While everyone's gushing about Forza 5, I'd like to offer a different perspective

"AntiSpeed" (AntiSpeed) 11/28/2013 at 19:36 • Filed to: None

2

19

I just wrote this on another forum and thought it'd be interesting to get everyone's thoughts here.

I can't stand the Forza and GT games. It's nothing but a grind of meaningless 3-lap races where you start from 8th place and are forced to smash your way to the front, since there's no time for racecraft in a race that short.

Plus they make you start out in shitty cars, and by the time you unlock/earn enough credits to buy the cars you bought the game for, you're fucking sick of it. The gameplay becomes as much fun as filling out a spreadsheet.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 19:37

0

I'unno, I kind of see GT in a different perspective - Photography, meets, anything you could potentially do to the game.

Saying something like that is like saying a McLaren F1 is boring.

Forgetful > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 19:43

1

Single player racing games can be that way. Proper online racing is where it's at.

AntiSpeed > Forgetful 11/28/2013 at 19:48

0

That's a good point. The one time I played GT5 online I did enjoy it. But don't you still have to unlock cars in single player to use them online?

PushToStart > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 19:51

1

I get where you're coming from, but it's not totally like that with FM4. I like Forza 4 because you progress through the career at a good pace but if you don't have enough credits for a car and still want to race, head into free race mode and you can do whatever you want with any car you want. I'm not sure if any GT games are like that since I don't have a PS, but I think that that's where Forza 4 really did good, on the free play mode.

AntiSpeed > PushToStart 11/28/2013 at 20:08

0

Didn't they put the Top-Gear car-soccer game into Forza 4? That kind of stuff I think would be really fun.

In GT5 they give you a handful of cars in free play, but iirc they're mostly mid-range sports cars except for maybe 2-3 exotics, a GT racer and one or two prototypes. Plus if I'm playing free-play, I feel like I'm wasting time that I should be using to earn money for the next car I want to unlock. But I also tend to have ADD when a game has a massive amount of content. When I had a bajillion cars downloaded for rFactor I usually only did a few laps before I would feel compelled to switch to another one.

davedave1111 > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 20:22

1

The first part I don't quite agree. There's fun in a proper race, but there's also fun in a race that's less serious - and there are different types of racecraft applicable to both. In an arcadey race, it might be all about spotting the one point where you can steam up the outside way too fast, drift round, and block the racing line while you get back up to speed. That's still racecraft. Even if it's a bit more realistic, you can still take risks in shorter races that you wouldn't take if you were being serious, and you can learn something that way.

I completely agree with your second point, though. I hate games where they disguise a crappy game by making you grind your way through it to 'unlock' the next slightly less crappy bit. As far as I'm concerned, any value in a single-player game ought to be editable at will, whether it's my money, my car's stats, or the hitpoints on a boss on a fighter, or whatever. I paid for the game, and I'll damn well play it how I want.

Forza 4 had it about right, though. You got good amounts of money just for playing the game any way you wanted to play it, so there was no need to grind away at certain tasks you wouldn't otherwise have done.

Burrito de EJ25 > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 20:25

1

Because it needs to skew to a more casual audience, none of these 3-lap races ever feel rewarding. And that's been one of my main issues with all of these games. You don't have time to correct mistakes. If you've messed up, you're either using the why-the-fuck-are-you-even-playing-this-singleplayer-if-you're-not-interested-in-any-type-of-challange rewind feature, or you're restarting the race.

And none of these games ever let you set your own custom single player races. Or, if they do it's very limited. With Forza 4 you couldn't set the number of laps, and you couldn't chose the cars your AI opponents drove. I'd like to race against cars from my own garage. Cars that I've built. If you're not going to offer up a meaningful, realistic track day experience, let me build my own.

Burrito de EJ25 > PushToStart 11/28/2013 at 20:29

2

Forza 5 completely strips that away from you. If you really, really want to try out a car and you don't have the credits and the patience to earn them your only choice is to pay THEM money to unlock the car that's already on the disc that you paid $60 for.

Forza 5 bums me out. It's stripped to the bare minimum, and the microtransaction stuff really grosses me out.

Bakkster, touring car driver > PushToStart 11/28/2013 at 20:55

0

The FM4 career was awful because the AI was terrible on low difficulty levels, brake checking in the corners. The issue being it wouldn't let you turn it up any higher than the year you were on. Very frustrating.

Bakkster, touring car driver > davedave1111 11/28/2013 at 21:00

0

The problem with casual races is the AI. The racecraft often ends up distilling down to exploiting the AI glitches, divebombing and forcing them up in the case of Forza.

PushToStart > AntiSpeed 11/28/2013 at 21:40

0

Yeah, car soccer is in FM 4 but you have to download the field/arena for a certain amount of money, I can't remember how much. I've never actually played it before haha. And yeah, free play does sometimes feel like a missed opportunity for cash but it's fun to do on occasion, especially to mess with cars that cost millions and millions of credits that I know I'll probably never be able to afford like the 10 million credit Shelby Daytona Coupe.

PushToStart > Burrito de EJ25 11/28/2013 at 21:41

0

Yeah that's what I've heard! Seriously disappointing. I don't have an Xbox one but I figure I'll get one eventually after they stop making games for 360. Hopefully by that time they'll have a new forza out and it will be more like Forza 4 except with the awesome detail that 5 has.

PushToStart > Bakkster, touring car driver 11/28/2013 at 21:46

0

Yeah, it took me a while of searching around for the setting to make the AI harder in career mode that I realized I couldn't change it, which is admittedly quite lame. Also one thing that I wish would change was that the AI was more aware of their car and tried to preserve it instead of smashing into each other and me. I try to race clean and it really pisses me off when they smash into my back bumper.

feather-throttle-not-hair > AntiSpeed 11/29/2013 at 03:15

0

I agree to an extent, but get a few hours in and the games eventually become a sandbox. That's what it's all about. That's the reward for all the grinding. Automotive freedom without consequences.

Plus for some reason I find drifting, and building various drift cars endlessly rewarding. Online is also key.

Kanaric > AntiSpeed 11/29/2013 at 07:02

0

theres many more reasons to be sick of GT, shit sounds, misaligned textures on the cars, 50 different versions of the GTR or RX7 yet zero Alfa GTV6s among other interesting cars. Can't put on wider tires so you are stick with 190s if you have a Pulsar GTIR lol. Seriously. The 1st car mod that you should do you can't do on that game. It's shit. What it does have though is decent races once you progress like endurance races, rallys, etc.

As far as Forza is concerned that game is the opposite, it has sensible car modding, awesome sounds and graphics not PS2 graphics called "standard" and they don't even bother touching it up, lol. However it lacks games modes, it's just generic "race" and it makes that game EXTREMELY boring.

I agree, both games are terrible but it's like with Madden NFL there is no competition, nobody makes a reasonable alternative in that medium with a wide selection of vehicles.

What disgusts me about GT6 is that people here are waiting and pining for it when it's a PS3 game coming out with PS2 graphics and sound effects when PS4 is out. You can blame them for how bad these game are, they have no objectivity at all and would buy a sock with holes and shit in it and thank who sold it to them.

davedave1111 > Bakkster, touring car driver 11/29/2013 at 07:09

0

Oh, I thought you meant multiplayer. AI's always a bit rubbish, or a least it has been in every game I've ever played.

In a way, though, even beating a crappy AI takes a kind of racecraft. Your opponent may be effectively an idiot, but you still have to probe to work out where the holes are, then exploit them.

Bakkster, touring car driver > davedave1111 11/29/2013 at 08:12

0

I see where you're coming from, but it never feels like racecraft to me. It reminds me I'm playing a game instead of racing. It just doesn't hold a candle to racing people.

No Prius Needed > AntiSpeed 11/29/2013 at 09:47

0

You could use the cars that they gave you in the quick race mode but you could always use the cars in your garage as well.

Cebu > AntiSpeed 12/01/2013 at 14:30

0

I'm not gonna play Forza because I'm a PC loyalist.

That being said, the game looks so awesome I'm certainly tempted.