Forza Impressions Thread

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:44 am

I can't wait to try this baby. I received my copy yesterday but didn't get in from work until late and I was just too tired to fire it up. As PK said earlier..."tonight. tonight.....ooooooh"

I'll be looking to get me ass kicked online tonight if anyone is game.

Metman24 · Post by **Metman24** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:53 am

My gamertag is Richkid24

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:06 am

Yeah db, you should have stuck around. After I got past the first 3 races or so, I got used to the game some. I could have returned the favor of the asskickings you handed out to the guys.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:27 am

I was way too tired last night at 2 a.m. to post coherent impressions. But after five hours of continuous offline and online play last night, I have some very strong first impressions.

For my first hour of Forza, which I spent online, I was a bit -- emphasis on just a tiny bit -- underwhelmed. It just didn't feel that much more advanced or better than TOCA 2 online. There was nothing that made me stand up and say, "WOW -- this advances the breed of console racers."

But then after about an hour or two, the strength and beauty of Forza hit me: This game is so polished, so refined. It takes nearly everything we've always wanted in a console racer, the stuff that some games almost include but with some sort of niggling flaw or omission, and puts it in one, compelling, complete, polished package.

This game does nothing astonishing, really. But it does everything so well. It's so polished, so refined, right out of the box. Again, there's nothing in the game that blows me away, but everything really impresses me. I really have to reach and rack my aching brain to find any major flaws.

Does that make sense?

Here are the things I really like about Forza:

-- Driving model is superb. Every car has unique handling characteristics based on its power, drive, weight and upgrades. And as others have said, the driving model is much less forgiving toward braking in the corners than TOCA 2. You will push off into the gravel trap if you're carrying too much speed into the corners and brake late or in the entry of the corners. The braking also is MUCH more sensitive than TOCA 2, and it took a good two hours for me to even get the slightest feel for that last night. But around hour three or so, it started to click. The driving model is much more predictable and smooth than in the demo, especially with all assists off. And I'm sorry, but the only way to play this game, once you've become comfortable with the driving model and tracks, is with all assists and the racing line off.

-- CPU AI is superb. The "bumper car" behavior of the CPU cars from the demo is gone in the offline career mode. Yeah, they'll knock you a bit from time to time, but I always found it within the realm of acceptable racing rubbing. Plus the CPU changes lines to try and hold you off, etc.

-- Damage model is superb. The damage not only looks good, but it has a definite effect on the performance of your car. Just ask anyone who hit a barrier too hard and had to fight a car trying to veer hard to the left or right for the next three laps how realistic the damage model is. It's superlative. Plus the cost of repairs is figured in to how many credits you earn after each race in the career mode, so you are penalized for driving like a moron.

-- Running off road is very unforgiving. When you leave the circuit, the grass and gravel traps grab you and slow you down hard. While that's realistic with gravel, it's a bit unrealistic with grass. But so what. If it acts as a deterrent to people driving like idiots on Xbox Live, I'm all for it. Plus every second that you spend off road is added to your overall lap time for that race, killing your times and eventual rankings. Again, combine this aspect of the game with the punishing damage model, and you have a very nice built-in idiot deterrent.

-- Increased reward for running without assists. I love how your credits earned for online or offline career are granted on a sliding scale depending on how many assists you have turned on or off. I get something like 150 percent of the normal points awarded because I drive with all assists off, simulation damage and handling, and no racing line on. The only "unpure" thing I use is an automatic transmission.

-- No invisible force field around the car. One of the only flaws of TOCA 2 online is that you can hit a car without feeling it in your controller vibration if you get just close enough to a guy to nudge him. In Forza, there are no phantom hits. When you tap a guy or crush him, you feel it in your hands. Very nice.

-- Seamless Xbox Live integration. I thought Project Gotham Racing 2 had great XBL integration, but Forza trumps it. Hooking up my cable modem when playing this game will be mandatory, even when offline. The ability to see everyone's times immediately, your Friends' times and car clubs are great, but the ability to play your Career mode online against humans so far is the one revolutionary aspect of this game. It's so cool to progress in your Career while racing against friends you like and trust on the track. Mega!

-- Impressive selection of cars. It's refreshing to see a driving game actually deliver the amount of unique cars it promises. There seems to be more than 250 unique cars in the game, not 37 different Nissan Skylines and 14 different Subaru Imprezas to create an inflated car count.

-- The tracks. Great to see Silverstone back in a game, and Road Atlanta is a wonderful addition. Road America and the Nurburgring Nordschliefe are classics, and I really enjoy Maple Valley Raceway. Many of the fictitious or little-known tracks are pretty well designed. I don't like the Tsukuba Circuit in Japan, though! Just me.

-- Smart tuning and upgrades system. The upgrades really make a difference in the performance of your car, and I LOVE how your car climbs one or multiple classes depending on how many performance upgrades you add to it. It eliminates the Gran Turismo flaw of hopping up a Mitsubishi grocery getter to 350 horsepower and simply blowing away the field of similar cars with your engine instead of your driving skill. Brilliant.

-- Lag-free online play. I saw little or no lag in about 3.5 hours of online racing last night. Beautiful.

I only have three quibbles, and they're small:

-- No cockpit or hood view. I know creating unique, accurate cockpit views for 275-plus cars would be quite a chore. But a hood view would have sufficed. I know Forza calls itself a pure driving sim, and it does a great job. But the purest sim would have either a cockpit or a hood cam.

-- Inability to change the online timer that ends a race. Every player only has 30 seconds to finish once the winner crosses the line. That's fine on short circuits, but it's not long enough for tracks like the Nurburgring Nordschliefe. Remember, TOCA 2 had this flaw when it was first released, and Codemasters issued a patch via Xbox Live. Hopefully Microsoft will do the same.

-- Inability for host to set assist parameters. It's a nice, customizable feature for individual players to be able to set their assists during online races. But it does force the honor system into play for hosts who want to keep their races all in one assist category. For instance last night, I was in a room with Scoop, two other cool guys and a dick. Scoop wanted everyone to drive with assists off, but I'm suspicious that the dick didn't turn them off, and he won the second race after ass-ramming me hard into the barriers twice, killing my car. The guy couldn't drive that well but he stayed ahead of me. My car was damaged, but I'm guessing he didn't turn off his assists as requested, either, because he was a no-driving son-of-a-b*tch.

I haven't messed with the Drivatar feature at all yet. I'll do that this weekend.

Looking forward to more racing tonight. Going out with a buddy for a couple of beers, so it probably will be late-night racing tonight.

Bottom line: I'm really, really impressed with Forza. Deep down, I shared Terry and others' skepticism that this game couldn't match the hype. I didn't admit to it publicly since I've been one of the game's biggest pimps here. But I'm very happy because this game matches the hype. It's that good.

Take care,
PK

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:33 am

I really enjoyed my time with the game so far as well.

Did you guys set up a car club later on?

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:39 am

Last night was great. It really felt like TOCA 2 all over again and that's a great great thing. I sure suck but I started getting the hang of controlling the lower class cars last night.

I'm really suprised that the room doesn't dictate the assist settings. When I first jumped in last night I assumed I had the same settings as everyone else until someone mentioned turning assists off.

PK,
Sorry about that dick last night. I have no idea who he was. I was racing with a guy on my Friends list (NoTyme) and we were ready to quit for the night and he popped in. NoTyme is a straight up racer from back in the Project Gotham 2 days and I encouraged him to start posting here. I'm pretty sure that dick did turn off the assists for the first race but then turned them back on for the second race.

I really like how the session doesn't end if the host has to leave. Every game should have this feature.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:52 am

I dont know that driving with assists on gives you an advantage? Doesn't it slow you down some? The only advantage might be the green line on the track. You can probably run faster lap times with assists off, dont you think?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:54 am

ScoopBrady wrote:Sorry about that dick last night. I have no idea who he was. I was racing with a guy on my Friends list (NoTyme) and we were ready to quit for the night and he popped in. NoTyme is a straight up racer from back in the Project Gotham 2 days and I encouraged him to start posting here. I'm pretty sure that dick did turn off the assists for the first race but then turned them back on for the second race.

I really like how the session doesn't end if the host has to leave. Every game should have this feature.

Scoop:

No worries, man. It was the end of the night, and I was tired and less tolerant of a prick than I should have been. But that kid was a dick. You knew it, too, because I was dead-silent and serious after he punted me hard into the kitty litter twice.

I had the red mist something fierce, trying to catch that little bastard and pass him for the win. He must have turned assists on because I crushed him in our first race but couldn't make up the gap in the second race despite driving pretty well.

NoTyme is a very cool guy. I hope he starts to post here and races with us. Really cool cat.

Take care,
PK

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:57 am

Jack, I know that assists slow down a car, especially the damn stability control. In the career mode, I didn't hit "save" after changing the settings so I drove too many races with it on (had very limited playing time yesterday) and it always bogged the car down in the turns.

But, the assists should allow a bad driver to be a lot faster. And if you combine that with folks still trying to learn the game, they have a really good shot of being close enough to corn-hole someone like PK.

Thanks for the detailed online impressions, guys. I had about an hour to play before basketball and didn't try it out.

I like that everyone controls their own assists online. Since I'll mostly be racing with DSP-ers, the honor system should work fine, otherwise you'll get too much sh*t from everyone else!

slimer · Post by **slimer** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:59 am

PK,

What about ABS? I know you said in the past that you left this on because a lot of the cars had ABS in real life. Is the ABS in the game unrealistic?

It seemed to me that I still had to work on my braking even with ABS on, I haven't turned that off yet. The other assists came off immediately.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:00 am

JackB1 wrote:I dont know that driving with assists on gives you an advantage? Doesn't it slow you down some? The only advantage might be the green line on the track. You can probably run faster lap times with assists off, dont you think?

Jack:

You're probably right, in theory. The assists do act as an equalizer more than an unfair advantage for lesser drivers.

But I think a skilled driver can turn quicker laps with ABS on than off, for example, because you can brake more deeply into the entrance of a corner without locking up, shaving seconds.

I think the racing line hurts more than helps because it tells you to slow down or brake in places you don't need to lift in some cases. I drove the Bentley Speed 8 -- my favorite racing car -- on the Nurburgring last night with the line on, and there were a bunch of places where the line turned yellow or red and I could keep my foot in it without any problem.

The line is a good tool to learn proper lines and braking points, but I think you'll be faster the quicker you can wean yourself from it.

Take care,
PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:02 am

slimer wrote:PK,

What about ABS? I know you said in the past that you left this on because a lot of the cars had ABS in real life. Is the ABS in the game unrealistic?

It seemed to me that I still had to work on my braking even with ABS on, I haven't turned that off yet. The other assists came off immediately.

Slimer:

I kept ABS on in the demo because braking was incredibly sensitive -- almost on-off in nature. The braking still is sensitive and tough in the final game, but it's much more progressive and analog in nature. So I turned ABS off.

I prefer the challenge of driving without it. All assists off, simulation AI, full damage, auto tranny -- that's my setup.

Take care,
PK

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:04 am

I think someone....maybe Terry and PK, should discuss the tuning options for novices like myself. All those different options are like greek to me. I would love to actually get good at this game.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:09 am

SoMiss:

I can't speak for Terry, but I didn't tune a thing last night in any online races.

I did hop up my Career Mode Class D1 Saab with some performance add-ons, but not enough for it to climb to the C class. But I never tweaked a setting in five hours of play last night.

That's not to say I won't: I'm sure I will tweak and tune. But good driving is more essential than good setups in road racing. Setups are more vital in oval racing.

Take care,
PK

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:17 am

TCrouch wrote:Yeah db, you should have stuck around. After I got past the first 3 races or so, I got used to the game some. I could have returned the favor of the asskickings you handed out to the guys.

Oh I'll be back...I never really got into Toca for whatever reason. This game is sweet, so maybe I'll put in the time so I can attempt to keep up with you.

I still find it fairly amusing that a guy who never plays racing games, and doesn't like them at all apparently, can come in and win quite a few races...PK, you listening?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:18 am

dbdynsty25 wrote:
TCrouch wrote:Yeah db, you should have stuck around. After I got past the first 3 races or so, I got used to the game some. I could have returned the favor of the asskickings you handed out to the guys.
Oh I'll be back...I never really got into Toca for whatever reason. This game is sweet, so maybe I'll put in the time so I can attempt to keep up with you.

Stop. You're more than quick enough to stay with just about anyone!

Plus you have grasped the secret to success more than anyone but Terry -- consistency. I rarely saw you make mistakes last night. And if you did, it was a mild bobble, maybe two tires on the grass.

Well done.

Take care,
PK

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:20 am

pk500 wrote:SoMiss:

I can't speak for Terry, but I didn't tune a thing last night in any online races.

I did hop up my Career Mode Class D1 Saab with some performance add-ons, but not enough for it to climb to the C class. But I never tweaked a setting in five hours of play last night.

That's not to say I won't: I'm sure I will tweak and tune. But good driving is more essential than good setups in road racing. Setups are more vital in oval racing.

Take care,
PK

PK,

I was thinking more tips for making the car easier to handle. Not really sure but wouldn't lower tire pressure help keep the car on the road better. It's just the little things like that, that I don't understand. I guess just knowing what each set up control accomplishes would help me.

TheTruth · Post by **TheTruth** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:21 am

Good racing last night guys. I just wish I would have upgraded my D2 to a D1 before hand. I quit and went to the shop and raced a couple offline races with my upgrades and wow..big difference. I even got myself a new paint job and some gold pimpin' rims.

It will be fun to see everyones creativity. Terry, nice paint job!

I hope to play some tonight before we move into the new house this weekend. Depending on when I get internet service back up and running combined with unpacking it may be my last night to race for a little bit.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:31 am

pk500 wrote:Stop. You're more than quick enough to stay with just about anyone!

Plus you have grasped the secret to success more than anyone but Terry -- consistency. I rarely saw you make mistakes last night. And if you did, it was a mild bobble, maybe two tires on the grass.

That first race on the ring was sweet...I saw you there behind me almost the entire race. You closed the gap to about 7 seconds (from about 14) with about 10 turns to go, and then apparently you messed up because the gap was back up to 15 or so at the end of the race. You had me sweatin'.

I really cannot figure out why I'm decent at racing games. I play a little GTR now and then but that's on my PC with a nice wheel setup so it's completely different. I guess I played a lot of the original Gran Tourismo or something because there hasn't been another game since then that has gotten me to play more than a week. We'll see if Forza can do that.

Obviously everyone's goal is to be as fast as Terry...there is no way I'm close to that at this point.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:34 am

Scott:

I think the secret to your success is pretty simple: You don't overdrive the car. You're consistent, tidy and fast. You seem to have good natural rhythm from where I sit, which is usually looking at your rear bumper.

Take care,
PK

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:35 am

I got smoked the first 3 or 4 times I hit the online track. I had only done offline career races up until that point, and the race at the Ring was especially brutal. My car was totaled in the first corner, and for the next 13 1/2 miles, I was battling a pull to the right. That is INSANE in the Koenigsegg. I know half the field had that problem, so I'm not alone there.

I joined random rooms last night after people went to bed, and I'm surprised at how clean people drive overall. I think MS did a very, very good job with punishing aggressive driving, because you'll get the random tool, but he won't stay fast enough for long enough to be a real threat. The only thing you have to do is dodge him a few times and let him take himself out.

I absolutely cannot wait to get some more seat time and move up a bit in the career mode. I need some practice in the faster cars. I know I can hold my own in the D class cars, but when I move up I have to grasp the different physics and whatnot.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:38 am

I need a life...I'm sitting here at work reading the damn manual (yes, I brought it to work) and getting excited to race this baby. I haven't even seen a track in game yet but just reading the manual has me geeked. As you were..

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:38 am

pk500 wrote:I think the secret to your success is pretty simple: You don't overdrive the car. You're consistent, tidy and fast. You seem to have good natural rhythm from where I sit, which is usually looking at your rear bumper.

That probably has something to do with it. I like to be in control for the most part. I try to be smooth and if I brake too much, so be it, it's better than going off the road. I think everyone always tries to be too precise and it costs them because inevitably they brake too late, or too hard or whatever and it costs them. That's about the only hypothesis I can make at this point.

Jimmydeicide · Post by **Jimmydeicide** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:39 am

Think i may have to make a bunch more Forza threads to keep you grounded Db.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:42 am

And that's exactly what made me faster in TOCA2, PGR2, and whatever other game I can think of.

Consistency and control pays off. Your overall race time will be faster with a little overbraking than it will be braking too late and hitting the kitty litter. Eventually you push it a bit further, and then a bit further. With track knowledge and vehicle knowledge, your "consistently cautious" line will obliterate people overdriving to keep up.

In Forza, vehicle knowledge will play a bigger role than any racing sim in history. I can guarantee it.