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Poo Bear
Pod Team
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 4121
Location: Sheffield, UK
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 Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:55 am Post subject: |
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I haven't played Forza so I wont vote, but surely it cannot beat the mother of all racing games that is GT? I've had all of them since the Playstation1 and loved them all, although I didn't buy those offshoot dodgy "concept car" versions as that just seemed like cashing in.
I think GT demonstrates some of the differences between the game playing public and the vocal hard core minority (which is us isn't it?). The game is basically broken, you get your car and go for a race, if you don't win then you will still have picked up a bit of money so you can just install another upgrade i.e. better tyres, turbo, exhaust, etc. So quite quickly and unlike many other similar games you can get a car that is just a LOT better than everyone else's and even you crash constantly you can still win.
I've seen quite a few reviews latch onto that and criticize the game, but isn't this one of the reasons for its success? People like collecting and upgrading cars, they enjoy doing it. If they fail they don't need to be told spending money on a car makes it better, they already know that. They don't need to practice over and over to gain skill or rely on luck, they know they can just make the car better and win.
Compare that with pretty much any other racing game. Usually the car can be tweaked to alter its handling in ways you might find more suitable to your driving style but that ultimately doesn't really give you much of an edge. Cars are sorted into separate leagues so that you cannot upgrade your car to the point of gaining an unfair advantage. The driver AI is then setup so the races get harder and harder (in fact usually they just cheat and make the AI cars faster and more aggressive). The only way to win now is to practice each track and gain real skill, plus relying on a bit of luck now and then.
I remember setting up Geoff Crammonds GrandPrix game next to the telly when the MonteCarlo race was on. The game was meant to be a very accurate racing simulation and I was going to see how well I did compared to the real thing. Within a few seconds I was dissapointed to realise the game cars were only doing about half the top speed and acceleration of the real cars. There is no way such a huge difference was a mistake, they must have realised that real people just don't have the time to develop the skillz needed. |
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