Hi Rotmm, thanks for your impressions. Sounds like we have comparable backgrounds, except that once I had played Geoff Crammond's F1 GP game with a wheel, I couldn't go back. I've tried a few times actually so that I wouldn't be crap in multi-player situations where no wheel was available, but I just can't like it - too much awesome sensations are being communicated through the wheel, especially since force feedback stepped onto the stage. I tried again recently in anticipation of GT PSP though, played some GT4 on the PS3 with a DS3 controller and made a bit of progress there, but I'll never be great, as I drive now with dual analog sticks, which is never the optimum way of driving, as you can't switch from full throttle to full braking as fast as you can with triggers or X and [], which are fully analog on the PS3 controllers and the fastest people master pressing both with a single thumb
).
Oh and you have WAY more trackday experience than me! I only drove on the Ring (now there's a track where 3D glasses are going to drastically change your experience! When you do some of those drops and rises in real-life, it's just incredible), funnily enough also in an Alfa (155 - I sometimes dream I might get another one for 1000 euros just for driving there lol, it was perfect for me, I don't want/dare to go any faster than that and the car handled great).
I don't share your feelings about comparisons with other games, but I know that's at least partly due to driving with a wheel. I find for instance that a few aspects of feedback are still missing in Forza, though it's not in the controller yet either. Feedback about which way the car leans is neither present in the position of the cockpit (no leaning left and right for instance as far as I can tell), nor in the force feedback on the wheel (gently pushing left or right depending on whether the car is leaning to the left or to the right). This can be very important for determining the best moment to start turning opposite your previous turn in a chicane or another combination of opposite turns following each other - get this wrong and you can have some very surprising effects, which are still simulated in Forza too, mind you so you still have to keep it in mind to some extent. Also, I haven't experienced yet that wonderful feeling of the front wheels starting to alternatively slip and regain grip in rapid succession that you can get with FF cars at the edge of grippiness, which I know from my own cars (have all been FF - when I played GT4 with the DS3 by the way I noticed they managed to simulate that particular effect pretty well with just rumble)
It's things like those that leaves driving Forza a little bit too smooth and clean whenever you're not taking a turn. Also, the way grass is used, regardless of the discussion whether or not that is a better way to deal with cheating than penalties or anything else, as an anti-cheating device rather than a realistic part of the experience, detracts a little.
However, those are just about the only bits that I miss in the experience. There's a fair bit of good stuff to make up for it, such as the sound, which I enjoy - it's loud and gritty, has nice turbo, valve and exhaust notes, and the gradual change when you hit higher rpms is very satisfying. The tire noise is good too, and the audio feedback from the tires is much improved from Forza 2, where you wouldn't hear them at all until it was too late. Now they start squaling ever so subtly at even the tiniest hint of loss of traction, and it's a great feedback on your driving. One of the best improvements over Forza 3.
Another thing they did very well I think is how your tires hit the curbstones. Most of the time it feels really right and the way your car reacts to especially the smaller, higher curbstones, feels really good. When your car starts to slide, it responds very well to your counter-steering to get it back under control. Most of the time, the car starts to slide when you expect it too also. And I've always driven with no ABS on in this game, because even though it doesn't always make sense for a certain car (similar to why no TCS doesn't always make sense), it just makes the whole racing experience that much more exhilarating.
Grip in general is very well simulated (again, as long as you're on the road or the curbs, at least) in Forza, either better or better noticeable in the final game than in the demo, as the final game definitely passes the 'donut' test.
I also looked into setting up an online race, and it has just about every option I want, short of forcing a pit-stop. Fuel consumption and tire wear are in there somewhere though so if you race long enough, pitstops will be both possible and necessary, and I look forward to experimenting with some longer races once I find enough harcore people (may have to become an active member on a Forza dedicated forum for that though). Otherwise, you can force any assist off, force the cars to stock parts and tuning, force car types, change start orders, race best of 3 heats, even force the driving view, which is great. And that's all not even discussing the tag, cat and mouse stuff and so on. Also really nice touch, is that you can save your multi-player settings into separate files for easy management.
Elsewhere, the overall online scores are great too. Like you have the Time Trials (hidden in the leaderboards section, not the storefront like the Eurogamer review mentions), but you can also see your overall score for the time trials and compare those with your friends, etc., which is a nice touch (and something we have on some of the GT boards also). Not only that, but you can see the totals leaderboards for all the other types as well, including drift, hotlaps, p2p, etc. And then of course there's the whole storefront where you can share your replays, shots, decals, tunings, sell cars, etc. - it's a lot of stuff!
Since you listed a large number of games that I also played, in a lot of ways this game reminds me of an F1 game created I think by Ubisoft, in the days of the reign of the 3DFX cards. It has a similar kind of graphical look, similar kind of driving feel, and a good experience. Hard to pin-point exactly, but I liked that game also and if someone told me some of the same people worked on both games I'd believe it instantly.
So anyway, even when I'm not 100% happy and find some things downright irritating or lazy, the game overall is a success, in that I like driving cars in this game. There are also plenty of tracks in it that I haven't been driving for a long while, so I still have a lot of (sometimes re)learning to do, which is a big part of the fun for me. I'm happy with the overall package. The driving model is very sound, graphics are good enough (both cars and tracks sometimes do really look great).
Anyway, like I said, still not driven enough to write a full review, but I think I've driven enough to make a reliable prediction in that I think this is a good game, and people who like driving/racing are very likely to enjoy this as well - although for me personally, the only real joy in racing is still very likely to be in the online, as the career mode is too sterile for me and feels almost completely pointless.
