You guys kill me.
First, go read my opinion on Forza 2 in the "Hello from the MVP Summit!" thread.
Then, let me point you to the "games" section of teamxbox, the Xbox 360 catalog, and the letter "F". Then click Forza, and look at Ceser's preview from March 6th. What he saw, I saw the identical thing today - the build used at GDC, which is NOT the current build.
Let me share a couple of things with you, since the developer said he's pretty much said everything about the game in interviews at this late point in development.
One player. Five Xbox 360's. Five screens. That includes front left, front center, front right, rear view, AND REAL TIME REPLAY. REAL TIME REPLAY is actual, in game, real time footage, designed to play on a seperate screen for a local crowd to watch since this will be played at racing events and such. It is undoctored because it plays AT THE SAME TIME as the driver's view when he plays the game - it just uses a floating camera. This is virtually identical to the E3 setup used for Forza1 with three screens and a REAL TIME REPLAY.
To reiterate: it is a replay view, but is being rendered in the game, in real time, at the same time as the driver's view, on a separate 360.
OK, to back up: The Forza display at the developer's featured three driver's view screens and a smaller LCD screen that served as a rear view mirror. The developer's office setup did not include the fifth TV for real time replay, but it was mentioned that it would do it.
This is what you can do in Forza 2: one player can have five screens with five different views as described above IF he has five screens, five 360's and five copies of the game.... now, wipe up the drool and understand that Forza will let you run EIGHT of these setups connected together. Eight drivers, 40 monitors, 40 360's, 40 copies of the game.
More info:
The Forza developers were heavily involved in the design of the wireless force feedback wheel. There are two means of creating movement in the wheel. One is the force feedback, which works around the shaft and related to front wheels and the "feel" of steering. Two is the vibration motors which are located in the lower section of ring of the steering wheel. They do the road/grass/bumps/impact vibration.
More...
The graphics are unbelievable. Not only do the cars look perfect, but there's FOUR THOUSAND layers of graphics that you can apply to the car. Plus you can combine them to form a "stamp" and use your stamp on multiple cars in Team Racing.
But as good as the graphics are, Forza is about realism. Wanna know why I think it's Game of the Year 2007?
The game runs over 9000 physics computations, 360 times per second. The temperature of the outer tire affects the temperature of the inner tire which affects the core pressure which affects the friction coefficient which affects centrifugal pull around curves which affects acceleration and drifting, and.... you get the idea. Everything is connected, and it only works because everything is right. EVERY. THING. IS. RIGHT.
The track at Sebring is built on an old airstrip made of concrete blocks that sit unevenly. One block may be two inches higher than another, another block may be four inches away from another, etc. It's not a ride you want to make with hemhorroids. But at 180 MPH and 60 FPS, you can cover over four cracks in the span of 1/60th of a second. If the physics only ran at 60 FPS along with the frame rate, you wouldn't even know those important cracks are there. They run the physics at six TIMES the frame rate to make sure you feel every f'n crack on that track, and you do. Every f'n one.
More about realism here in a second, but I didn't want to forget about the cars. Over 300 cars, engine swaps, drive train swaps, hundreds of real aftermarket mods and for cars with little aftermarket mod support, "Forza" branded aftermarket mods are available so those cars can "play" too.
OK, realism: Forza didn't use any car manufacturer's specs. Sometimes, they're... off. So every spec was measured by the Forza team themselves, with over 1000 vehicles measured using different configurations of the aftermarket parts. A typical solution would be a linear equation for tracking improvements through upgrades. Forza uses a non-linear equation that provides a more realistic final performance and performance rating.
Case in point: one car measured ended up with vibration in the front end. The team was certain they screwed up somewhere because there wouldn't be a car released with this odd vibration. Three months later, Car and Driver did a review of the car... and docked it for having the vibration. The Forza model generated a spec that was more real than the actual manufacturer's spec, and revealed a flaw that the mfg. wasn't even aware of, and they were later proven as being right on the money.
Do you have any idea how significant that is? That means this is more than just a "who's car is cartooneyer" issue. That means that the Forza physics model is more accurate than most of the models used by the design teamsof the cars themselves. Forza is a lot of fun, but under the hood... it's f'n SCIENCE, baybee. Nothing fake, nothing made up, nothing manually filled in to compensate for something that isn't right. They wrote the math, ran the program, and it's f'n RIGHT. So you can take your Gran Turismo and call it a "realistic" racer and I will laugh in your face, 'cause you don't know sh!t.
If the car behaves like that, it's because the car BEHAVES like that. If the car looks like that, it's because the car LOOKS like that. I didn't even go over this, but Forza could have used stock Hollywood sound effects for engine noises and crash sounds, but they didn't. They recorded the cars, the recorded the cars with mods, and the recorded actual vehicle crashes conducted themselves on a test track. I saw the office full of straight pipes piled in a corner that they used on the cars used for recording. If the car sounds like that, it's because the car SOUNDS like that. If the track is sparse of foliage and decoration, it's because that's the way the track is. It's not "gussied up" for your entertainment.
REALISM. Like you've never seen before. Period.
I promise you, if you like racers, this will be your favorite game ever, and when Halo 3 comes out, you STILL won't be putting Forza down.
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To the guy way back in this thread, who said "You're saying that about GTHD. You won't be saying that about GT5." Let me remind you of this: "You're saying that about GT4. You won't be saying that about GTHD." Stop believing the Sony promise bullsh!t, you sheep. Like the Xbox 360 is the real deal and the PS3 is the letdown, Forza 2 is the real deal, and GT-anything will be the letdown, because I assure you, they are not spending the effort on the minutia that the Forza team did.
