Forza Motorsport 4

[andrewsmith]

yep that POS is gone!

Replaced by Dunsfold airfield

Originally Posted by thedonal

Played the demo tonight. Didn't come across as a huge step forward in the driving experience (except the in-car view is much better), but liked it nonetheless. I'm still a way off finishing Forza 3 (have to give it big rests!, to calm the swear factor down).

Please someone reassure me that the farking awful New York circuit has been ditched and not replaced by anything equally dire. Please?

Watched a review, new york is has been ditched.

Originally Posted by beabert

Watched a review, new york is has been ditched.

Music to my ears!!

I really like the new one, especially as you dont need to pay for mods if you use a certain brand of car a lot. Genius.

I sometimes feel tempted to go back to the start of Forza 3 and see how I progress with my vastly improved knowledge on both driving and setup on it.

But then I think nah.

Might still do, though...

Had 1 and 2 , missed out on 3 , picked 4 up today and enjoying it

(reposted from another forum, warning: LONG)

Started it up, did the first two seasons. Impressions:

Starting is up is a big faff. Install to the hard drive, download no less than three separate DLC from the codes included in the box. You then get a Clarkson-narrated video lamenting lentil-eating eco-greeny weird beards, before being thrust into a Forza 3-style introductory race in the Ferrari featured on the cover. This has all the assists switched on, and as such you only need to steer, a bit, and keep the accelerator floored while the game all but plays itself.

You're then invited (at gunpoint) to purchase your first car, from a selection of ****boxes nobody would if they could afford better, including the Ford Kack, VW Fox and Citroen C1. Duly equipped with a vomit-green Chevrolet Spark, I returned to the main menu to install Disc 2 (this time around, Disc 2 only holds 250 more cars, and some of the Autovista stuff - more on that in a minute - with everything contained on the main 'play' disc). I also wrestled with the download manager and Xbox.com's account history trying to get my Limited Edition DLC to download properly as it crapped out the first time. I also get the chance to import my Forza 3 save, and get given some extra credits as 'thanks' for being an existing Forza customer, and even more extra credits for having a level 50 Forza 3 save. Nothing for Forza 2.

Now I can finally race, but first I go into Autovista and look around. You can move around an astonishing rendition of beautiful sports car, poking at the doors and interior while the posh narrator and Clarkson tell you things. This is clearly intended to be one of the two Kinect showpieces, as you can use gestures (on the stick) to get in and out of the car or lean towards or away from engine bays. Sitting in the car you can take it for a spin, and to unlock more cars to gawp at you need to unlock them by completing the challenge in them. I duly took the challenge to unlock the Aston Martin One-77, and had my first go in the game with the difficulty adjusted to suit me (all assists bar traction control off). It's worth observing there's a new steering assist option (along with a new extra-hard steering that I haven't tried) and a new 'Professional' opponent difficulty option.

Out on the track, and the new and improved physics are readily apparent. The cars are much more squirrelly if mistreated, and you can feel them squirming under hard acceleration or braking. Turning the wheel all the way really does seem to equate to a proper hard turn, and you can step the back out quite easily on almost any car (the appalling Spark included) if you are determined enough. I hurl the One-77 around Silverstone twice, admire it in Autovista, and then go to start the career mode.

Yes. Sorry. Stodgy old career mode is back to railroad you through a series of whatever events it thinks you should do. However, the exceedingly dull, white, clinical presentation of Forza 3 is gone, and everything is much more like what you'd have expected the real sequel to Forza 2 to be like. There's a big world map with satellite images of the tracks, and the loading screens now have a track map and information to keep you amused while you wait. Halfway through my forced trip through the first season, I encounter the second big thing: Top Gear's malign influence giving a much needed bit of character. I'm sent to the Dunsfold Airfield to crash through giant bowling pins arranged around part of the test track.

Excellent! There seem to be more of these to come. I hurry through the rest of the first season and go take a look at the car selection. Here are some of the cars you can now drive:
-hybrids like the Volt and Prius, as well as the all-electric Leaf.
-the Liana and Cee'd (the Lacetti is conspicuously absent)
-the DeLorean DMC-12
-other Top Gear favourites including the Starion
-The AMC Javelin and Chevrolet El Camino
-Aston Martin DB5

You also get to pick which car you get as a gift every time you go up a level.

The game now scores EVERY turn, drift and overtake (and slipstream, and 'speed') and gives you a score out of four, which pops up immediately after said corner. I'm not quite sure what the criteria for this is and only managed a 'perfect' turn entirely by mistake, though I imagine most of them involve a good, clean, fast line. On the one hand it encourages you to do better on the next lap, on the other it feels a bit like having some old belm in beige trousers from the Institute of Aged Motorists huffing away in his cardigan next to you about how untidy that last bend was and scribbling something on a clipboard.

The sun effects are much more prominent, to the end that on a number of tracks your view gets heavily washed out by the glare. When hunting down the Top Gear track for my hot lap I noticed that a number of them have an 'overcast' option to get rid of the glare! You can now go into the difficulty settings and disable the stupid 'rewind' option, so it won't pop up to nag you every time your wheels touch gravel or you nudge another car.

There's also CoD-style profiles you can set up, with little icons and titles and stuff unlocked by playing the game. You can show your fondness for a particular manufacturer in this way (mine shall be Pontiac). There's also car clubs that you can invite your friends into to share cars and race together or against other clubs.


So far, it seems like a far bigger leap from 3 than 3 was from 2. I took the Cee'd around the test track and see if I've absorbed enough from nearly a decade of 'new' Top Gear to not get lost.

EDIT: Didn't get lost. Did SLAM right into the tires during the Follow Through, though. Had a few more practices, managed a clean 1:46.706, which isn't bad. The Follow Through isn't too bad, but you end up on the runway so it's hard to judge where the Second-to-Last corner is as everything's so wide, so I can see why many drivers go flying off at high speed.

[andrewsmith]

the TG track is hard.

One good one its the 1 Mile drag strip

Originally Posted by metalangel

(reposted from another forum, warning: LONG)
It's worth observing there's a new steering assist option (along with a new extra-hard steering that I haven't tried) and a new 'Professional' opponent difficulty option.

Where?????

For the life of me I cannot find how to change the AI difficulty it is not there, change difficulty only gives me the assist options!

I only saw it once, I wonder if it doesn't apply for the career mode races? Is it in the 'difficulty' menu before a free play race?

I wish I could turn it up a bit, the AI I'm racing against in career mode has been a joke... even the one AI who's always far better than the others is easy to beat, but they keep stomping the brakes on hard and crawling around corners and, worse, pumping the brakes as they corner which makes getting past a real pain.