mace
06-01-2007, 10:12 AM
Anyone get this guy yet? It's an awesome game if you are into racing sims. I'll cut and paste a review I read somewhere.... Maced II on XBL if you want to get add me to your friends list.
Forza 2 Impressions
Stephen Sopp
May 29, 2007
Something has been cutting into my Halo 3 Beta time lately... I’ve been playing the retail release of Forza 2 for about a week now and you will see below that I am very impressed.
The first thing I noticed about Forza 2 is that it’s a very feature rich game. You can do everything from time trials and arcade races to a nice meaty career mode where you can earn credits, level your racer, your cars, and buy (or win) many of the hundred cars in the game. The career mode events are broken down with certain restrictions on car horsepower, weight, manufacturer or other distinction. So if you want to do every event you are going to be racing lots of different cars. Of course you can pick and choose, but if you are going for all the achievements you are going to be very busy. You can also do the entire career mode online if racing the AI is not your thing. Although I have to say, the AI is very solid. You don’t feel like you are just racing against cars stuck on a line.
Online has a good amount of options such as locking down class and allowing various assists. You can also watch the race in progress while you are waiting. There is the ability to enter tournaments as well, where you are seeded and race in brackets. And if you aren’t good enough to make the tournament you can watch it on Forza TV, similar to what Project Gotham Racing 3 offered.
Some folks asked me about the graphics... If you played the demo, you got a pretty good idea of what to expect. Although there are other circuits and lighting that look better, and it might just be me, but I think there is less aliasing than in the demo. Either way, the game plays and looks smooth and there is more important things to talk about, like customization.
I didn’t think I would like painting my car so much, but they did a really good job. You can apply thousands of decals or shapes to every side of your car. You have the option of simple shapes, fonts, decals, gradients, creatures, and other goodies... but put a bunch of them together and the options are limitless. The fonts are a great addition, allowing anyone to quickly put their name on their car or whatever they can come up with.
After you are done customizing, you can take your creation, take a picture either in a race or in the showroom and upload it to forzamotorsport.net with a touch of a button. Then you can share it online through something like Flickr or your website. It’s really slick and really fun. The website also keeps track of your tournaments and auctions so you can view them away from the 360.
Oh right Auctions… So after you create your awesome car with the likeness of your cat, you can then sell it in an auction house where folks can bid on it. And if you don’t want people stealing your design you can lock it down so it can’t be edited. I’ve already sold and bought a few cars and it’s a great addition. You can also get the history of a car, see the original owner, the number of races, etc. You can even gift a car to a friend, which is a good way to pass around a cool decal or picture you made.
There is also upgrading and tuning beyond the cosmetic changes. Each car has a number rating and those numbers are broken down into letter class. The good thing about upgrading is that you can see before you purchase how an upgrade changes your rating and each stat such as handling and speed. So if you don’t know what a supercharger is, it doesn’t matter you can eyeball the number and try to create the fastest car for a class. It’s a good system and makes upgrading a little mini game in itself.
You can also tune your car which doesn’t effect it’s rating...things like camber, gear ratios and individual tire pressure. It does give you a bit of information why you would want to change each setting so you aren’t flying in the dark. And if you are a real gear head, at any point in a race you can bring up telemetry information and get real time feedback and see how each tire is doing temperature wise, pressure, camber and all sorts of fun numbers. The amount of information and physics going on is amazing. I was playing and it felt like my back tires were hopping around a bit. I brought up the information and realized all my poor steering around turns and over-correcting cooked my tires and brought the pressure way too high. It was cool that I could feel and then see while playing what was going on. It also helped I was using the Force feedback wheel which gave me a little more feel for my car and tires.
So I forgot to mention earlier that I played the game with my wheel and controller. Been playing more with the controller initially and then moved to the wheel. Which is better? Both are good options, I still do a little better lap time wise with the controller, but after a few races with the wheel I am not at a point where the times are a lot closer. I think the wheel is more fun though and gives you a better feel for the cars and therefore plan to use it much more often.
Damage has a few options. Not only does it look cool, it plays into the gameplay a lot when turned to simulation versus cosmetic and limited. One example: While playing on simulation mode with a manual transmission, I heavily down shifted into a turn. One too many downshifts caused me to seriously hurt my engine and pretty much took me out of the race. Also, bumping a guy early in the race might slow you down or throw off your stearing as well. It gives a lot more risk to every maneuver and a fun option for those that want it. Also the options let you play the career mode any way you like. You can turn on more assists, lower the difficulty and can still progress through the career mode. You just do it a little slower by earning less credits. Turn off all the assists and throw the difficult way up and it’s going to be really hard, but you get a lot more credits per race. It’s a great system and allows everyone to enjoy the game at their own pace.
I could talk more about the game, but have to cut the impressions there for now. If you have questions that I didn’t answer, let me know. If you like racers though, I would check this game out... you will be playing it for a long time.
Forza 2 Impressions
Stephen Sopp
May 29, 2007
Something has been cutting into my Halo 3 Beta time lately... I’ve been playing the retail release of Forza 2 for about a week now and you will see below that I am very impressed.
The first thing I noticed about Forza 2 is that it’s a very feature rich game. You can do everything from time trials and arcade races to a nice meaty career mode where you can earn credits, level your racer, your cars, and buy (or win) many of the hundred cars in the game. The career mode events are broken down with certain restrictions on car horsepower, weight, manufacturer or other distinction. So if you want to do every event you are going to be racing lots of different cars. Of course you can pick and choose, but if you are going for all the achievements you are going to be very busy. You can also do the entire career mode online if racing the AI is not your thing. Although I have to say, the AI is very solid. You don’t feel like you are just racing against cars stuck on a line.
Online has a good amount of options such as locking down class and allowing various assists. You can also watch the race in progress while you are waiting. There is the ability to enter tournaments as well, where you are seeded and race in brackets. And if you aren’t good enough to make the tournament you can watch it on Forza TV, similar to what Project Gotham Racing 3 offered.
Some folks asked me about the graphics... If you played the demo, you got a pretty good idea of what to expect. Although there are other circuits and lighting that look better, and it might just be me, but I think there is less aliasing than in the demo. Either way, the game plays and looks smooth and there is more important things to talk about, like customization.
I didn’t think I would like painting my car so much, but they did a really good job. You can apply thousands of decals or shapes to every side of your car. You have the option of simple shapes, fonts, decals, gradients, creatures, and other goodies... but put a bunch of them together and the options are limitless. The fonts are a great addition, allowing anyone to quickly put their name on their car or whatever they can come up with.
After you are done customizing, you can take your creation, take a picture either in a race or in the showroom and upload it to forzamotorsport.net with a touch of a button. Then you can share it online through something like Flickr or your website. It’s really slick and really fun. The website also keeps track of your tournaments and auctions so you can view them away from the 360.
Oh right Auctions… So after you create your awesome car with the likeness of your cat, you can then sell it in an auction house where folks can bid on it. And if you don’t want people stealing your design you can lock it down so it can’t be edited. I’ve already sold and bought a few cars and it’s a great addition. You can also get the history of a car, see the original owner, the number of races, etc. You can even gift a car to a friend, which is a good way to pass around a cool decal or picture you made.
There is also upgrading and tuning beyond the cosmetic changes. Each car has a number rating and those numbers are broken down into letter class. The good thing about upgrading is that you can see before you purchase how an upgrade changes your rating and each stat such as handling and speed. So if you don’t know what a supercharger is, it doesn’t matter you can eyeball the number and try to create the fastest car for a class. It’s a good system and makes upgrading a little mini game in itself.
You can also tune your car which doesn’t effect it’s rating...things like camber, gear ratios and individual tire pressure. It does give you a bit of information why you would want to change each setting so you aren’t flying in the dark. And if you are a real gear head, at any point in a race you can bring up telemetry information and get real time feedback and see how each tire is doing temperature wise, pressure, camber and all sorts of fun numbers. The amount of information and physics going on is amazing. I was playing and it felt like my back tires were hopping around a bit. I brought up the information and realized all my poor steering around turns and over-correcting cooked my tires and brought the pressure way too high. It was cool that I could feel and then see while playing what was going on. It also helped I was using the Force feedback wheel which gave me a little more feel for my car and tires.
So I forgot to mention earlier that I played the game with my wheel and controller. Been playing more with the controller initially and then moved to the wheel. Which is better? Both are good options, I still do a little better lap time wise with the controller, but after a few races with the wheel I am not at a point where the times are a lot closer. I think the wheel is more fun though and gives you a better feel for the cars and therefore plan to use it much more often.
Damage has a few options. Not only does it look cool, it plays into the gameplay a lot when turned to simulation versus cosmetic and limited. One example: While playing on simulation mode with a manual transmission, I heavily down shifted into a turn. One too many downshifts caused me to seriously hurt my engine and pretty much took me out of the race. Also, bumping a guy early in the race might slow you down or throw off your stearing as well. It gives a lot more risk to every maneuver and a fun option for those that want it. Also the options let you play the career mode any way you like. You can turn on more assists, lower the difficulty and can still progress through the career mode. You just do it a little slower by earning less credits. Turn off all the assists and throw the difficult way up and it’s going to be really hard, but you get a lot more credits per race. It’s a great system and allows everyone to enjoy the game at their own pace.
I could talk more about the game, but have to cut the impressions there for now. If you have questions that I didn’t answer, let me know. If you like racers though, I would check this game out... you will be playing it for a long time.