Inside Sim Racing: GT5 Prologue vs. Forza 2

This head-to-head shootout between GT5 Prologue and Forza 2 by the Inside Sim Racing guys caused quite a stir in our forums last week, and it’s worth posting here for those of you who missed it.  Needless to say, the latest GT game didn’t fare quite so well, partly due to the fact that it wasn’t able to provide the features, size, or scale of a complete title.  This has put some GT fans up in arms, and you can argue that some of the evaluated criteria wasn’t appropriate.  That aside, their critiques are honest.  More than anything, though, the review spotlights what features Gran Turismo 5 needs the most in order to stay competitive.

Check out the video and see for yourself!

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Comments (45)

  1. Mani_23

    ^ @NOZX , …Gran turismo 4 had 800 cars, and 80 tracks.4000 polygons a car.. a game that came out around 2005, on the PS2! still does better than a next generation game that has come out on the 360, There are 20 more tracks in forza 3, but I would always rather double the cars than an additional 20 tracks.
    Not to mention forza 3 only capable of 720p Native, while the ps2 handled a 1080i- in 2005!

    I think Turn 10 will need the luck, Their the ones that are probably going to come out with their 4th game, only to match the numbers of Gran turismo 4- more than 5 years after its release. … Or maybe they wont even be able to, If it took 2 discs to handle 400 cars and 100 tracks, imagine what it would be like with another 400, and a probable extra 30 tracks (Taking that a sequel is made to be expanded on).. Just Hope it doesn’t turn out on 4 discs…

  2. NOZX

    Ha, now the forza 3 is announced for october 22, GT5 better gets is AintoG. 400+ cars, 100+ Tracks, ten times the poly count for car models, improved physics/graphs/modes. Goodluck GT5, you’ll need it.

  3. Jigsaw

    The biggest change I would love to see on top of more cars/tracks in FM2 would be a separate scoreboard for hotlap, and multiplayer. Also fix the exibition scoreboards to stop the wallbashing and grass cutting.

  4. NOZX

    I agree that GT5 and Forza 3 would be a more direct comparison. To say it’s not fair to compare forza 2 to a demo of GT5 cos its not the full version is as bad as comparing GT5(full release) to forza 2, a two year old game. Especially considering development time of GT5 it SHOULD be short of breathtaking.Forza 3 *fingers crossed* will be a great improvement. Not that it needs to be improve a great deal, but the addition of more tracks, cars, in game view, weather systems, more modications and more in-depth career and play modes, ie. drift/drag/oval/rally?/… though on that note i hope they ruined whats already great in forza, the physics, such as cpu assissted drifting to make it more like prostreet. That would ruin it.

  5. Jigsaw

    I see alot of guys somehow offended by the result. Then saying how they are comparing a full game to a, I’ll say it, a demo. To that I say the full version of GT5 and Forza 3, will have a much closer launch date.
    I’m sure GT5P is a great game. Forza2 is an amazing game, and has been an amazing game for near two years now. I run laps and race at least two hours every day on FM2. When I don’t feel like racing, I paint cars. When I don’t feel like either of those two things, I’ll tune a car to a specific criteria, and sell it for in game credits. Forza2 is a community game in alot more way than just racing.
    Forza2 is not without its problems, but they are easily overlooked when taking in the whole experience!!

  6. NOZX

    To be honest i’m in the same boat in terms of level 30 and 40 at the moment. That said I have completed all races and reached level 50 more than once. If you have XBL and race online you’ll realise that yes, you can race what you want. And there are many “true sim-driving fan”‘s with differing preferences hosting different race types, classes. Whatever. So if you wanna just show off your artwork. Drift. Drag. Specifically race a class type. Drive type. Oval races. It’s all online there for you to enjoy with real people. The days of being restricted to what a game offers with AI drivers only is gone. You have real people you can race with online now. The only limitations(and applicable to me especially) are timezones and when racers are online, so basically time of day you place. There are plenty of regulars on forza 2.

  7. Terronium-12

    Unless you’re implying that in general, I’ll agree.

    If you’re directing that toward me, I couldn’t disagree more. Remember those “Special Cars” in GT4 that you couldn’t use in any race, at all? If I remember correctly, the only things you could do with them were take photos, and use the drag course…and I’m not even sure about the latter.

    The point being it was pointless to have a car you couldn’t use for no other reason just to essentially….show it off, although in the case of GT4 the situation is a bit more on extreme side if you will. Either way it’s the same exact theory – Why am I unlocking content I really won’t be able to use?

    As far as the “true sim-driving fan” goes, so may people have their own definitions of what constitutes as being a hardcore simulation racer, or a hardcore gamer in general and I try my best to neglect such comments because the rationality is far off, as you’re simply comparing yourself to another person’s preferences.

    I’m really looking forward to Forza 3 and unless the problems I think it has are addressed, it’s just going to end up in the same predicament as the previous two – halted somewhere in-between Level 30 and 40.

  8. NOZX

    Would have to admit the race restrictions are very frustrating, when you’re not a true sim-driving fan. If you have cars that are U-class and can’t use them then really you’re not wanting to simulate actual races, you just wanna thrash every other car on the track. The career races are intended to be that way, so that you get a feel for a wider range of cars, obviously at varying performance levels. If you could use a 1000HP U-class skyline/supra/whatever in any race what would be the point. Then you would have a whole new field of forza haters complaining that its too arcady because you can use a fully-kitted racing beast vs. vw golf/mini cooper race. The restrictions make it more realistic. And the way that forza classes it’s cars D,C,B,A,S and U is spot on.

  9. Terronium-12

    You have any way of proving the physics engine used in Prologue will in fact be the same used in the final game?

    As far as the graphics go, if you’re saying there’s no visual difference between Forza 2 and Prologue you really need to have your eyes checked or put your glasses or contacts back on.

    While Forza does have a certain feel to it that some may discern as better or what have you, I call it boring. I’ve said this to my friends and on other forums I’m a member of – Forza does not (to me) give you a real sense of speed, all it gives you is if you turn into a corner too quickly you’ll crash. I own both Forza games and have stopped somewhere at level 30-something. Between the all too restrictive race conditions, and essentially having cars you really can’t use unless you’re an online racer (hello U Class), it gets boring really quick.

  10. Chris

    All u people need to realise is that even though its a prologue it will still have the final driveing ohysics and i have played both and Forza walks all over GT5 for physics and sim, i found that Forza has a feel of body roll why GT5 feels flat and no sim of weight transfer.. And graphics wise there is no diff even though the PS3 is 2 years newer and with all that power it should leave the Xbox for dead but its just another Sony failure!!

  11. aLaM0000

    I like FORZA2 besides GRAN TURISMO but im MORE of a GRAN TURISMO fan ever since i had the ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION CONSOLE!!!??? :D

  12. realist

    Look guys, they can only review what they have in hand. They charged real money for Prologue so it has to stand up to it. This review is solid for the simple fact that RIGHT NOW if you want to play a racing/driving simulator here are your choices. You can’t play something that you can’t buy or doesn’t exist for the public. When the real deal drops I’m sure they’ll do another review but right now they have to review what they got. If a doctor told me I got 5 months to live what do I care what the full GT5 is going to be like. I want to enjoy what I can get my hands on today. And right now, among other games, it’s Forza 2 and GT5P. I smell alot of flag waving in here. But you guys are waving a flag that hasn’t even been sewn together yet.

    Very good review for whats out on the shelf now. For the record I own both.

  13. OneEyedPimp20

    What happened is that they didn’t use the Fanatec 911 Turbo S wheel for the Xbox 360 to play GT5 Prologue on the PS3. This I cannot believe that they’re bringing Racing/Driving Simulators a bad name. These guys are very much amateurs to me. Listen, comparing a full game to an extended demo is downright idiotic. GT5 Prologue isn’t competing against Forza 2, GT5 Prologue isn’t competing against any games at all. Gran Turismo 5 is the one competing against Forza 3. Overall, this review is pretty much straightforward, a farce.

  14. InsideSimisfail

    This review was so fail you can see my comment from a few weeks ago. I can’t believe this made the front page of gtplanet.

    1. Forza 2 having no cockpit view is just as bad as no damage.

    2. They judged the car models on which game had more cars they liked.

    fail review is fail

  15. Northstar3914

    You will never be able to fairly compare the two franchises. Forza 2 was released in 2007, while GT5P was released a year ago and the full version won’t be out for at least 7 months if Amar is close to being right. Also what is the point in comparing the two, they aren’t even on the same console. Both are awesome games and I love playing F2 because it has a great community, hopefully this will also happen in GT5.

  16. NOZX

    and phil2001, idiot, how can u judge a game on physics when you didn’t play it and based it on graphics! fool!

  17. NOZX

    It’s kinda comparing apples with oranges don’t you think?

    Some have a preference to one, both have their own strengths and weaknesses, and at the end of the day if you only play one of the titles, be forza 2 or gt5:prologue, you become atune to that game and if you were to play the other when you’ve never really played it before of course it’s gonna to be less than satisfactory. Both games are different and strive to create fans in different ways. Tospeak of what makes the games different – people speak of damage like “oh wow damage a good driver doesn’t crash his car anyway” but when you have damage incorporated into the game, it makes it interesting and has gamers try harder, so many times i have started a race on forza and there’s a pile-up on the first corner so back to the lobby and restart the race. No body minds. It’s a good incentive to race better. If the damage wasn’t their, it wouldn’t feel as real, in my mind the game would feel plastic. And because of that reason(and the fact that gt5 is not a complete title yet) I will be a forza fan. The tuning is great, and customisation is very good. The online community makes the game worth while. And for those that say forza 2 feels too much like an arcade racer, compare apples with apples because if you a using a race tuned car and compare it to a stock standard car on gt – well duh! Yes, forza needs more cars, more tracks, better career modes. Maybe the car sounds aren’t as detailed or varying. But my pet hate for gt is the tyre sounds, absolutely hate them. GT looks better, much. But to make a proper opinion on a game that is not fully released is wrong. That said, that only real change will be more cars, more tracks and maybe a bit more a story mode, who knows!

  18. Phil2001

    I’m sorry, but I can tell by the look in the eyes of these guys they are amateurs. And I can tell by looking at Forza videos it doesn;t have realistic physics. I’m betting they played the supporters here for Microsoft, the thing with physics impressed me the most, for me it was so unbelievable I was starting to laugh.

  19. Mike M

    Zedux

    Even FC has a suspect physics- for example, at Spa, coming down from Les Combes to Rivage (downhill) the car would vibrate like crazy. I’ve seen a few videos (on-board) of cars coming down the same section and never have I seen such incident. While I don’t oppose to the fact that it has a more realistic handling than GT5 Prologue especially at higher speed, the latter do shine when it comes to its ability to delineate the steering mechanics of the different make and models of vehicles. Compared to FC, which I find to have a self centering effect especially when the FFB is set to High (the only way to get rid of the dreaded deadzone), the steering in GT5 Prologue is spot on albeit the FFB is somewhat weak (and I have mine set at 10)- especially pronouced when using N1-S1 tires. If rfactor or iRacing are the supreme example of what a sim driving/racing game should be, then FC, GT5P and Forza would definitely be in the same category- Simcade.

  20. jabofu

    We all should wait for Forza Motorsport 3 and the Full GT5. THEN we can compare these games. In the end both will bring endless fun to the racing entusiast on each console.

    Maybe some people have to imagine that forza 2 was released in 2007!

  21. Peter

    That’s not serious. Comparing a full game to a extended game preview. Scoring an extra category “car damage” with zero for a feature one game is missing. Outch.
    Car models scored higher in Forza because of better selection, sorry I don’t understand.

  22. Nomino

    Quote, “partly due to the fact that it wasn’t able to provide the features, size, or scale of a complete title.”

    Well DUH! WTF do people expect from a game that is sold as a sampler of a future game? Forza 2 has more tracks and cars…wow, thanks for stating the obvious. A couple of monkeys could have produced more meaningful verbiage.

  23. F1P1

    In my opinion, these guys don’t really know anything-are way off-and shouldn’t be reviewing GT5p at all. For instance, while they were comparing the “sound” of the two titles, the discussion was about music. Just one example.

  24. Adam

    This is just LOL. I mean physics is a debatable category yes but when you consider that GT5 WILL come out in the near future, the rest is just stupid. More cars in Forza2? HA! No damage in GT? That is because the kind of people that they expect to play GT day in and day out don’t spend all their time getting their car bashed up because they are not noobs. Also I would like to point out that when you want to have like 800+ cars available in your game it is almost impossible to get the licensing to crash them all unless you have an insane cargo ship full of cash, this is why Forza chose to have maybe 100 cars in their game along with the fact that half of them are race cars which get smashed at the tracks IRL all the time so licensing on those cars is cheaper. Also I like how the two guys talk about the lack of “race” cars in GT, it is clear that none of them have played GT3 or 4 and spent the time to unlock the unholy amount of insane race machines not to mention they give you tons right out of the box. Of course this is not apparent in Prologue because it is a demo of sorts but a real reviewer who has knowledge of GT and its previous titles will know about these facts just as I do. The debate on tracks also is not one at all: Forza 2 has tracks that they made up just for the game as well as RL tracks while GT stresses on only having RL tracks which btw are more accurate than Forza’s (I hear GT tracks are identical to the real life counterparts by no more or less than quarter of an inch). The issue on sound is also a stupid one when you consider the mission of a SIM racer. I mean would you rather A) Buy GT5 and listen to the wonderful sounds of the CAR with some very soft background music which I disable personally on GT games, or would you rather B) Purchase Forza 2 and enjoy the hoarse rambling that is Punk Rock music along with many other mainstream titles for all you sheep. I would like to end with my view on the reviewers themselves; these guys are great personalities for a small show like this and they have a good thing going, but it was clear from the way they talked about certain aspects of the games as well as the few video clips of them driving that they are not very good at driving or “racing” which according to them only happens in Forza lol. In one short clip you see the guy with the 911 wheel holding the clutch and brake pedal down for what seems to be days on end which shows me that their inputs suck you could just tell from how shaky the foot movements were (hesitation and such). They said that in GT they feel like they are driving and in Forza they feel like they are racing but a skilled driver knows that they are both connected in gigantic ways and even with Prologue’s lack of race cars there is no denying that fundamental skills are learned using not race cars but street cars. Race cars have little to no electronic aids and to think that you can skip the learning portion of fundamentals with cars that do have electronic aids and still be competitive in a race car you are dead wrong. If it was any other genre I wouldn’t say any of this but if your going to properly review a race simulator, you need to know how to properly drive. It is apparent that the skill of these 2 characters is arcade racer at best and their opinions should not hold any weight with you GT fans.

  25. dazzi

    I really dont know PJ what is so sim like in Rfactor thats not in GT5, to me driving rfactor is quite easy even with the aids of some of the cars in GT5 with aids of like the Ford GT are still harder to push hard at tracks like suzuka, and personally I think id rather trust polyphony who test their cars then a mod team of 5 people who assume things, not to mention no one can state what is a sim and what is not unless you have personally driven the car in real life, technically making it harder to drive does not mean it is more sim like.

  26. SC

    Ummm Gran Turismo is known to be the first game with realistic physics. It’s a sim not an arcade you Forza dummies go to a Forza site you Forza dummies. :P

  27. Forza haha

    Yeh so agreed comparing it with a sneak peak version of the full game is stupid as they don’t handicap it for that. And the coment “there so much more to do in the forza” LOL. So mucho im not agreed with soz.

  28. PJ

    Gran Turismo and Forza 2 are games. rFactor is a sim. Did you expect them to put “kinda a driving simulator but not quite” as the title? Forza is too arcade racer and GT is too easy to drive fast in. rFactor is a perfect sim.

  29. obi_one

    i guess they didn’t notice its just a bigger demo of GT5 and its missing all the tracks and whole more of stuff from the full game morons :)

  30. dazzi

    Gt5 arcade :D?, come on man, atleast Polyphony stays loyal and releases whats stated on the games blurb unlike system 3 did with FC.
    Anyways to the point, really people ignore this review, firstly if anyone has ever seen this show before it annoys the hell out of me, it feels so bodgy on so many merits, firstly it is so unorganized some will understand what I mean, take a look at their Logitech wireless wheel review, the guy jumps back and forth of catchup on things he missed in each category he did 15min ago, not to mention they seem like they have no understanding of what pretty much a demo should contain, and comeon if Gt5’s menu presentation was good then nothing is, sure i like the map from 4 more but even 5’s menu was alot more epic then forza 2, Damage wise, I dont care never ever been a factor, a good driver should never see damage anyways ;), also to point out that they already did a Gt5 P review before ad I think the scores have changed, shows their reviewing “Skills”, lastly this is why I watch GT trailer reviews, they are the least bias and point out the actual things from the games and are organized, not to mention realised that Prologue is a demo and were leniant on what you should be getting.

  31. Mr Latte

    Actually its not entirely pointless.

    As a comparison yes…

    As a ploy to get your website/videos more noticed then its rather clever to use such a comparison which YOU KNOW is going to get alot of discussion…

    In this respect im sure its been great for them…

  32. David R

    Their presentation was a load of rubbish. The thing that stood out for me, apart from the almost complete lack of acknowledgement that it’s just prologue, is their scoring of the driving physics. Forza 2 better? I don’t think so. This for me just completely took away any credibility of the review. I have played Forza 2, albeit for a limited time, and it feels very much an arcade racer and does not have the feels of GT. All the peripheral tuning options etc are just arcade gloss if the physics aren’t right in the first place. A bit pathetic if you ask me.

  33. Zedux

    GT5 Prologue vs. Forza 2 is a silly comparison as both titles are arcade racing games! The only PS3 title that is anything but close to sim racing is Ferrari Challenge. GT is an awesome game but not a sim!

  34. PJ

    The we’re really careful not to go into the gameplay or numbers or anything. They only did graphics, physics, those stuff. They never went into number of cars or number of tracks, only how good the selection of cars and tracks were. I still am upset that they went into damage and gave GT5:P a big 0. Unfair if you ask me.

  35. Krymzen

    If you’re going to review Forza2 against Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, make a BIG point and say that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is a Prologue! It’s a little taster of the full Gran Turismo 5 game.

    They came to the conclusion that Forza 2 is slightly better than GT5 Prologue, that’s great, well done Forza. Forza is slightly better than Gran Turismo 5’s Prologue. It’s slightly better than a small taster of GT5… just LOL.

  36. Mr Latte

    Pointless, really.

    Compare one complete product to one that is only a limited representation of what that title will be like. A big mmmmmmmmm, and it wasnt really done that well Sean/Darwin.
    Still Kudos to those guys for being right in their with Thomas from Fanatec, you seem to get the goods early. Now show us the GT3RS………

    I quite like the guys, even though they are a little amateur in presentation their kinda like a “Waynes World” ole boys having fun with their toys. Its all a bit light hearted too. OMG Talladega Nights comes to mind, however Darwin could maybe just shut the heck up about his Camero, “oh yeah the ole Camero”

    Other tip would be Jessica in something sexy!

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