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May 30, 2005
Forza Motorsport and Fanatec Speedster Forceshock Wheel: Peanut Butter and Jelly!
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I was drawn to buying Forza Motorsport, but I wasn’t sure if it was the game for me. I love racing games, but I’ve never been very good at Gran Turismo. I found the gold standard PS2 game way too realistic for my tastes and quickly sold it. I was further in doubt when trying out a demo disc and watched in despair as my car repeatedly slid off the track and crashed into barriers.
However, I did take the plunge and bought Forza, and I have loved every minute of playing it. The graphics on the game are outstanding for the XBox, combining the best of Project Gotham Racing 2 with some of the graphical tricks you’ve seen on Rallisport Challenge 2. The backgrounds are all rendered inside the engine and you can have fun watching the replays, especially scenes in Times Square where you look at the various neon signs. Damage modeling is another graphical feature, and it makes screwing up or losing races more fun. The gameplay is more realistic, like Gran Turismo, but Microsoft gave newbies several ways to enjoy the game. There are several assists built in: Stability Management, Traction Control, Anti-Lock Braking, as well as Automatic transmission. In addition, there is a “suggested driving line” feature that is incredibly helpful: it not only shows you the best driving path on the track, but turns green when you need to step on the gas, yellow when you need to take the foot off the gas pedal, and red when you need to break. This line became my point of entry to this type of game—it’s not about driving like a maniac, it’s about breaking at the right point and accelerating out of a turn.
In comparison to games like Midnight Club 3 and Need For Speed Underground 2, Forza offers a rich set of car customizations and upgrade packages. But unlike these other games, Forza’s has car classes: D (lowest), C, B, A, R, and S. Within each class, you have levels 1-4. You can easily take a D class car and buy various upgrades to turn into a B class vehicle, but you would be missing the point. The races are centered on having the same class of vehicles competing against each other. The point of the game is to take say, a D4 class car, upgrade and tune up to the limit of D1, so you can beat the pants of other D class cars. This is especially important when you go online (more on that later). It’s in this area of car tuning and upgrading that I need the most help: going online and searching various Forza forums for tuning tricks is an option. You can also look into purchasing the Forza : Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)
I’ve played Forza for about 12 hours now and I am nowhere near the end. There aren’t that many tracks compared to other games—and this about the only negative thing I can say about the game. There are several real life race tracks and others in real locations like New York City, where you run laps. Other tracks involve Point to Point races that Microsoft’s designers have created on their own, and these are a lot of fun as well. I’ve spent most of my time in the Career mode, but there are quite a few races in the Arcade mode. IGN reports that there are 70 hours in the Career mode and I have a feeling this figure may be a bit conservative for me.
I started playing Forza with the regular Xbox controller type-S. I was progressing decently enough, but I kept looking at demo booths where people were playing GT4 with the fancy Logitech wheel. I read several reviews of the Fanatec Speedster ForceShock wheel, hemmed and hawed, then finally picked one up at Gamestop. The minute I started using the ForceShock I felt a big difference right away in playing Forza. Yes, this is how the racing games are supposed to be played--they go together like PB&J! It took a few turns to get the hang of the wheel, and then it made a big impact on my races. The ForceShock has an excellent feel; the grip on the wheel is almost like a real car. It rumbles and shakes violently when you crash into walls or slide off into the dirt part of track. It does not have the resistance features that other gamers say that the Logitech wheel does on the PS2, but it’s pretty damn good. After analyzing the reviews of the cheaper Xbox wheels, I concluded that very few of them were good, save for the MadCatz MC2 wheel, but that one model specifically made for the Xbox is hard to find now. Several gamers reported that they beat their best times immediately after using the ForceShock wheel and I would have to agree. It’s made a big impact on my experience with Forza and I highly recommend it. I’m not sure it’s great with every racing game: I’ve tried it with Midnight Club 3 and Need For Speed Underground 2 with mixed results. The ForceShock has programmable modes that you can adjust for any game, so I will be playing around with these. Possibly the only downside to buying the ForceShock is the imminent arrival of the Xbox 360: we don’t know if this wheel will work on that platform. I’ve decided I will get another year out of my Xbox with the various games coming out and that’s fine for now.
I’ve only played about a dozen times on Xbox live, but it’s a blast. Like Project Gotham Racing 2, Forza is seamlessly integrated into Xbox Live from the moment it starts—a trend I’d like most other titles to adopt. You can view your rankings as soon as you finish a race, download ghosts or car setups, etc. For Multiplayer matches, I started off in Class D, thinking that my recent experiences would help me smoke everybody. Man, was I ever wrong! I found my Audi TT getting creamed by several Honda CRX-SI cars. Later I found nearly every gamer was choosing the CRX-SI as their Class D car. There are various places online where you can figure how to tune a CRX to make it so fast and it’s become common knowledge. I made up for losing in later matches with Class B, A, and S cars where I managed to pick the right one and negotiate around tracks to win a few races.
In case you can’t tell, I’m utterly fascinated with Forza on almost every level. It’s a great achievement on the Xbox. I’m just a bit disappointed in the low amount of tracks. It’s a shame that Microsoft won’t make any more games for the Xbox 1, I think they could squeeze even more performance out of it. In any event, when Forza 2 comes out for the 360, I am sure I will have to get it. I am hooked!
