start you off.

Full story: gamespot.com