You can NOT get a real feel for a racing game with a D Pad controller. With that, it's just another video game. You have to use a wheel like the marvelous Driving Force Pro or G25.
I did some comparisons between Forza and Gran Turismo 4, and even Toca 3, and I think I'll edit them in here.
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Click here
Gran Turismo 4
I fired GT4 up first because I was intending to spend the day with Forza, maybe even set up a Live account. And... heavenly angels sang.
The more I play Forza, the more I appreciate Gran Turismo. Because of the unforgiving nature of Forza, it did force me to be an even more technical driver. Otherwise my victories would be far fewer. Because I was getting schooled on the finer points of Forza, GT4 felt weird. I tried it with the behind the car view, but it was not only too low, it felt completely wrong, so I went back to my beloved roof cam, and...
I was in the car. It was slippery because a 600hp slab of heavy steel on sports tires would be and it took a few tries to get used to it. In fact I went off the track at the very start, so I let it go and squirreled around to watch the SLR's behavior on the grass in replay. But then I got serious.
As I got used to it, the feel became natural. I could point the car where I wanted without fishing. I learned how hard I could push it, and I got braver around turns. When I lost it, I knew why. I could hit the bumper strips almost perfectly, and my racing line was clear to me. There was no draw in. The turn markers were there when that part of the track was visible and I could see them and every aspect of the track perfectly. I could approach turns without any indecision, and I didn't fish around them except at first as I adjusted to the car and tires. Breaking and tire grip felt natural. When the tires regained grip after a slippery turn it was smooth. Force feedback is God's gift to racing games, and it helped immensely, but when I unplugged it, I could still drive almost as precisely. Shifting was slow but not a problem. The SLR sounded like an old German machine but what the heck.
On replay, when the car left the track, it looked... like a car leaving the track! The bounce and behavior was authentic. Even though there was a lot less detail on the race track, it looked... real. The angle of the sun matched the reflections and shadows perfectly. The SLR looked like it was on a live test drive on The Speed Channel, and the beavertail brake added to the effect. The multiple camera angles added a lot to the presentation. Smoke was good but you could tell it was CG. The heat distortion was kind of hokey, there in some shots but not others, but it did look good. The 60fps video was butter smooth. The replay music was great. I miss that on Forza because I can't stand music during a race, as it takes away my auditory sense of the car. Not seeing damage on the nose when I lost it in the first corkscrew attempt was rather disconcerting, after growing used to it in Forza. But I can still live without damage.
Forza Motorsport
First... it started off by crashing.
It's even funnier when it crashes during a race. A definite AARGH moment. But okay, to the hotlap.
Amazingly, the behind the car view wasn't bad, though it wasn't as good as my adopted roofcam view in GT4. It did give me a better view of the road, but I wasn't quite as involved in the driving experience. The car sounded like a supercar and not something from a machine shop.
I dialled in faster with the Forza SLR, but not as much. I could sort of feel the car, but it was vague. I could point the car but not as precisely. I did learn how hard I could push it, and I got braver around turns. However when I lost it, sometimes I had no clue. Communication between me and the car was iffy. The track was a bit more uncertain, and keeping four wheels on the track was harder. Curves were fishier and tended to sneak up on me. I could hit the bumper strips sometimes and sometimes not. Because of the vague perspective and my judgement of approaching turns, braking was problematic, so I tended to brake earlier. My driving line was harder to stay on. My laps were less consistent. With the tire noise cranked, I liked it better than GT4's. The ABS acted more like it would trying to stop a slab of heavy steel, and the tire chirp and streaky tracks were satisfying.
The turn markers drew in MUCH later than they should have, and watching them pop into view was almost alarming, plus they weren't as visible. The 30 second framerate definitely hurt there. Breaking and tire grip did feel natural. When the tires regained grip after a slippery turn, sometimes it was smooth, sometimes not. Applying power was a bit touchier, as in a tight turn if you floored it, tires tended to spin. The grip of the tires was a bit more sure footed than in GT4. Shifting was fairly quick. Force feedback would have helped a great deal, but I didn't miss it as much as I thought I would. I tended to drive very similarly, though around some turns it felt more comfortable to stay in the higher gear.
The replays were gorgeous, and the trackside detail is wonderful. I much prefer Forza's lifelike color to Gran Turismo's video look, although somehow it seemed more "realistic" than real. Having one set of replay cameras and no replay music made it less entertaining (you get music in races and replays both, or neither, so I turn it off). Particle effects like smoke were excellent, but sparks and sand flying sand looked cartoony. The 30 second framerate was flickery, and the 6fps environment reflections are almost painful. At high RPMs the cars sound remarkably similar. When the Forza SLR left the track, sometimes it looked real, sometimes not. The cars followed similar racing lines, though with less precision in Forza. Watching the speedometer, the cars drove and took turns almost exactly the same, and the racing line for me was the same, though they felt differently.
All in all, both drives were very satisfying, but just a bit more engaging in Gran Turismo 4. I quit after 16 laps in Forza because the game crashed again.
And now for the fine print, the best laps.
Gran Turismo 4: 1'33.577
Forza Motorsport: 1'33.326
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Click here (post #19)
Having owned both, and pwned Forza in 60 days, here's my assessment.
Forza apparently has some Need For Speed flavor, due to the fact that some of Turn 10 were recruited from EA's NFS group. That's not a bad thing, but it explains a bit. It was rushed out the door for two reasons: one, that it had missed the holiday sales season by fully six months (May '05), and two, the XBox was slated for the recycling bin and MS had to make some money on their expensive licenses fast.
It's still a very good game, warts and all. But as to that critique, first the good news:
- The game engine is generally solid with good physics and graphics. Shadows and highlights are realistic, and colors are lush and lifelike. A wealth of parameters let you set difficulty, amount of damage, driving assists such as stability control, auto/manual transmission and antilock braking, as well as audio parameters for engine, tire and environment noise level let you set up the game to your liking.
- Profile creation, so each player can have their own Forza game files and progress.
- There are 230 cars, with a great assortment, including classic muscle cars and supercars from Ferrari, Porsche and others, along with race cars. Your "garage" is very large and can hold hundreds of cars.
- A very well thought out car classification system lets you know what races your car can compete in, and picking a race can take you to the car list with cars that fit the class. The sense of speed in races is very good. You get four driver views, two bumper cam and two chase view. You can save up to 32 replays.
- Progression through the game including unlocks and acquired sponsors is handled by a sensible "experience point" system, based on winnings. Sponsorships give you discounts on upgrade parts.
- The tracks are mostly real and feature a good selection with a good range of challenge, including an insane but cool Test Track, and (a questionable) Nurburgring. Fantasy tracks are very well designed. Races range from the usual road course races to point to point, including an amazing and challenging road course down Mt Fuji.
- Cars can be modified extensively, including engine swaps for many cars. Most cars can be given arodynamic racing body kits, which can be installed part by part. Performance values are provided for every aspect of tuning from speed and turning ability to acceleration, so you see how each modification affects performance. You can save numerous car setups and give them up to 12 character names.
- A basic but very powerful paint shop is available, including exotic paints such as chameleon metallics, and a wide assortment of "vinyls" are provided to allow you to apply color patterns. Decals pertinent to the car being detailed are supplied too. With effects like fading and layering and 100 layers per side, many race or drift cars can be recreated.
- A dynamic racing guideline is provided, showing you the suggested path to take around the racecourse, as well as when to slow, brake and accelerate. It also responds to how you're driving at the moment.
- A trainable Drivatar is available, which you teach directly how to drive, and is extremely powerful and useful. The bots don't attack their own nearly as savagely, and the Drivatar drives fairly consistently. So a well trained drivatar will make few mistakes, even though you should still be able to outperform it.
- For $50 US per year, you have online play against actual humans from around the world with voice chat.
Now for the bad stuff:
- The XBox occasionally hiccups and crashes.
- Each new profile increases load times.
- Despite the fact that the XBox has a hard drive, you can't save but 32 replays... the heck??
- You can't back up your data, save for setups and Drivatar files.
- The music in the game itself is kind of... odd, sometimes bad, cover tunes done weirdly by JunkieXL. The original compositions in Career Mode however are outstanding, go figure.
- Sound in the game is messed up, in that cars in race following you 20-30 car lengths back sound like they're right behind you, and when you're in a pack, you can barely hear your own car. Using surround sound settings in the XBox console helps a bit.
- Graphics are a mixed bag. The cars are nicely detailed, backgrounds lush, but environment reflections flicker along at 6-8fps! Eww. Also, the 30fps framerate turns replays into flickering hash at some angles. Graphics look like a video game, more realistic than real.
- There are only eight cars per race.
- Many cars are badly outclassed, car balance is uneven though the car list. The Hondas unfairly dominate the game in most classes.
- The bots are evil and must die. Specifically, they get more than aggressive as you progress, to the point that they intentionally ram you, spin you out, team up to attack you, and will even intentionally brake in front of you in order to wreck you. And if you dare collide with one, they get even more violent. Strangely, if you get a five second lead on them, they usually give up and coast further and further behind you! Just... weird...
- The bot cars can exceed their cars given performance (rabbit and rubber-banding), and take less damage in collisions, as well as shrugging off your impacts.
- The 3D perspective is weird, so that turns linger in the distance, and then if you're driving a race car, leap up at you suddenly. Even worse, the turn markers draw in as you approach! Thus you may have to watch the side of the road rather than the turn you're taking as you approach to know when to brake.
- Cars can take turns a bit too fast, and drifting is too easy.
- Cars tend to cling to the road, perhaps explaining the above, as can be seen if you leave the road and watch them jiggle along the ground in replays.
- Cars refuse to lean around turns, even stock street cars.
- Cars retain too much momentum after collisions.
- Cars stick to walls when you slide along them.
- A jerk on the wheel is usually enough to stop a slide.
- Damage is mostly cosmetic, even in "sim" mode.
- No c0ckpit view. This matters to some people.
- The game is a bit short. Endurance races average 30 minutes, good for maybe one pit stop.
- The Nurburgring Nordshleife road course is recreated poorly.
- No text fonts or flags in paint shop, camera can be a pain, as well as matching patterns across the different sides of the car. Color selection is very limited, and is dominated by pastels and whites.
- Promised downloadable content never came.
- Online play fraught with hazards from brats who refuse to race cleanly and watch their language. Online play isn't free, and XBox Live may not be available forever.
- No force feedback for wheel controllers, Logitech wheels aren't supported.
Verdict? An awesome game regardless.
Now, how about
Gran Turismo 4?
People either love it or hate it, but it is the defacto racing game for Planet Earth, the franchise having sold 46 MILLION copies, making it one of the most successful series in videogames. GT4 features amazing graphics, especially considering the game is running on the fairly primitive and ram-skimped Playstation 2. While backgrounds are a mixed bag and lack textures, car models are excellent, and tracks are very well represented. How about some nitty gritty? The good stuff:
- The game is HUGE, in every way imaginable. The game engine is rock solid, with great, detailed graphics with a butter smooth 60fps display, and very good physics. The graphics have a decidedly video look to them, but are still very eye pleasing. The game even supports 1080i mode, and 16x9 wide aspect displays. The 3D perspective is perfect, very authentic, and even going blistering fast, you see turns coming up easily.
- With variations, there are 700 cars in the game, covering every conceivable category from the very first motor carriage to the latest supercars and Formula 1 race cars. Even taking away duplicates, the car count still totals nearly 600. The "garage" can hold hundreds of cars, making car collecting a dream. There's a great used car lot which updates every 10 days or so, giving you some interesting opportunities, as well as some surprisingly cool easter eggs.
- The range of tracks is excellent as well, with courses from around the world, as well as choice fantasy tracks from previous GT games. With variations, there are 50 race courses, with varying degrees of challenge, all great looking. Nurburgring is superb, and accurate almost to the tree!
- Progression through the game is very well paced, although you can get lost in all the things you can do. There are enthusiast street car races, challenging driving missions, modified car races, TONS of manufacturer cup races, rally races on asphalt, dirt and snow, high performance race car races, up to endurance races which can last up to 24 hours real time! An Arcade Mode lets you grab a car and go, with a nice selection of parameters to set the amount of challenge you want.
- A-Spec points give you a measure of how well you do in challenging races. The harder the race, the more points.
- License tests give you opportunities to not just unlock races but win prize cars.
- Driver views feature the usual chase and bumper cam, but include a wonderful roof cam, which puts me in the car like no other.
- Profile creation lets you set up your own game. And if you wish, you can access a GT3 game save to give you 120,000 credits to start your game off with a spending spree on high performance cars or upgrades.
- There's extensive car modification, including the dreaded nitrous (!), allowing you to turn even the most basic street car into a monster racer. You can save three setups per car, to give you quick access to basic, easily tunable settings for each track.
- There's a trainable B-Spec driver, which can be taught how to drive for you should you not want to spend 24 hours in an endurance race.
- Photomode is surprisingly addictive and powerful, giving you 1280x960 high resolution pics of your car, which you can save to a memory card, or even a USB drive to import to your computer!
- You can save as many replays as you have space on a memory card. Replays look amazing, bearing an uncanny semblance to live racing video.
- Force feedback is supported for all FFB wheel controllers, primarily the excellent Logitech Driving Force Pro and G25 wheels. Driving with these wheels is simply amazing.
Now for the MEH:
- There is occasional but quite annoying screen flicker.
- Some backgrounds are lackluster. Textures are reused due to skimpy VRam, with lots of texture tiling. Graphics have a sterile video look.
- Low speed physics aren't as accurate. You can't do donuts easily. Drifting is hard.
- There are only six cars per race. Some cars are badly outclassed.
- The first oil change increases your horsepower, even on new cars (characteristic of every GT game).
- The car list is slanted to Japanese car makers.
- A few stock car setups are wrong.
- Some American and European car sounds are wrong.
- No c0ckpit view.
- No car color editor.
- No body kits, save for tail wings.
- Bot cars are mindless drones and will sometimes slam right into you. I've also been completely avoided, so I guess it depends on their mood.
- Bot cars can sometimes rabbit away faster than they should be able.
- 5 second penalty for striking "walls" or opponent bot cars too hard in rally races, which don't seem to apply equally to bot cars.
- Online and LAN play doesn't work for everyone, even if networking should be good to go.
- Some races are far too easy, while others are much too difficult.
- There are too many weak cars and SUVs.
- You can get bogged down dealing with unappealing races, if you want to complete the game 100%.
- A-Spec points are rather badly implemented, and don't always correspond to a race's difficulty.
- Endurance races are insanely long.
- The game is insanely long, taking forever to complete.
- Some people just plain hate Gran Turismo.
Verdict? I love it.
For bonus points, let's compare another game,
Toca 3. The good:
- The game is solid, with decent graphics if a bit washed out, good physics, and a solid 60fps framerate. The 3D perspective is excellent and lifelike.
- There are a mind boggling range of races from lawnmower races (!) to Formula 1, with a wealth of race cars to drive.
- The number of tracks is staggering, with real race courses from around the world. I'm not sure of the track count, but it's way lots.
- There is a quick World Tour, as well as a Pro Career Mode, along with online racing in all versions, giving you a LOT of racing. So there's something there for whatever flavor of racing you prefer. You not only can have your own profile, but you can have multiple save points within the game.
- You have a great selection of driver views, from bumper and chase cam, to hood and an actually useful (!) c0ckpit view.
- The bots grow in aggression as you progress, giving you more challenge as you hone your skills.
- Collision physics and damage is quite realistic.
- The number of cars per race run from eight to as many as 24! Online or LAN, you can duke it out with eight other competitors. Replays look amazingly lifelike. Cars can be set up in numerous ways, and racing setups can be saved.
- Advancing in the game unlocks a lot of content, and even upgrades for your car you can apply yourself or let the game make recommended adjustments for you.
- The game supports force feedback, and Logitech racing wheels.
And there's more, but strangely, my fingers are tired. How about some yucky bug thingies?
- The game is a bit too ambitious, and with silliness like lawnmower races (!), there's some things many would rather not have to deal with.
- The bots don't just become more agressive, they get downright evil, banging you around and spinning you out recklessly in later stages. Unfortunately the bots don't obey the same physics you do. Bit cars suffer less damage.
- Too many things in the game from physics to race results are scripted. Some races, you just can't win without a miracle while others are ridiculously easy. Sometimes your car is outclassed from the start. Bots can rabbit away and rubber band to you worse than in any game I've ever seen.
- Codemasters flatly messed some things up badly. If you thought Gran Turismo had issues, try tachometers with incorrect redlines, or wheel camber which is BACKWARDS! On top of that, steering with a wheel controller is so badly frooked up that without a force feedback wheel, it's extremely hard to drive anything. With a Logitech DF Pro you can manage to get a setting which is quite controllable, but that sort of nonsense is unforgivable in a sim-level racing game.
- There's room for only 32 replays, and thanks to a bug, most of them mess up your driving data so they're useless.
- And there's more, but I'm tired.
And even with all those issues, Toca 3 is still a darn good game.
So what can we conclude here? All racing games have issues, but at least for the above three, they give you a great racing experience, each with its own take on the genre.
Thats a badass max you got there..not many ppl here use them to their potential. I took that cool pop out tray you guys have and put it in my second din. Bolts up nice.
