Gran Turismo 5, seen here in a screenshot, does an admirable job of making the PlayStation 3 look good. (Polyphony Digital/PlayStation Network)

If ever there’s been a title that promoted car porn, Gran Turismo 5 is it.

If ever there’s been a video game that promoted car porn, Gran Turismo 5 is it.

One of the game’s best features is a photo mode where you can model your cars in different locales. Set them against the backdrop of an old European village, position the camera pretty much anywhere, then adjust settings such as aperture and ISO before taking the perfect snapshot. When you’re done, you can upload your pictures to the PlayStation Network, where your friends can slobber over your hot… uh, car.

It’s these sorts of features that make Gran Turismo 5, Sony’s big exclusive game for the PlayStation 3 this holiday season, such a love letter to cars and their fans. While it’s ostensibly a racing game, the driving almost takes a back seat to all the other extras.

The game draws much inspiration from Facebook and other social networking media. Players can create profile pages, complete with text messages and those photos, and share them online. Custom races can be set up and played with friends, and players can even gift cars to each other.

The cars are, of course, what makes every racing game go. Gran Turismo 5 has a veritable smorgasbord, with upward of 1,000 to choose from, ranging from the mundane (Toyota Prius, Ford Focus) to the flashy (Lambourghinis and Ferraris). As is standard for the genre, players start out with the bottom-end vehicles and must compete in different races and trials to win credits, which can then be spent on unlocking increasingly higher-end vehicles. Credits can also be spent upgrading existing cars, getting them better tires, bodies and paint jobs.

The game has all the expected modes, such as standard races and time trials, set in the usual locales — the streets of Tokyo, London and Madrid, and the courses of Germany’s Nurburgring and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There are also a good number of dirt tracks through mountain settings to provide a little taste of rally racing, as well as some snow-covered tracks for those who like to slip and slide.

Gran Turismo 5 also includes a B-Spec mode, which puts the player in the role of a racing team director rather than the actual driver. Here, you can oversee a team of up to six artificial intelligence drivers, and you can adjust their abilities and train them over time. It’s an interesting function for people who like “god”-type managerial games, but it is a little odd in that it forces the player to sit out most of the action.

The driving itself is fast-paced, with cars handling realistically for the most part. I did find in a few instances that vehicles behaved a little unrealistically when negotiating tight turns – they would sometimes veer off into off-road areas seemingly by themselves. Those few cases notwithstanding, the driving is by and large precise, enjoyable and good looking. Racing games are, after all, generally showcases for whatever graphics hardware they’re using, and Gran Turismo 5 does an admirable job of making the PS3 look good.

The mechanics of the interface take some of that enjoyment away, however. The game takes close to an hour to install on the PS3. It can be played off the disc, which slowly installs as it goes, but doing so results in a good deal of waiting for new screens to load. Navigating between menus is also a pain, as the system seems designed for a mouse rather than a controller, since the player must move an arrow around to different areas on the screen to make selections.

Gran Turismo 5 also packs a track creator that is substandard compared to what’s available in other games. The feature allows for the creation of some rudimentary new courses, but it is otherwise fairly shallow in the degree of control it gives the player.

Having been developed by Sony’s Polyphony Digital subsidiary for almost six years — an eternity in the gaming biz — many people were expecting Gran Turismo 5 to be nothing less than jaw dropping. Ultimately, it’s a solid and fun racing game that will appeal to fans of the series and newcomers alike, but it doesn’t fully deliver on the expectations. But it sure is arousing to look at — if you’re into cars, that is.

Gran Turismo 5 is in stores as of Wednesday, Nov. 24.

Peter Nowak is a writer based in Toronto.