GT5 made me see the truth

I love my racing games and the main franchise I have been playing over the years has been Forza, the latest being Forza 3 and I used to think that game was a sim. But recently I bought GT5 and I wasnt expecting that much because I hated prologue to the exstent that I condemd the Gran Turismo franchise in general, don't get me wrong it looked great but to me everything elese didnt feel right. The handling didn't feel realistic and the racing was very mundaine due to the average A.I, so I kept with the Forza franchise proclaiming it to be the greatest racer on any console. The early videos of GT5 didnt tempt me, it still looked like they had only bothered with the cars and everything else they had imported from the PS2 and the engine noises were still terrible but then came E3 2010 and sony showed a video of GT5 and it blew me away, they had sorted the engine noises, sorted the terrible tyre squeel and added some much needed detail to the rest of the game. Then came the deal maker, they had finally shown the weather which instantly made me want the game there and then but unfortunatly it wasn't releasing till November which left me with Forza 3.

I expected it to be better than Forza 3 but not to the extent that it is. As soon as I started playing GT5 it had me hooked, the handing felt amazing even with a pad (my steering wheel hadn't arrived) and I got stuck into the Aspec mode and I was instantly satisfied. A couple of days after my copy of gt5 arrived my wheel finally came and thats when I realised how arcadey Forza really is. Obviously I was still playing it but the more time I spent with GT5 and went back to Forza the worse it became. Don't get me wrong Forza isn't a bad game but the more I played GT5 the more Forza felt like a Project gotham type game, it felt floaty and like the car wasnt connected to the ground. GT5 on the other hand even with pad translated the road perfectly through my hands so I could feel what the car was doing. GT5 has its bad points too but they are superficial descrepancys and in no way affect the gameplay so i'm not going to list them because you already know what they are.

Like I said I used to think Forza was a really good sim, now I know its just a really good driving game. Its not just the handling where Forza falls short, take for instance the incar view. I used to use that view on forza but after playing GT5 like that It doesnt feel right and i'm not talking about graphics, its the way the steering wheel only moves an inch either way and how the car seems to be on a railway track. I'm hoping Forza 4 can corret these issues because GT5 will lose its shine one day and i'm going to need a driving game to tide me over untill GT6 but Turn 10 will have to sort alot of issues, otherwise I don't think I could play a Forza game again. Not after playing a proper SIM.