I’ve been watching Gen V and I think it’s a great show but my God the people actually delivering on some of these visuals need to be getting hazard pay.
Or maybe they are huge perverts and they have finally found the perfect job that lets them combine their love of mutilated dicks with a Bachelor's degree in computer animation. Who knows.
Speaking of race cars!
I picked up the new Forza Motorsport last week and have been playing for a few days. Mike Racecar has some thoughts that I figured I should pass along since he has my cat.
Before I start I should mention what I’m currently playing on in terms of hardware. I’ve got the Logitech Trophy chair from Playseat and the Logitech Pro Wheel and Pedals. It’s an awesome lightweight setup that is comfortable for long sessions.
The Good Stuff
The more I play the more I like the physics engine in this game. The cars are fun to drive with a great sense of speed and they feel very connected to the surface of the road. This is obviously the most important part of the game and I personally think they nailed it. Motorsport also has great force feedback and wheel support although this took a bit of fiddling to dial in.
The multiplayer is really well designed. You need to complete a three race introduction series that will result in you getting a safety and skill rating similar ro Gran Turismo 7. After that you are free to check out Spec races that automatically limit cars of a given class to a similar performance rating or an Open series that allows drivers to race tuned and custom vehicles. Official hosted races happen often and on a regular schedule.
My favorite thing about multiplayer is that you can join a race event well before it starts and spend that time in an open practice on the track with other drivers. During this warm up time you can choose to qualify for the upcoming race which gives you unobstructed access to the track for three laps to put up your best time. Once it’s time for the race to start, everyone is gridded for a standing start. Open track practice is something iRacing includes as a part of its official hosted races and I think it really helps. The ability to practice a track with other cars present is huge! I think GT7 could benefit from a similar option.
The presentation is another high point in my opinion. The game's menus look great and I like the way its various modes are laid out. Okay now let’s get to the not so good stuff.
The Not So Good Stuff
Performance on my PC is not great and I have a RTX 3080 which I didn’t think was especially bad. I had to do some more fiddling and turn down a few settings to get a solid 50-60 FPS which feels bad on this rig. It still looks cool and has some impressive weather effects but I’m very much hoping for a performance patch on or around its official launch tomorrow.
The game has a career mode full of races and the ability to create a custom event as well but you’ll be racing against AI drivers that are out for blood. These “Drivatars” are constantly raming me and each other off the road. Things tend to settle down after the first couple laps but it can be frustrating. Maybe they are trying to mimic actual online races in an effort to prepare you?
Speaking of online races. People take iRacing very seriously. It’s where professional drivers play for God's sake. Clean racing is expected and tomfoolery is not tolerated. Now Gran Turismo 7 is a little more forgiving. “Rubbing is racing” and all that business but while the drivers might get a little aggressive sometimes the game inflicts harsh penalties on drivers involved in incidents. In its current early access state, Forza Motorsport online is like racing with a pack of wild dogs. Cars are slamming into each other left and right, people are stopping in the middle of the track or even trying to go backwards.
With that said, Forza seems to try and calculate blame to a much higher degree than Gran Turismo or even iRacing I think. Unless your maneuver was clearly either stupid or intentional you will escape most contact with other cars without any penalty. This is an interesting system that I’ve seen make some very smart calls.
The Forza series has been all about tearing up the countryside and smashing signs for a few years now so I think it might take some time for folks to either get what Motorsport is all about or get bored and go back to Horizon. The ones who are left or who find their way here later will discover a very solid racing sim with a lot of potential.
The big issue here for me is that Forza Motorsport doesn’t offer any VR support. The other two sims I enjoy (iRacing and Gran Turismo 7) both have VR options. Driving race cars might be the ultimate use case for VR right now. It puts you down on the track in the car and gives you so much more awareness of your surroundings. Maneuvering around other cars without incident is easier and lap times are significantly faster in VR. There is no question that playing Forza Motorsport on my TV feels like a step backwards. That’s just me being spoiled by VR though and might not have anything to do with your enjoyment of the game.
And it is a very fun game that I intend to keep playing. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a performance patch and hopefully the community online settles down a bit. Regardless, I’ll be spending a few of my laps each day in Forza Motorsport for a while.
-Gabe out
