Forza 4 Demo

[Nickolas]

Just wanted to let you 360'ers know that the Forza 4 demo released today!

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/Forza4_Demo/ (http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/Forza4_Demo/)

http://download.xbox.com/content/mgs/forza/en-US/forzamain/blog/mainimage/Demo_image_1.jpg

[Nickolas]

...AND it is awesome! I've put in 300+ hours on Forza 3 and never realized all of the feelings and sensations that it was missing until just now. So far, Forza 4 is perfect! The added tire technology / physics are amazing. I can't wait to pick this up next Tuesday.

Who else plans to pick it up?

[Apex i ITR]

Raises hand. I skipped Forza 3.. between GT5 and Need for Speed stepping their game up I had no time to play it. I plan to rectify that.

[Apex i ITR]

OS that a screenshot from the game?

[Hikaru]

Sick! I'm on it on tuesday!

[StrScrm]

I haven't missed a forza yet, so i'll prolly pick this one up a little later

[Nickolas]

Raises hand. I skipped Forza 3.. between GT5 and Need for Speed stepping their game up I had no time to play it. I plan to rectify that.

I actually purchased a PS3 last year just for GT5, I sold it a few weeks later. GT5, for me, was horrible and a huge let down. To be fair I actually did have some fun while racing unmodified / stock / slower cars but at a certain point the cars just had the worst unrealistic feeling to them. It was like the physics engine crapped itself and started to produce random results - almost like it were something out of a NFS game ;). I've played the entire Gran Turismo series and I was a diehard fan for the longest time but I can't force myself to continue playing them. Hopefully Polyphony can change my opinion in 5-10 years when GT6 releases. :cool:

OS that a screenshot from the game?

Yes, most likely pulled from a replay but everything I've seen so far looks great.

Sick! I'm on it on tuesday!

Cool dude, hopefully you enjoy it. Let us know what you think.

I haven't missed a forza yet, so i'll prolly pick this one up a little later

Awesome, I'm positive you won't be disappointed! They just keep getting better with each new version.

[TouringBubble]

I thought the physics in GT5 were great.

Are you playing with a wheel or the controller?

[Nickolas]

I'm playing with a controller, I tried a wheel before and just couldn't get used to it - I prefer the controller. But like I said it was great up until a certain point in performance but after that the physics didn't feel right anymore. One specific example was my maxed out TT 458 Italia while taking corners at high speed had no issue at all sticking to the pavement and if it did start to lose traction all I had to do was turn into the skid and the car acted as if it were on rails and would just lock back down to the road. Also if the car lost traction I could just slam on the brakes and not have to worry about it almost like there weren't any consequences for driving like a real maniac. It just didn't feel right, almost like I was cheating somehow. I also had a semi-modified Evo X and it felt great around the corners. I really don't know where the line was drawn but at that point is when the game felt cheap / horrible to me. Forza 3 wasn't perfect but definitely felt ahead of GT5 in that aspect. Forza 4 feels better than both of those combined though, to me!

[Dangeruss]

I just bought a T500rs for PC and PS3. Waiting for that bad boy to come in. Also, GT5 Spec 2.0 is coming out soon. I thought that GT5 sucked at the beginning, but it has been improving slowly. I'll have to see which one reigns supreme once they are both out.

[TouringBubble]

I just really think it's unfair to judge a real, non-arcade driving title with a controller. You can judge fun factor, but physics and handling can't be fully accessed without a wheel.

That said, I think Forza 4 will be awesome, but I can't use any of my wheels with it. I will likely not get it. I also don't have a 360 ... but I bought a PS3 for GT5.

[Nickolas]

I understand what you're saying but I feel as though a wheel really only allows for more precision while cornering and not necessarily allowing one to better feel and understand the physics of the game. I have no issue at all with being able to feel how my car is reacting while using a controller.

Anways, I hope you get a chance to check it out - It's definitely an improvement, at least for me, from any previous simulation racing game on a console with a controller :). I do look forward to the next release of either the Gran Turismo or Forza series; good competition usually results in higher quality products for the end user.

[Apex i ITR]

Iliked GT5. They screwed the pooch on some areas but over all I think it was well done. Alot of useless modes. Quantity of Quality is what it seemed like they did. I have faith they will figure out or Forza and (dare I say) NFS Shift will dominate them.

And yes I said NFS shift. There is an undeniable fun factor with that game it has just enough realism and a touch of an arcade feel (I love the screen going blurry when you hit something hard enough).

[TouringBubble]

I guess my biggest complaint of controller v wheel in terms of physics is that with a controller the game will interpolate and smooth your movements for you. Because of this, the physics are reacting on what the car is actually doing and not to your real inputs. This can really skew the "feel" of what is really going on.

I agree Hurell ... I thought Shift was really fun, but I was never that good at it due to some of the physics issues. For instance, when the car would understeer, you could just add more wheel and it would keep turning. I could never bring myself to do this ... I'd back off the throttle as you're supposed to, so I was a lot slower than others that used the physics flaw to keep speed up.

[Nickolas]

I've honestly never heard of that before. Mind if I ask where you found the information that if one uses a regular controller, the game will basically become easymode and smooth all of the inputs for you? It doesn't make sense to me that the developer of a simulation game would make the game perform more like an arcade game than a true simulator for 95% of the people playing their game or for basically any / all of the people using the primary input device that the game was actually designed to be controlled with: the analog controller.

I've always understood it to be (and I could easily be wrong here, I usually am) - Basically someone with a wheel has the ablility to turn with higher precision than one that is just using an analog stick. The reason for this is simple; the wheel allows for a high degree of rotation which translates into being able to turn with higher precision. Someone using an analog stick goes from lock to lock with less than an inch of movement in the stick. This means that it is much tougher to perform and replicate time and time again a perfectly smooth turn since the entire turn can be made or lost by being just a couple of millimeters off the mark with the analog stick. I could understand this argument if we were talking about using the D-pad to control the car (or if we were talking about playing Burnout) but this is one of the reasons why the analog stick was created: it's a precision input device. I've never felt like the game was smoothing out my inputs and movements especially when I just smashed into the wall or clipped the guardrail due to not holding the exact perfect angle on the stick. It's actually quite tough to repeat a perfect turn using an analog stick and this is the exact reason I went out and purchased a Razer Onza which allows one to tweak the force required to move the analog sticks so I'm able to get just the right angle on the stick - this makes it much easier to achieve the perfect angle or basically make the perfect turn every single time.

Like I said before I've put tons of hours in the Forza series (with all assists off, of course) and yet I've actually somehow put more hours into the GT series - I've always used a controller except for the few times that I tried using a wheel and I've never felt like the game was adding more data to my actions to basically make me a better racer and I definitely feel that it's fair to judge the way a game feels while using the main input device that it was actually created to be controlled with.

..Hopefully I'm not completely misunderstanding what you were trying to say there. If I did then, my bad. :)

[TouringBubble]

You can watch the tires and the wheel in the interior of these cames and see it very clearly. Look at the tires and jam the controller to full lock one way. There will be a slight delay from center to full lock on the tire itself. Basically, the game applies a damper to the speed at which the wheel can turn.

I didn't say it was easy mode. My thoughts apply mainly to those that would use the analog stick like a D-pad and just tap-tap-tap-tap or hold full lock to turn, even with the analog stick.

In your example of holding the correct angle, that doesn't disagree with my point. The analog stick does allow for varying input percentage just like a wheel. So if you need 78% input, you can achieve it or botch it just like on a wheel.

I'm simply saying that if you snap straight from -100% to +100%, the game will not allow the tires to turn as fast as you move the controller. They will instead turn at 100% of the possible speed allowed by the game until they reach the current input. If you move the stick slowly this doesn't happen. With a wheel the smoothing is likely still active, but the controller will physically not move fast enough to reach the point where the smoothing would be applied.

I'm in no way saying that the game will make corrections for bad inputs. It simply takes a control method that would give you the ability to go beyond the actual limitation of the vehicle and slows it down in some cases to try and achieve a true-to-life input for the physics engine. When this happens, the inputs you put in are not exactly what the car is seeing. therefore, there is a disconnect between your inputs and the "feel" of the car.

Make sense?

And yes, the wheel does allow for more precision on both the steering and throttle/brake due to the scaled up range of the physical input device.

[Nickolas]

Yeah, that makes sense and actually while reading the Forza 4 review this morning I caught this paragraph - "Turn in is sharper and the feeling of grip, particularly under heavy braking or aggressive cornering, is really well translated. The lock-to-lock steering rate has been increased dramatically and Turn 10 has added a simulation steering option (which removes the subtle steering assist that makes it easier to drift by interpreting your inputs and automatically modifying your steering angle accordingly)" I literally almost facepalmed! I don't know why I've never heard of a simulation game doing this before or ever felt it while driving. After doing a quick search on the topic other people were in denial as well on the matter, I guess because of how subtle the assist really is. I will say this though, in the Forza 4 demo I had all assists off while simulation steering was turned on - Maybe this is why Forza 4 felt better than any racing simulator that I have ever played before.. Just a thought.

So I guess I'll change my overall statement of the Forza physics vs GT physics: While playing GT5 using an analog stick / controller, I didn't like the way that at a certain performance point the cars handled and felt horrible to me - I really feel that Forza 3 did a much better job converying the feel of physics to me while using a controller. Though now, I feel that Forza 4 crushes everything in regards to really getting a feel for the physics while using an analog stick / controller - I can only assume this means that it would be even better while using a wheel!

Thanks for the eye opener dude.

[TouringBubble]

We're on the same page now. Sweet.

And, to be completely fair, I've not driven Forza with a quality wheel, as the selection is so slim, so I can't give a real comparison to GT5, which I have raced with a wheel exclusively.

A friend works with Simcraft, who had two 3-axis motion simulators at Petit LeMans this past weekend demoing Forza 4. I really wish I could have been there to test the game on a real rig. That would have been the best way to really compare. My friend's take was very positive. He seems to agree that it's better than GT5.