The demo for Forza 2 hit Xbox Live early this morning, and after playing it for a while, I'm fairly impressed. The game is much more hardcore (in the vein of Gran Tursimo) than PGR, so you can't just keep the throttle down and hope to slide around corners. As with most driving games, the first thing I do is turn the car around and drive the wrong way on the track to see how it reacts. Either the AI is not programmed to try to avoid oncoming obstacles at that speed or it doesn't have time to react because I was able to stage a head-on crash with almost every car I saw. Head-on collisions at that speed would disintegrate both cars using real physics, but since your car disintegrating and ending the game may not be fun, the cars in Forza 2 just take maximum frontal damage and spin away. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a car upside down, but I'll continue to try.
The demo only features one track, but you can drive 24 different cars in three different classes. None of the customization options from the full game are in the demo (aside from choosing your car color) and it's single-player only but it's definitely worth taking a look.
Comments (7)
Loved it!!!! Was a huge fan of the first one and have been waiting for this one. This game is the main reason I bought a 360.
Posted by Ghost | May 11, 2007 6:34 PM
Posted on May 11, 2007 18:34
The AI will try to avoid you if you are stopped in the middle of the track. Most of them get out of the way completely but if they are clustered together one car will not be able to move out of the way. Love the damage modeling and how the parts that fall off stay on the track for the whole race. You run over them at a high speed they will must you up. The car models look almost as good as the GT-HD ones but do to the amount of goemetry needed for the damage modeling it is worth the trade off. This is still the demo mind you also. If GT5 needs to add the damage modeling and all the tuning and customizing Forza 2 has in order to best this kick ass racing sim. Drifting is much better in this demo then the GT-HD demo.
Regards
Posted by Roc | May 11, 2007 11:54 PM
Posted on May 11, 2007 23:54
The best AI was on Test Drive LeMans on the Dreamcast. I would park backwards near the bottom of a ridge or at the end of a turn and have fun watching the cars get startled and try to swerve around me. Even when driving side-by-side they would realistically veer away if you get too close. As much as I love GT4 (didn't play Forza much) the AI is pure crap.
I think a disintegrating car would be awesome. GTR2 on the PC is close with wheels and body parts flying off basically destroying your car and ending your race, unless you can make it to the pits. I actually think it would be cool to have your race end with a transmission, brake or engine failure as much a spectacular impact.
Posted by J R | May 12, 2007 12:28 AM
Posted on May 12, 2007 00:28
That's hilarious because that's the first thing I did as well. I think this demo is a good example of what the 360 can do. It's definitely impressive graphically and gameplay, but it's not quite got the polish the ps3 and Gran Turismo is capable of. However, I believe Forza, while not as impressive visually, more than makes up for it in it's attention to detail on the physics end.
Posted by Kevin | May 12, 2007 7:25 PM
Posted on May 12, 2007 19:25
I just love how everyone assumes the PS3 is or ever will perform better than the 360. I have yet to see anything on cell that couldn’t be done better with a multicore. GT HD, for example has jaggies just like the Forza demo but the PS3 demo restricts your views so you can’t see them.
The Cell seems to have one useful processor and a bunch of math co-processors that haven’t yielded anything but exasperation for the people trying to write code for it.
Posted by gwolf | May 15, 2007 10:07 PM
Posted on May 15, 2007 22:07
After 6 hours of playing, i have to admit i am more than impressed. Being a Gran Turismo fan boy i have to admit the phyics in this game beat those in GTHD. Sony has the system, but now they need to get GT5 on this train.
-The Good-
Physics-Physics-Physics... cant say more
Sound- all the cars dont sound the same.
Drifting- feels so much like it does in real life.
Car Selection- love GT's 700 car list but these 20 are elite!
More than i can type right now.
-The Bad-
Graphics are ok but i hate the mirror like look on all cars.
This game should borrow some trikes from TOCA 3
Playing GT HD as much as i do, i love the graphics so if i could get gthd graphics on this it be perfect.
Posted by EJ25RUN | May 16, 2007 3:11 PM
Posted on May 16, 2007 15:11
I dont think microsoft has permission to model cars going upside down. So upside down aint happenin'.
Posted by Raptor22 | May 16, 2007 4:07 PM
Posted on May 16, 2007 16:07