Hands on:
My Experience at the AXF 24 Challenge
The Event
During the week of E3 I like many of you was rejoicing, and scowering the internet. I had to see all there was to see about FM3. Then Friday it was announced. Lets go and have fun in NYC it says. I'm in... not that far away. Its only a 3 hour flight! Naively I tried to qualify to win this trip, but was only able to muster a 1.42
x and was qualified around 220. With law school fast approaching I knew that this may be my only time to spend with the game before December. Hopefully for anyone in a similar situation, on a slow work day or an enjoyable free summer day, can read through this and hopefully feel what it was like to play FM3... the demo.... from early may build.... with lots of other people around sharing the time with you... and only in 24 hours. The recollections are as best as someone who stayed up 24 hours, and then didn't write it for three days can be.
Audi
Now let me tell you, I am not the biggest Audi fan in the world. I just prefer P cars or BMWs, and see Audi's as fancy VWs. How wrong I am. These people are passionate about cars and motor-sport. I think Turn 10 made a very wise decision partnering with Audi. During the event, I got treated extremely nice the entire time. They had fruits, cheeses and bagels / breads. All throughout the day they had staff on hand to take your plate and a drink area with wine, soda and juice. The Audi people even had a two level paddock setup right behind the competitors and they kept track and recorded every single lap. The plan was to give the competitors reports of each and every lap with trends and other areas. German anal! Also they had two large tv's showing the actual 24 of Lemans. (as long as speed was anyway) Sunday capped things off nicely with fresh restocking of food, and omelets!
The people
I want to say that there were probably around 10 people not including myself that were there to check out the game specifically. The rest of the people looked like they were there more because Audi gave them a call or in a few cases, they heard about the free wine.
The people I met there were all really nice... a couple even stayed late just like me so we could get more seat time. Sup Kidnice!
The competitors
All of the people competing were really great as well. Watching wildchild and scooty helped instill the fact that I'm an amateur and they are the pros. Consistent 4:08's with regular dips into the 4:07 and 4:06 range were seen. Most everyone seemed really approachable and shared with me stories of spending all day qualifying, or discussing the best lines on a few curves. I have to say, that nobody there put off an I'm better than you attitude, and they even snuck us in to play in between the twilight hour sessions. I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself or give out my gamer tag. I was the guy with the mazda laguna secca shirt and dark hair. Feel free to message hi on live. Sup Evo! Darn BLKJ peeps, soo laid back and easy to talk to.
Turn 10
I have to say that it was fantastic meeting both SIDEFX (another BLKJoker) and RacerX. You were both very generous. SIDEFX let me have a few turns in between the competitors racing stints. He also let me have a few drinks from the competitor's stash. Lastly, he involuntarily (and later voluntarily) got his mac on, so to speak
.... I know if I am ever given the opportunity to visit Turn10, I'll be looking to go out and party a bit with him. Thanks man, you sure know how to treat the fans!
RacerX, our conversation about the game you are making was quite riveting, so thank you! I asked plenty of questions, and I got lots of smiles and no comments. We did discuss some really cool aspects of his job, and things that he has been working on, and what he has yet to do before October. I didn't find out anything, but he has me excited for what they have yet to reveal. I also asked if the competition pulling a no show last week at E3 had Turn 10 re-evaluated their October release window. He told me, that feature wise, they were already set, and that nothing would budge them from October. We also talked game design and he was generous enough to take my suggestions with him and promised to get them into the right hands. You couldn't ask for better treatment from a game company developer! Without getting too nerdy, I'll just say, that I am very happy to know that smart people like him are working on making all of us the best racing game of this generation. ....speaking of which!
The game!
Graphics
I got to see some really awesome stuff. My first impression was... ok this is still just forza, but its prettier. I mean that in the highest regard, the look and feel seemed similar, it just had a fresh coat of paint. The demo we played was confirmed to be the same build as the e3, except with the addition of some race cars from the past 20 years and the Circuit De La Sarthe. Watching the people playing on La Sarthe, I was first struck by 2 things. The first was the vastly improved draw distance, typified by the massive straights of Mulsanne. There was simply little to no draw in, and I probably noticed the curvature of the earth before I noticed the road draw in if there was any. The trees themselves had a couple pop ins, but nothing distracting. I might suggest a fade in feature where when the system is ready to draw in something from the distance, they fade it in over 100 to 200 frames, but thats just nitpicking. The second thing I noticed was purely just the eye candy increase on the tracks. They really stepped it up on this, and I made notice of waving flags in the wind, and moving ferris wheels. Also, the tree's themselves now had a nice amount of polygons on them and the transition from low res to high res textures were very smooth. I noted some interesting fade in on a road side texture near the begining of the race. If you've ever played a game of Gears or Gears2, you'll know what I mean. Its like someone is playing the game on a Nintendo 64, then all of a sudden, they flip the ultimate gaming PC lever and all the textures perk up. I asked RacerX and he told me, they weren't using the algorithm from Epic's Unreal Engine or anything, just a common way to handle loading. Another element that caught my eye was the sheer amount of off track detail. Driving through the straights and curves on the far side of La Sarthe, you could see farm land and buildings rendered with what appeared to be the same level of detail. I'm sure it is a case of 50 foot disease, and something you won't be able to take a photo mode camera out there to, but I appreciated their handy work, in recapturing something most of us USA players won't get a chance to see in real life. One last thing, yes there was bits of slow down. Nothing extreme like in FM2 when someone wrecks and the whole server jerks. Just bits where the normally silky smooth framerate slows a bit or kinda smooshes. Obviously that will be fixed by ship time, its just something that is there, and you play through. It honestly only bothered me when I was watching others play the game, when I played I didn't notice it.
Car Models
The car models are in a word fixed! My biggest citation of this would be a car like the Ferrari F40. I know that this car wasn't in the demo but stay with me... In FM2, the car is rendered quite well, there is a big attention to detail, and you can generally play the game and lose yourself in it, knowing that it looks like a real car. However, when I got a chance to play GT5P, the $40 demo for the Sony PS3, the Ferrari F40 looks stunning. The polygon counts look 2 or 3 times as much. The car has 2 points that look way better. First the wheels / tires in GT5P just look plain better. You see real detail and you get a nice dose of choice looks at the wheels/brakes/tire tread. In FM2 its just a bit more cartoony. The second area is the engine bay. The F40 has this wonderful plexiglass rear window that has slits in it and houses the beautiful small displacement high revving twin turbo v8. In FM2, there is a texture of an engine and a glass looking rear window covering it. In GT5P, you get a recreation of not just the plexiglass heat-extracting-slitted rear window but also a beautifully rendered 3d engine. For me, when I see GT5P's cars, I immediately feel like I'm looking at a real car or at the very least, a 90% real looking 1:12th scale model that you would easily pay $70 for from a specialty car model maker. It just looks like you can reach out and touch it. If you are still with me... FM3's models looked to me to be 95% as good as GT5P's. I will say that the two aformentioned areas: Wheels/brakes/tires and engine bays, stood out to me as vastly improved and on par or above any I have seen on the 360. They are also within striking distance of GT5P and I am trying to be totally honest about that. I will definitely be looking forward to seeing the Ferrari F40 in FM3 this year, and I'm sure that my estimate may be closer to 99 to 101% of GT5P at that time. In the mean time, if I could give a suggestion, it is to let the cars lose just a tiny bit of the gloss they have. They are way better, but still have that candy coated look to them overall. Its very Forza, but at the same time, almost uncanny valley of cars. GT5P somehow was able to dodge that. There was a lot less noticeable aliasing of interior views. Something GT5P looks terrible at. This game had no distracting jaggies, and I'm talking about playing the game.
What its like to literally navigate the menu
1.) To start out, you get the very very clean, almost clinical logo. Below it just simply says hit A to start. If you leave the controller alone, it will go into a sweeping dramatic look at the Audi R8. Makes sense, the poster car for FM3.
2.) Hitting A brings you to a car select screen. There are no classes, just a list of cars from worst to best. If you go looking you can find a video of the first group of cars that were in the E3 demo online. I thinking for one bit, also recorded a video of the newly added race cars in the menu. Something that nobody said earlier is that while in the car select menu, you can hit right or left bumper and it will skip across 4 or 5 cars at a time. Handy if you are in the general area, but you don't want to go all the way to the beginning or end of a car list. You'll all be pleased to know (just like I was) that the car changing was instant. The pictures of the cars are static 2d images and the car models fade in below. I urge, no beg Turn10 to keep the menu this snappy, and stress test it with a garage holding 1000+ cars. I don't remember exactly but I believe that right and left trigger didn't do anything in this build of the game.
3.) Next you select your car and hit A, at which point we get a very GT esque car color select screen. The menu just shows little paint chips and left or right selects the paint color of choice. (For race cars, this is just a time to watch the scenery.) The whole time this is going on the camera has a series of 5 to 10 second slow pans, showing a 1/4 view or a low or high angle front or 3/4's view of the car. I didn't stare at that long, but if you let the controller sit idle in this screen the color selector will vanish away letting you do some major ogling of whatever car you have chosen.
4.) Next is the assist menu, I won't dwell on this long (search youtube or an e3 review), other than to mention that you can select automatic,manual or manual w/ a clutch. (COOL!)
5.) Hit A 1 last time, and the game will load.... and it will load... and it will (Work In Progress says the devs). Did I mention up to this point you could hit B to go back a screen. (Loading wise, its like FM2 loading a track, from the disc
not the hard drive)
6.) Finally the track loads up and you are presented with a minimalist menu consisting of start,assists,quit. (I only hit start from here, but I assume the other 2 choices will lead to a small amount of loading).
7.) Post race you get a really nice menu of restart,replay,quit. (if I remember correctly)
Driving the R10 TDI (all on 3screen motion unit with Fanatec wheel)
There was a contest to drive the audi on La Sarthe and win either a copy of "Truth in 24" (obviously Audi Forum NYC hadn't heard of itunes) or a little model car of a R10 TDI. I took my time in playing the game and watched a few other people drive the triple screen motion enabled setup. Others have commented on the whole thing in other articles, so I'll just say.... this Work In Progress (SIDEFX's words not mine) build. The Fanatec wheel had a terrible dead-zone in it, and so we were all fighting the car to give it small precise adjustments when we were trying to drive it straight The explanation was all software and that the wheel would be fine and more-so adjustable by ship date. The paddle shifters also need to be pulled toward the driver by the center of the paddle. These "paddles" were more like paddle shaped buttons than the true paddles of the xbox360 wheel. Regardless, I pressed on. I chose the assists which I normally race with, plus one little safety net. I picked manual transmission, no aids except ABS. My added assist was full race line, which I fully justified to myself for 2 reasons. 1.) I don't know this track, except for from GT4, 3+ years ago. 2.) The pro's over in the competition area all had race line on.
First Drive (yipe)
I immediately spun the tires, went through the first right hander fine and then spun the car in the following tight left right. I was determined to let it go, and use the first lap of my 2 lap turn as a reconnaissance. Getting through the next curves and making my way to the first part of the straight went well enough. It was time... I finally was playing Forza on La Sarthe the way I've always wanted.
(Minus those 2 chicanes which RacerX promised me I could option out in the final version.) I noticed to the contrary of the competitors that were playing with Audi's new R8 V10 road car, that the straight appeared to be quite passive. I braked for the first chicane and must have nailed it too hard. Because I saw my front lip spoiler rip off and fly over my head out of the way. (I asked RacerX and he said he didn't think detachable car parts were in this version yet, but I still swear I saw it). The curves on the back stretch were quite tricky as well, but I'll admit, I'm more of a C-A class racer in FM2 and I was feeling out a new car as well as new track. I learned a lot over my first race and ended with a time somewhere in the 4:20's or 4"30's. Quite terrible... in subsequent running contests I bettered my time and learned that smooth small inputs was quite better with the giant diesel beast.
Second Run (the win)
This time running the R10 I was able to fight traffic and stay near the lead on my first lap. The R10 is really a *** cat and out of first gear there is no wheel spin while pointed in a sane direction. I dodged in and out, and spent much time admiring the rendering of detail on the other cars. Notably the early 90's Ferrari F333 SP's rear end. Bellisimo I exclaimed to myself! The rear end has little supports and cables and wires sticking out of the back underneath the swoopy body Maybe the detail on the cars is higher than I thought. The lead was mine by the start of the 2nd lap and I was sitting pretty and feeling pretty good. I made it all the way to indianapolis without too many issues, the racing line urged me to stay on the throttle in many sweepers that I just couldn't based on feel. (more on that later) Then disaster struck... here I am driving good and I round Indianapolis and ignore the impending 90 degree right. Wham, straight into the wall and I'm clicking that dang Fanatec left paddle/button/thingie searching for R. I get it straight and am now in the thick of traffic again. I get to the finish and my lap time is a resoundingly average 4:05
x I notice. One of my 5 heat competitors tells me I was really on it and that I would have been a high 3:40's had I not hit the wall there. Woulda Coulda ... Shoulda I thought. As I'm standing there trying to not feel like too big of an idiot, the Audi personnel asks me if I had seen "Truth in 24" yet. I say "no" (which is a lie) and he says, "well you've just won it". Apparently 4:05 won that heat.
Third Run (the run of the day)
At this point, I'm feeling pretty cocky. The couple hours it takes for those running 6+ minute laps to go by happens and its my turn again for another 5 man heat. I gain a lead on the first lap by Mulsanne and never look back. My first lap I remember not much other than coveting the interior view that you've probably all seen in videos. The lights sweep across on the steering mounted LED tach and then the entire light array blinks when you need to shift. I clicked around on a couple buttons to try and find a way to turn off that pesky hud, and somehow get more immersed than a 900 degree wheel, moving hydraulic chair and triple screen cockpit view was already doing for me. No such luck but as I passed the start finish line in what felt like autopilot I noticed a 4:03... well then, I'm on to something. The curves unfolded beautifully and I knew things were going to be hot. I got to the kink before Indianapolis and I saw that bright green glowing race line and said "screw it", I tossed in about 12 degrees of right steer, slightly over corrected, but kept the gas down until I had the car straight. I then used all of that perfect 10.0 braking to completely nail Indianapolis. In the time you read this, I am enjoying the oohs and aahs from the 5 to 10 people watching, just before I successfully broke for that 90 degree right. The Porsche curves and even tighter hairpins afterwards have faded from my memory. I however do in fact remember that gorgeous sight of a 3:40 blip on the screen. I used all of my midwestern white boy suburb swagger and calmly got out of the race seat. I got lots of compliments and was on cloud 9 all of the sub 8 minutes it took the next guy to run a 3:37
xx. FAIL! No toy car for me to worry about gathering dust I thought. For those keeping track, 3:37
xx is time of the day, and mine a 3:40
xx with 2 seconds of penalty! GRRR!
The others (one that got away)
I probably ran the course and car combo another 2 or 3 stints. I'll just go over one more. It was past 12 I would have to say because the night shift Audi person was the one dolling out rides. Myself and Kidnice along with a local NYer that I forgot his name got a chance to actually put in time. I lit things up on this run. The only differences of note from my earlier 3:40
x were that I nailed down the Porsche curves as well as the first turn past the start/finish. The hydralic chair and I also weren't fighting each other, we were actually leaning together in the turns and leaning opposite on acceleration and braking. I felt like I was on a superbike (not that I'd know) or better, carving SCCA cones in a S2000 (which I do know). Anyone who has ever raced would call this "The Zone!" and it was. All the turns melted away, I braked only enough to make the red of the race line bleed a bit of yellow. I even had a light giddy feeling on a few corner exits, as the tail (great phsyics Turn10) became ooh soo light and fluffy. The normal music you hear in game (yes music plays while driving now) was gone as was the right corner hud. Only me, race line, steering tach, and engine note existed. Ok fast forward 2.9 laps. I get to the very last left to right, and I cook it, I throw the entire run into the garbage and waste it. I just went into the turn too fast, I then slide into the grand stands in typical 50's Mercedes style (too soon?). I sit there watching the seconds.... 3:33... 3:34... 35.... NOOOO. The night Audi attendant says, "finish finish!" I back it out and get it across the line, before penalty with a 3:4x bleepin bleep who cares. In the aftermath he says "you were flying man, I have never seen anyone drive that fast." I told him to turn around and watch those 9, they knew what was up. Dejected, I couldn't put the run out of my head, and never saw the better part of 3:50 again.
The FordGT on La Sarthe (3 screen motion unit with Fanatec wheel)
This is my favorite car in the world, the car that will make me succeed through law school, slave away just so I can own 1 some day. I gotta say, I loved it. I now know what the competitors were talking about as far as more weight and movement on the cars. I also noticed the Murcielago in front of me appeared to be talking to his wife on his cell phone instead of watching the first few turns. He bee lined about 20 feet into the sand and then darted towards the road and therefore me. I drifted to the outside and watched him enter back on the track with no major drama, nor hitting the GT2 that was near him at that point. At various times you'll see the AI do this brain fart of course stunt. At one point earlier I saw this happen with a R car in Indianapolis and he flipped it!!!! That was one of those moments where I was in the race, and felt like I was just watching someone play FM2, then all of a sudden, the real world broke into FM2 and FM3 showed up. You're all going to love roll over! Where was I... oh yes.... Mulsanne!!! Having open road I cautiously lined up the GT for the impending bliss, of the straight. The Mulsanne is quite bumpy in this car and I am feeding in lots of nice inputs to keep the thundering Ford straight. I'm also freed of downforce and I believe I hit 200+ in between chicanes. The interior arms do not shift, and hopefully those animation will be added in by the time we get the game. I also ran without braking line and thankfully broke early on most turns. I think I only shunted it in the dirt a few times. I also took an opportunity to drive with the manual+clutch. Reaching for the shifter, I noticed it was a sequential up down shifter, and not the gated 6 speed I assumed was there. It was also mounted in a manner that felt less than stable for my taste so i resumed use of the paddles. While deciding which shifter to use, I accidentally poked up or down before hitting the clutch. JERK.... WHAMM WHAMM WAHMM went the car and engine in that order. I banged off of red line a few more times that race, any time I tried to hit the clutch and the button while hitting the button a second too soon I got that result. Conversely if I was lazy with the clutch-down/click-paddle/clutch-up I got a nice drop off in rpms and a WAHH of 2500rpms. I finally found a nice rhythm of 1 2 3 (count with me) for the clutch plus paddle operation then clutch release and I had nearly seemless shifting. The GT drove almost exactly like in FM2 to my recollection.
68 Shelby GT500 KR on Montserrat Spain (Camino Viejo) (only race on single screen + 360wheel)
Muscle car fans... it was quite fun. I was playing on a single screen + 360wheel. The middle pod of the competitors (btw, you guys had the pedals way close). The race started and I sat there. I thought to myself, the tires aren't that terrible on this car are they? I then noticed that my long leg was giving a bit of brake. After that foible I was able to catch up to the back of the pack a few times. Nothing spectacular to report except a few things. First, I love the feel of these tires. They totally feel like the car is on balloons or bike tires. Lots of movement and slop in them, it feels like an old muscle car. Second, the interior is rocking, the big wood rimmed wheel, it felt nice and 60's.
Unfortunately the interior on this car felt a little flat. I also found it hard to see the gauges down there on the flat 60's dash. I went to hit down on the right stick to make my virtual Andretti take a peak, and to my dismay, I looked behind. If you've played other games that have interior view, the most preferable method of right stick looking for me personally is the 1 where the stick controls the head movement of the driver. Up looks up, down looks down and left right etc. This is not that. This is basically how the camera works in FM2 with no dashboard available. Left/right = left/right, but be careful because if you go below 3oclock or 9oclock on the joystick you'll end up have a reverse view sans any car rendering at all. I asked both RacerX and SIDEFX if that would be changed. They both stated clipping and such may hinder that, but that the entire interior was rendered so it was possible. PLEASE.... let use look all around like in PGR3, and just let Y button, be a reverse view.
BMW 135i on Montserrat Spain (Ladera Test Track) (this and all other races on single screen + controller)
I like the 135i in real life. I think a small 2+2 bmw coupe with sedan styling, less bangle, and more straight 6 is the way to go. Anyway.... I found this cars interior quite the step up. The typical white on black guages tach/speedo were front and center. I had no problem looking at them except when the sun was at my back and glared things partially.
This car immediately felt better from a tire standpoint but the back was just not as composed as I had hoped. I don't know how it drives in real life, but I bet it would be close to this with all that torque. The other thing is that the test track appears to be all flat from my memory. It does have 1 new element to my FM experience, that being the bowl shaped curves of the out of bounds areas. Unlike other FM tracks, there was no slow down of the car like other off track areas, just a big curve up naturally tracking the car back towards the road. I never caught the 370z or the Lotus, probably cause on the sweepers I left the rear drift out. However, the suspension was night and day over the 68 gt500 KR. Tires and weight too. Overall this was my most uneventful drive, and I don't know if i should blame the track or the car.
New STI on Montserrat Spain (Camino Viejo)
It had to be me getting used to the controller by this point, but I was really digging this car on this course. The STI's launch was seamless as you would expect, and the tires talked to me at the limit really well. I was chasing down the leaders by the second half of the first lap. I was really able to dive into the corner and do at least half of my turn while braking so that I could stay off of understeer as much as possible while pulling past the apex and waiting for the end of the turn. You guys will really appreciate an AWD car with modern tires. I found myself punting a few cones just for fun as I was chasing down people. On the 2nd lap I tried to force the issue and pass on the inside. The computer who was on my driver-side front (in a Japanese car going clockwise on a track
) decided not to care that I was inside his fender and closed the little gap that was there. I took a little mountainside and a little car, and needless to say, lost a few places before the race ended. It was during this race that I took Evo's advice. I switched out of the right hand drive nice center tach cockpit view. OMG... the framerate its glorious... I quickly stabbed at right button to get back in my precious dash view. Evo was right, the frame rate was terrible in-car. I played half the race without in-car, and marveled at what RacerX told me would be the final framerate everywhere. Pleez Pleez Pleez let the cockpit have 60fps by ship date!!!! FYI, I played everything else in-car cause it was still playable for me. It is a solid 30ish FPS, so its not as terrible as I just made it out to be. Just don't go comparing them side by side with this build of the game.
Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione on Montserrat Spain (Iberian Int. Circuit)
Ooh la la... now we're having fun. Spunky high revving v8, along with a quite toss-able Front Mid powertrain. I also really liked this course and how the rolling gentle hills and ample ample run off areas were in contrast to the hilly narrow Camino and the bland flat but interesting Ladera Test Track. I felt like I had a good 100 to 300 feet in every off track direction. Except for the 90 degree left right around the start. Compounding this issue was that there is a quick little elevation lift right around the start but before this straight. You need to be highly aware, cause I wasn't and my lil Alfa got super light and before I could get on the brakes and scrub speed I was sliding on the grass (which feels more like grass and less like velcro) and into the wall. The alfa was fun to drive but had a bit of the same problems as the 68 Shelby, namely interior, the gauges were not very legible and the tops of them were cut off from the steering wheel. Maybe they should rate the interior drivability of these cars in the menu. I would also implore Turn 10 to let us have a bit of driver height adjustment, even a simple low/high adjustment that only moves the virtual head 3 or 4 virtual inches up or down. This course had some fun off camber turns, and gave a distinctly Mugello feel in parts, minus the sand traps. I don't remember any, but there may be some.
FordGT on Montserrat Spain (Iberian Int. Circuit)
Much the same as the Alfa drive, except the tach was easier to read naturally and I had more speed to scrub before taking that turn at the start. I gotta say, the GT feels more planted than the Alfa, and makes up for any toss-ability with truck like torque to let you rotate the car at will. A fun drive, and I see myself driving this course often. I think I placed first or second in this race. With the Lamborghini and the Porsche dueling it out with me. Also of note, bumping into other cars doesn't seem to send you flying like a drop kicked soccer ball as much. I think Turn 10 nailed the slight nuances of 2 cars scrubbing on each other at speed. It makes sense to me anyway, if car A is moving at 112 mph into the back right of car B going 110 mph. There should only be a 2 mph collision. I also postulate that since the tires actually have some flex from ground contact to rim contact, that when a car gets touched, the tires remain in a state of 90% traction and don't give up the ghost sending you immediately into a skid. Regardless, I'm hopeful for a more forgiving multiplayer experience when 2 cars interact. There was no multiplayer however, to confirm or deny these hopes.
Challenger SRT8 on Montserrat Spain (Camino Viejo)
This car was more adept at this course. When the race starts you get this typical different stylized angles of the car before take off. For the Challenger I noticed something quite sweet when they did the close-up of the front wheel. Not only did the 3d curve with little flat line along the center line of the spokes get reproduced correctly, but the tires along with realistic 3d looking tread was rendered. To top it all off, I got a gorgeous look at the brakes. Yes I can confirm that they are slotted discs, and that the brand on the red caliper read in white letters "brembo". Ladies and gents the details are nice and high in this game. Starting out, I got my first feel for a car with some serious heft. I think people are going to have a lot of fun driving cars like this and the SUV's and little cars on a big hilly track like Camino Viejo. The Challenger had a nice gnarly exhaust note and the beefy car felt as light as it could with the help of those brembo's and modern tires. The tires communicated directly, unlike the KR's that the limit was here, and now, not in this area, and sometime soon. There were plenty of gear changes as I spun the tires up the hill towards the finish line. I also am very glad that Dodge decided to give the car big legible white face gauges with black numbers. I love me some interior view. I placed decidedly in the middle of the pack. I have to say though that chasing down the Lotus / 370z / EVO/ STI with this 2 ton tank was fun. I hope a few other tight narrow courses will be in the final game, its a great exercise in car control.
Honestly thats like 99% of the game that I can remember. I am posting links to the 3 videos I took. 1 of which shows you the PI's and classes (which are new) of the recently added race cars. Will be updated tonight. I hope all enjoy my story.
Link to FM.net:
http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/2664882.aspxKlik om te vergroten...
