Forza 4

Yay! My favourite cure for insomnia is back! Forza 4 demo hit XBLA yesterday. What did we all think of it then?

Roads - SHINY!
Cars - Sexy!
Driving - Ooh what's this, have they finally added PGR-style handbraking drift to the thing?
All in all let's face it, the only reason we're all buying this is for the Top Gear stuff, right?

so its good then? bums, im trying not to buy every single game in the world.

It's not markedly different to Forza 3. In fact looks wise it could've just been an add on pack but there definitely feels like there's been a bit of a tweak to handling (hitting the handbrake no longer feels like you've just chucked an anchor out of the back of your car). Tail-happy rear wheel drive stuff feels awesome.

Really wish they'd tone down the shininess of stuff, particularly tarmac. It's never that flippin' shiny when I go to real races!

Well shit. I bought Forza 4 and the new MS Speed Wheel (you know, that wireless thing) bundled together from ShopTo. They arrived today.

So the wheel feels good for racing, quite impressive however outside of racing it kinda falls apart:

1) It doesn't have LB and RB buttons, Forza 4 requires them for the options screens and store/auction house. There's no way to remap the buttons.
2) You can't use Autovista with the wheel either as no alternative control method is provided.
3) There's no headset input on the wheel.

It's not possible to use a pad at the same time either.

Anyone want to buy a wheel?

LOL.

I've had it since Monday and only managed an hour or so play. Need to install it as the load times are grim. Games lovely though.

That sounds terrible! The game it's being bundled with and it doesn't have the buttons to navigate through it? What on earth...!?

Dullest driving games I've ever played. Think I put less than three hours into the last one.

/checks ritalin supply

The GT games are more dull, but only because the AI is worse. The Forza AI is slightly better in that they make believable mistakes* and each driver acts a little differently. They actually race and don't just hug the racing line.

*Although on each track there is always one corner that all drivers just don't negotiate anywhere near as fast as they should be able to. They also coast around some corners infuriatingly and inexplicably slow on anything below the highest difficulty, rather than being slow because of taking a bad line or locking up.

After a weekend of playing this it certainly feels chock-a-block with content (I'd also recommend joining Team EGRS. I did set up an AATG team but it seemed like a pointless exercise as you can't join two teams, and everyone you know is in team EGRS anyway!)

The 'Autolog' stuff works really well and the Top Gear Track / KIA Ceed has already become THE challenge to get your teeth into. Some people's lap times make me think they've sneaked nitrous into the thing when the Stig wasn't looking.

Even though there's a raft of DLC on the way, it doesn't feel like it's been mined for assets for later consumption. There's a ton of cars (practically every car I've ever had on a poster ever is in here), a good varied selection of tracks (though there's way too much repetition from Forza 3). Most of the stuff remains unchanged from Forza 3 come to think of it, but the major difference has to be in the way the cars handle. Proper drifty handbrakey turning is now possible and that makes this game 100x more playable for me because that's the way I like my driving games.

Spent about an hour with the vinyl editor last night as well, very good fun just like it's always been.

I didn't spend as much time on this over the weekend as I wanted to, dealing with actual cars took up a lot of my time, however I'm enjoying it a quite a bit.

I have installed the game but when I go to play it and it reads the dvd to make sure it is the correct game, the dvd drive sounds like its being humped by a moose

. Is it my copy or does everyone's copy sound like that.

I have a Super Elite 360.

Also I have had 1 read error when I was looking at dvd 2 (before I chose the option to install it).

Both DVD's are fine though as they both installed without error.

Could it be something to do with this new disc format?

Mine does it too - in fact a few recent games seem to be doing it. Why? Surely if you have installed the game, all the disk is needed for is a bit of security checking? Apparently MS have recently changed the way games are checked for validity (some fat-track that's used for checking a legit copy) so it could merely be that.

Forza's install arseache is 'special' isn't it. Wouldn't it have been easier to just let people install both disks from the normal Xbox 360 panel rather than having to go into the game, select the option, install then change disks? Seems a bit silly to me.

I'm not sure I'll feel the love for Forza having spent so much time recently playing Hot Pursuit, Blur, Split Second and Driver...

The main frustration with Forza is that you wish Turn 10 would turn their undoubted talents to either re-invigorating the Project Gotham franchise, or dip into the same territory as the Race Driver / Gran Turismo series and add different types of racing into the mix. Christ you've got practically all of the best rally cars that have ever existed in Forza in one form or another, but you never get to take those buggers beyond the normal racing tracks. I would seriously love to see Turn 10 do rally stages, touring car stuff, maybe even truck racing or something equally daft.

I could see me getting bored with Forza's track racing eventually (though racing around the Amalfi Coastline does at least give you a bit of road racing in the mix even though it just feels like another 'track') so I can understand what you mean Rich.

Let's hope the rumours about MS hiring for PGR end up with a grain of truth to them. In the meantime, ffs MS, do the decent thing and reboot the Rallisport Challenge series!

Turn 10 and Polyphony should join forces. Poly can focus on making pretty cars and a great handling model, while everything else is handled by Turn 10.
It would still be a dull game, but at least it would be useable. (Assuming that Turn 10 can make a better UI than Poly, which shouldn't be too difficult.)

no no NOOOO. Poly's handling model is terrible compared to the rejigged turn 10 model.

One other notable thing about Forza 4 that I liked. It's the first time EVER I've been able to play a driving game solely in cockpit view. I don't know why it should be any different to any other game but it just feels like they've done something to naturally adjust for the human eye height / distance from the windscreen. In most cars it's a joy (stuff with thick pillars like the Citroen C3 still have a fairly annoyingly narrow field of view but it's still do-able).

I've not switched from cockpit view either, it just feels right.

I play all driving games in cockpit view - hate that behind the car view as they always seem unresponsive. Not that I bought any of the Forza games anyway...

I used to be a dyed in the wool chase cam person. Never played any driving game any other way. Then I switched to bumper / clock view (which, annoyingly, Forza doesn't have - just bumper view or road view) - but the cockpit view in this is absolutely spot on. It's also nice to drive cars you've owned and remember how many hours you spent looking at a particular dash / steering wheel combo (quite something seeing a Mercury Cougar's dash again though for some reason they had clocks in the Forza one rather than the big long line of a speedo mine had).

In games that involve using the car as a weapon then I'll use chase, other times it's cockpit/bonnet only as I tend to drive faster and better like that.

In NFS:HP I'd switch to bonnet for point to point races but chase cam for everything else.

Agree with that. Also find anything that involves drift racing or needing a handbrake around corners I tend to switch to chase cam (for instance, DiRT 3 - really needed chase cam for the gymkhana bits).

Chuckled last night while I was working through unlocking all the Autovista cars. Up pops a Warthog (from Halo). Such a shame they didn't get Clarkson to do a faux voiceover bit about it instead of just getting some bim to read out a few bits of text about it instead.

Also loved Clarkson's comment about the Morgan Aero, and a certain hamster-sized presenter's car preferences.

I like looking at the car models too much to play in bonnet cam. D:

Downloaded the demo last night. Have played all three previous games to death, but nothing about the demo piqued my interest at all. The car collisions in particular, felt utterly lifeless compared to something like Codemasters GRID. Will probably pick it up at some time, but currently much more excited about Batman:AC.

Also, I'd need to buy a new pair of sunglasses 'cos the tarmac's so shiny. ;)

The demo's pretty naff. Doesn't let you tune the car damage to levels where it really has an effect and really matters - and hell yes, even I commented on the shiny tarmac. Too damned shiny!

Having been round the Nurburging with my ass about an inch from the tarmac in a Lotus Elise, it definitely wasn't that shiny :)