Forza Motorsport impressions here!

[Driver]

Are you guys finding the races pretty easy?  I'm sure they get more difficult, but I'm at level 15 and I win about 85% of the time on the first try.  This is with all the aides on except for traction control.

Just curious how you all feel.

[coopasonic]

What races are you running, Driver? I've found the professional C class to be my first real challenge... I think I may have the worst C1 car possible though... I've just been using cars I've won and making minor tweaks -- 125k in the bank, garage worth over 800k now (14 prize cars plus the first one).

The pre-pro races are all cake since you can generally use a car way better than the rest of the pack.

[Arkon]

I have not changed any of the difficulty settings and currently I am doing ok.  I am not very good at racing games, so even the beginner tracks are taking me a few times to get 1st place.  I upgraded my car a few times while staying in the same D subclass and that has helped.

Also if it is too easy turn off all those aides.

[Fuzzballx]

couple notes on the AI.

It's being discovered that the AI, in general, not 100%, will mimic your driving aggressiveness.  Bumping the other cars a lot can lead to getting bumped a lot whereas driving responsibly often leads to little or no contact intiated by the AI drivers.


Also, and this is a fact based on pre release interviews and post release experience, training your drivatar will improve the AI drivers and cause them to learn.

Also, once you get a few levels under your belt and upgrade your car a few times, they game gets pretty easy for the first half.  The really big challenge comes in the class restricted races in the last 25%.

Me personally, i started out Asia region with a Mazda 3 (my IRL car) and it took me several races to get to where I could really compete.  With the starting credits I was only able to obtain 3rd place after a couple trys, but after a few hours I was in candy land with money and car parts.

I'd say it's a short learning curve.  I started the game all assists off except the driving line, i'm still using the line to teach me for now until i know the tracks better.  Havn't used any other assists, so someone coming in with assists on may do better than I did right off.

So far i've only been bumped off the track once, but i've sent a few cpu drivers into the wall in a bad way...(on accident).

[Fuzzballx]

Are you guys finding the races pretty easy?  I'm sure they get more difficult, but I'm at level 15 and I win about 85% of the time on the first try.  This is with all the aides on except for traction control.

Just curious how you all feel.

If the AI becomes too easy, train up your drivator.  You might be in for a pleasant surprise after spending quantity quality time with it.

[coopasonic]

If the AI becomes too easy, train up your drivator.  You might be in for a pleasant surprise after spending quantity quality time with it.

Hmmm... so the AI drivers may actually get worse based on my experience with the Drivatar hehe...

[Dimmona]

Whoa, check out some of the custom paintjobs people have been doing in Forza

[gellar]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

gellar

[wonderpug]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm working on painting the yellow Subaru swoosh and stars on the side of my STi...does that help cancel the evil Hello Kitty?

[happydog]

This is HAWT!!one!

[lildrgn]

Cool cars aside, I love how when before you start a race, you can cycle through best times worldwide, locally, on your car club, and on your Friends list. I have some cats from GG/CG/OO on my list and when I see their times, I must pwn them.

I tried to beat ^happydog^'s time in NYC, but couldn't. I did, however, beat Naednek's time.

Go Forza Motorsport!

[Destructor]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

gellar

I don't know what's worse - seeing a car that looks like that, or being beaten by a car that looks like that.

And on the same note - driving a car that looks like that is a guarentee that your opponents are gonna clobber that vehicle any chance they get.

[gellar]

I may get this and re-up to Live just so I can school you mofoz in the ugliest car I can possibly create.

gellar

[Scott]

Anyway to download the paint jobs?  I think there is an option to download a car off the leaderboards, so it may be possible to download one and copy over the decals.  If nothing else, you can buy it.  

I'll have to look to see how the buy/sell car process works online.  Could be interesting.

I upgraded my Boxter way to far. I can tear through the easy races with it now, but it is an S class now, and I can't run any of the harder races with it yet.  I also am having a hell of a time keeping it on the road, way to much power now.  I'll have to figure out how to tune it and drive better.  Very cool though when I swapped the engine out, the game sounds reflected the new engine perfectly.

[coopasonic]

I upgraded my Boxter way to far. I can tear through the easy races with it now, but it is an S class now, and I can't run any of the harder races with it yet.

I upgraded my IS300 to the max just to see how high it could go, got it into the S division with 600+ HP and then hit reset... not a very good investment.

If anyone has any tips on what makes a really competitive C1 car I'd like to hear. I'm thinking Lotus Elise, but I'd rather not have to buy a car I'm saving my in-game cash for a trip to the Bahamas or something.

[Simon]

Grabbed Forza today and will be loading it up this weekend. Glad to hear people are playing it and liking it too, but you need to get some Live races going so I can justify renewing my subscription.

[Lorini]

MY GOD THAT'S MY CAR!!! HELLO KITTY!

Lorini

[gellar]

Eh, I caved and bought it since I have nothing better to do tomorrow.

Impressions after about 30 mins of playing:
1)  The game is pretty good.
2)  The car models are definitely worse than GT4.  By a significant margin.
3)  The environments are way, way better than GT4.
4)  Lots of cool real world tracks, best as I can tell.  Neat.
5)  The tire breakaway model is seemingly a bit too dramatized.  Brakes lock up ridiculously quickly, and drifting through a turn is a common appearance in a RWD or AWD car.  Of course, none of the cars that I've driven in the game are cars I've driven in real life, so I can't judge on the actual 'realism'.  It does *feel* wonky though.
6)  Controls pretty well by controller.  You can tell the cars have quasi realistic physics.  It's better than GT4 by controller, but worse than GT4 with the force feedback wheel.
7)  The music BLOWS HARDCORE.
 I really dislike the way they handle a manual transmission.  First, they penalize you for over-reving the engine even in the slightest.  In 99% of production cars today, you can bounce it off the rev limiter fairly frequently and never have any problems.  Apparently, NO cars in Forza have a rev limiter.  Also, they don't have an option to use the X/A button as Up/Downshift.  I don't like any of the configurable options.  These two have led me to drive with an automatic, and that just feels wrong.
9)  AI at medium difficulty is slow.  Even on a 2 lap race, I've won by as many as 8 seconds.
10)  For my driving style, the racing line doesn't work.  I drive faster with it off.  Seems like a cool idea for the newer drivers though.

Overall, it's a damn fine game.  I wish I had a wheel for it.  Forza with a controller >> GT4 with a controller, but it's definitely not better than GT4 with the Logitech wheel.  Still though, for the XBox, it's a great option.

gellar

[Devil]

Yeah, OK - Game's great - Music blows - GT4 something - enough crap...

Who's making my Devils Car!!!!    :wink:

[lildrgn]

Someone wondered about custom paint jobs on line? They are visible. My bro and I hooked up last night and he pheared the black to red fade on the R32.

[Driver]

Awesome -- that was me who asked.  Thanks for the info.

[Driver]

Here's my attempt at a little customization...  I've only done the one side panel so far, but will add some more to the top and other side later on.



Here's the comic book cover it's based on...

[stiffler]

Looking good, Driver.  Obviously I'm going to have to spend A LOT more time in their to figure out how to do something nice.

A few more impressions:

Forza and the GT series are like the Pokemon of racing games.  I gotta keep going to collect all those fancy cars and upgrades.

The downhill point-to-point races are INSANE.  Despite riding the razor's edge and never really feeling like I had control of my vehicle I had a blast.  It was like riding a rollercoaster!

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

[gellar]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

[Driver]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

Driver wasn't even trying.  When I looked yesterday, I was #8 on the leaderbaord for the first cone race (the airport course).  Beat that!  

[lildrgn]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

Ah yes.

*runs to put tehgellar on friends list*

My live tag is lildrgn. Carry on.

[gellar]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

Driver wasn't even trying.  When I looked yesterday, I was #8 on the leaderbaord for the first cone race (the airport course).  Beat that!  

Cone race?

gellar

[naednek]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

i hardly call 2 seconds pwn.  Besides, yesterday you told me you beat me, I go back and checked, and I still see I'm up by 5 seconds.  I'll have to check again since I havne't checked since late last night after you telling me you so called shattered me

[gellar]

Being able to see the track times of people in your friends list is a little thing that goes a long way.  Not many friends play it, but I beat a couple of Driver's times.  w00t!

Completely agree.  Right now I think all I have are driver and naednek, but it is fun to see how much I pwn naednek

gellar (xbox live tag: tehgellar)

i hardly call 2 seconds pwn.  Besides, yesterday you told me you beat me, I go back and checked, and I still see I'm up by 5 seconds.  I'll have to check again since I havne't checked since late last night after you telling me you so called shattered me

I think you're looking at something else, since I have you by nearly 10 seconds in RWD hill climb 1, and 8 seconds in RWD hill climb 2 (including a spin ).

gellar

[wonderpug]

Cone race?

Cone race = autocross
In the free race mode or whatever, (not career,) in the point to point section there are a bunch of autocross runs that you can do.

[gellar]

Cone race?

Cone race = autocross
In the free race mode or whatever, (not career,) in the point to point section there are a bunch of autocross runs that you can do.

Found it .

Driver, your time has been defeated

gellar

[JuniorDan]

adding all live tags tonight.
I am juniordan
Forza to me is better than GT4.
I am even thinking on trading in GT4 to wards my pre-order of battlefeild2

[stiffler]

Just wanted to apologize to some of those asking me to join a game this evening.  Driver, I mean you in particular!  I accepted your invites and tried to join, but I kept getting a message that I didn't have any cars in my garage that were eligible for the race.  I don't know what some of you are rolling in over there, but clearly I don't have it!  I am on level 12 or so (Asian) with my starter car and some that I have won.  I even tried to dump some parts in hopes that this was the problem, but I was still unable to get in with you.

This is made even more frustrating by the lack of in-game messaging.  Hopefully I can figure out what I need and our paths will cross again soon.

[Devil]

I'd like to apologize to Driver/anyone who wanted to race tonight as well - I had the craptacular Mad Catz wheel hooked up so, no voice! If I can't hear you laughing at me, what's the fun of racing against you guys!  

Even that wheel helps. The Fanatec one needs to get under $100!!!

[naednek]

so can someone explain to me how people are making those designs?  I've looked in the decal section, and I'm not seeing anything remotely similar to what people are making.

[Fuzzballx]

They're using all the shapes and resizing, rotating, stretching, applying gradients, etc to make complex pictures.

edit: it takes a fair amount of time and a fair bit of artistic touch.

[coopasonic]

so can someone explain to me how people are making those designs?  I've looked in the decal section, and I'm not seeing anything remotely similar to what people are making.

Like I said, very powerful, very primitive tools. I'd rather just slap on some vinyl's ala NFSU, hence my forza cars are all just one solid paint color.

[gellar]

so can someone explain to me how people are making those designs?  I've looked in the decal section, and I'm not seeing anything remotely similar to what people are making.

Like I said, very powerful, very primitive tools. I'd rather just slap on some vinyl's ala NFSU, hence my forza cars are all just one solid paint color.

Winnar.  Though I have been picking the most obnoxious colors I can find, and adding in a lot of their "carbon fiber look" paint on the hoods.

gellar

[naednek]

well, like gellar, i lack the patience.  I'll just race with the stock designs

[Fuzzballx]

Or.....buy a car with a really awsome custom paintjob online and then copy it to your other vehicles.