We'll see. I can't remember PD doing something like that previously to be honest. Sure we've seen upscaled shots on the official sites here and there, but all those were press shots also intended for print as far as I could tell. But we've always gotten a fair amount of direct feed stuff pre-release in the past, and I'm not sure why this would be any different.
It's a pity that TGS is still just under a month away, but I'm going to bet that we'll get a lot of media by then, and we'll see media of all sorts (e.g. direct feed, replay mode, photo mode, etc.). Since Forza 3 is going into cert within a week, I think we'll also get direct feed of that game pretty soon - official previews and reviews won't be too far away. I don't think Turn10 can wait doing that until TGS, but you never know.
EDIT: What you're asking Joshua is good, but for me personally that is something I've done a lot of times already for GT. Many other GT fans will have done the same. Especially on the specialised boards, we can be an incredibly critical bunch and each has their own pet peeves. Even in the GT thread you can see how panic can break out among old GT fans about the direction the series is or isn't taking. Iron Tiger's mention of sound ("this time") is a good example also.
The thing is though, GT5 Prologue satisfied a lot of my anxiety. The changes versus GT4 were very big:
- 16 cars vs 6
- cockpit view (full 360 degrees by the way)
- 16 player online play with pretty good netcode and configuration options (even if they are not in our control currently).
- AI is improved where it counts for me - they will avoid me when I'm driving next to them, even in a corner, and won't take me out.
- a decent penalty system which ghosts your car when you've crashed so you won't take out other drivers (you'll find that I'm hostile to any feature that adds some form of luck to competitive racing)
- clutch and H| shifter support (basically using the full set of features of wheels like the G25)
- professional mode racing option with greatly improved driving model
- the option to turn off ABS completely
- car classification according to clear performance indicators
This leaves only small things I want for GT5, but there is actually no reason to believe most of those aren't in there already, except maybe the option to freely arrange the starting grid in an online game, which would be great for online tournaments. I want to know about these things and others like if there are any improvements in what you can do in pit-stops etc. but these are small details and again they involve mostly stuff that was in GT4 already. Stuff like head-tracking could be great, but I haven't seen it nor know for certain its in there, so I'm not even taking that into consideration.
Note that in that respect, GT also has it relatively easy compared to Forza. It's the first proper release on the PS3 and the amount of improvements versus the previous one can be (and had to be - many people were disappointed with GT4) huge.
Now when we take a look at Forza 3, Forza 2 already got a few things right. For instance, compared to GT4:
- it had online play
- performance indicators
- abs-free driving
But it also had flaws, that even if they weren't all that many, for me they were fatal:
- online was good, but the netcode was peer-to-peer in the worst of ways. At least I had a lot of issues with it. A small thing, but not being global I also couldn't play with the IGN Cars editor.
- the driving model was flawed, particularly for RWD cars (and they tend to be rather popular in these games). I'm one of those who are of the opinion that difficult <> realistic. Someone else described it as a problem with two different grip models, one when the car has grip, one when it doesn't. Combined with overexaggeration of the slope parameter, it made for some really weird moments of losing the rear of the car.
- the graphics were disappointing. Of course the cool customisation options were definitely a mitigating factor, but unfortunately that's not something I'm interested in.
- not a huge problem, but still annoying was that a fair number of car models were flawed. Again, this was offset (and partly caused) by customisation options, but it detracted a little.
- AI killed me far too often. Made driving using realistic settings nearly unplayable - one tap at the rear in a corner sent me off, which isn't unrealistic and can happen, but happened far, far too often especially at the start.
- not enough tracks
- limited peripheral support (basically had to get the Microsoft wheel, which isn't bad, but I already had two Logitech wheels for GT that were cheaper and better, and compatible with PC!)
My conclusion unfortunately was that I could and probably should have skipped Forza 2. It was simply not worth the money I spent on it, even just on the game itself, never mind buying the MS Wheel.
So here, Forza 3 is offering the following improvements, that I can actually judge and care about:
- cars look better
- there are more cars
- more tracks
- full support for the Fanatec wheel (i.e. a non-MS wheel), but unfortunately probably not the G27 (not clear yet, but looks like it)
- clutch and shifter support
- cockpit view (have so far only seen 180 degrees by the way, anyone seen the rear cockpit anywhere yet?)
There are obviously more improvements that are going to be very valuable for some, but not for me. Ditto for GT5.
So from this perspective, we could do a comparison, but I just don't know enough to make a final judgment. We can say what areas Forza 3 doesn't improve that I do care about, like just having 8 cars, but at this point I'm not quite interested yet.
Be sure though that I'll be getting Forza 3 and give it a shot - if it's good it's good. I've played racing games on well over 10 platforms. I have the 360 and a wheel, and I'm a driving game and car nut, so why wouldn't I? At the very least I'll be able to intelligently make comments on the inevitable ubiquitous comparison threads.
And I'll be interested from a new B3D podcast inspired graphics technology perspective too.
