People use whatever works best for them. Just drop the excuses.
Listen to what you're saying, that the majority of reviews/opinions of GT4 are unfair because 'most people' didn't use the thumbstick. As if you could possibly have any clue what most people do...
No you read more carefully. I was just simply disagreeing with mrcorbo on his explanation of how different control methods played into the reviews. You're turning it into something completely different (
again). Same goes to you Ostepop, I'm not saying any of the things your putting into my mouth, even if we agree in the end. Your better arguments do not even fly. When I bought an Xbox, I bought it because there were already a number of interesting driving games out for it and some of them had great online support. Games I bought were among others Sega's GT game, which was probably even more closely aimed at bringing a GT like experience game to the Xbox than any other game before or since. I also got PGR2 (by far the best game of the lot at the time) and Race Driver 2. After a few weeks though my interest dropped and besides playing some Prince of Persia, I never returned to the ol' box. Having driven with a wheel since the second of Geoff Crammond's GP games, and having been spoiled with great Force Feedback since Gran Turismo 3, I found I couldn't go back, and then GT4's Driving Force Pro support spoiled me rotten (though the wheel was even better with the DTM mod for F1C - man did that have excellent force feedback, even with idling and revving the engine you could feel that in the wheel, awesome).
Just give forza credit where it's due, it deserves it for it's advancements in the console space, and you haven't even played the latest version!
Even worse, I haven't even played the first version. I'm still trying to fix both. However, I have been hanging out online with enough people whom I trust and who have tried both, who know a great deal more about cars and driving than I do. By the time the game came out I was too busy playing GT4, and had passed on my unused Xbox to my sister (we grew up gaming together). I have studied videos of the game, comparing them to reality and GT, and already reading all I could on Gran Turismo since long before it came out (I even had a weekly column at IGN at some point), and being generally a good reader and listener, I came to the conclusion that Forza wasn't what I was looking for in a racing game. Two things that sealed the deal at the time were no proper wheel support and a completely botched Nurburgring implementation (since at least every three months I get sent videos from people who went to drive there on one of the tourist days, and have driven there myself with my own car, you can imagine it is important to me
).
Fortunately I could get my online kicks from frequent GT4 LAN sessions, and in the meantime I'd be practicing my racing line and take part in online competitions that worked with replay validation. Still today you'll find a great many online times databases for Gran Turismo. I know that not that many were so lucky, and Forza's excellent online support (as well as PGR2's leading the way before it) are to be recommended very highly.
Anyway, that's my background. But I've been interested to see if things would change with Forza 2, because on paper it has a lot going for it.
Note that a lot of these things don't matter to most people, because they will either have an Xbox or a Playstation, and then you don't have to choose. But I'm so into racing games that I'm willing to invest in multiple platforms if they turn out to be worth it and I happen to have enough money. If my money situation were a little bit better just now, I might invest in a 360 just for Forza 2 even if it would only be so I could talk more informed to people about how good or bad it really is.
As it stands though, for now I have to remain on the sidelines and just reading what you guys (and many others) write about it, and ask critical questions, or correct certain mistakes on matters relating to Gran Turismo.
I'm still hoping that Forza 2 is good enough for me to thoroughly enjoy myself. From some of my regular crowd of GT enthusiasts that are welcoming Forza 2 to tide them over until GT finally gets another release (and we're used by now to assuming the worst in that regard
), I'm hearing some of the following comments (translated from one fast guy's summary in German, whom I trust quite well). He is playing both games with wheels, the MS Wheel for Forza, and the DF Pro for GT:HD
Areas where GT:HD demo currently is better:
- Blocking wheels make cars slide too much in Forza, even when you drive slowly, you can block your wheels and have your car slide off the road. In GT:HD the braking system takes better note of the differences in speed.
- Physics model in GT:HD takes elevation differences better into account, in terms of the differences in grip when driving upwards or downwards, a tilting road, etc.
- steering is better in GT:HD. Often in the Forza Demo, it feels as if you are driving on ice with no grip whatsoever. In C-Class cars, this is at least possible, but with the levels of grip for cars in R2 Class there should be less of this then there is now.
- the difference in handling between the cars is much more pronounced in GT:HD than it is in Forza 2 demo, making the cars more recogniseable by their driving characteristics.
- graphics look much better
- the DF Pro wheel is much better than the MS Wheel
Areas where the Forza 2 demo is better:
- penalty system
- damage model
- sound
- Forzamotorsport.net community
Note that it is important to stress that he is nonetheless very excited with Forza 2 and is definitely going to buy the game upon release. And so are several others - as one of them rightly says, Forza 2 is here and it is now, and it is good enough to enjoy yourself with.
Incidentally, although GT4 was a huge game that offered a rather lot, it didn't fix two issues that have long been on GT fans list: online and better AI. Forza maybe didn't have that much better AI in the end, but it seemed to be better nonetheless, and online was great, so Forza delivered on the most important areas in that respect. This is what made Forza score pretty good, and GT4 score relatively less good. I think probably rightly so - they really needed to put some kind of online in GT4. That would have solved the AI problem as well. Nevertheless, there have been GT4 online betas last year, but I think Sony and PD decided never to release a PS2 online GT to have something that they can push the PS3 with this year. They announced a kind of 'prologue' version with online for the fall, and considering GT:HDs Concept release at the end of last year, I think they may actually succeed in getting that out on time this time.
(But then again, I've thought that before)
Anyway, those that play the game, talk more ...
I'll shut up again.
