Good? - YES. Welcome Back? - VERY. Perfect? - NO!. Lacks the gritty realism and immediacy of the likes of GRID
However the visuals and game-play are still too squeaky clean. Where is the grit and debris on the track? Where are the random accidents that you have to react to avoid? Where are the fatally de-stabilising retaliatory nudges from the car that you hit at the previous corner? Where is the paint-rubbing claustrophobia of being locked in the centre of a pack of cars as you charge into a corner?
One can understand that Polyphony are trying to keep the racing pure, not descend into a destruction derby. But the problem is that we have been playing Grid and NfS Drift during the long wait for GT5, and GT5 seems to be bordering on sterile in comparison.
Polyphony simply don't seem to understand collisions. The old ability to punt other cars off at corners and sail on unperturbed has been fixed. However collisions are now too solid, un-realistic. As is the pathetic collision noise (that is the same for Karts!). The only indication that you have been hit from behind is when your car starts to gently weave; no force-feedback, no sound.
GT5 is good enough that I am enjoying playing it, despite the fact that Polyphony continue to studiously ignore some of the realities of racing. However, GT is no longer the automatic top of the podium, and this installment is not the perfect resurrection that some people are hailing it as.