Forza Motorsport 2 - Turn 10 Studios - 360

[schild]

From Azazel:

Ever read a review written by someone who's not normally a fan of the genre, but is won over by a specific game? This is not quite that review. I've enjoyed a racing game or three through the years, but my lean has been much more towards car combat (Twisted Metal) or just arcade fun (Top Gear for the Amiga, Burnout). I enjoyed the first Need for Speed, even. PGR1 on X-Box was okay, even. Gran Turismo on the other hand, no thanks. I don't want to fiddle with my gearbox, I just want to drive. So that's my perspective goin g in and the type of gamer this review is written for.

So anyway. Forza. Well, it came free with my 360, and after a month, I decided to give it a whirl. It has an "Arcade" mode, after all. That must be for the casual car game players, like me.

The good: Looks beautiful. Gorgeous graphics, lots of shiny, more real cars throught e years than you can shake a stick at. Tracks appear to possibly be real ones as well.

However, if you're not a hardcore fan of the realistic racing genre, this game sucks. In my first race on easyidiotmode, I pwned the thing and was bored out of my gourd, going around in meaningless circles. Now most games involve an amount of treadmill and repetition, but this was just stripped too bare. Painful. Every other race I tried, however, was an excercise in sliding around the road like I was having an epeleptic fit.

Now, I know I'm crap at racing games not called Burnout. I don't need to be told that. But I can safely say that FM2 is in no way a friendly bit of fun for anyone remotely casual about their racing. If you're a Gran Turismo afficionado, this might be for you, but for players like me...

-

Stay Away.

[stray]

Lol, I know he made it clear from the beginning that he didn't like the sim genre, but umm... Well, why the hell do a review for it then? Wrong person for the job. This game is awesome. I don't even own a 360 and I'll say that. Also, there's basically no alternative without a new GT release yet, so it's pretty much must buy by default.

[Yegolev]

It's a good review of the Warning To Others type, of which there are not enough.  There have been plenty of times when I have tried to break out of my gaming-box and try new stuff, and there are times I was burned for it.  A short "Burnout fans, stay away from Forza 2" is much better than most of the reviews you'll read on IGN or GameSpot.

[Moaner]

If you're a Gran Turismo afficionado, this might be for you, but for players like me...

If you liked GT or have any interest in racing or cars, Forza 2 rules.

[Roac]

Here's a suggestion for anyone doing reviews: don't do a review for a genre you hate.  People who also hate the genre won't be buying it anyway, so don't bother.  Also, you likely don't know enough about the genre to comment on good/bad points who people who do like the genre, or who may be on the fence about it.  FWIW, I don't care for racing games either, so I've no interest in Forza either way.  Not picking on Az either, as I've seen several people do this.  Otherwise, it's like reading "Jack Thompson reviews GTA3".  Predictable and unhelpful.

[Yegolev]

I'd have loved to have read a "Gran Turismo fan plays Midnight Run" review before I wasted my time and money.  Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder.

[Prospero]

Seems handy to me to have people who aren't fans of a genre give their thoughts on it. I hate most sports games but fricking love Mario Hoops 3 v 3 on the DS. What does that mean? Fuck if I know, but it's a handy data point for others.

[Velorath]

Here's a suggestion for anyone doing reviews: don't do a review for a genre you hate.  People who also hate the genre won't be buying it anyway, so don't bother.

There's a difference between not being a fan of a genre, and hating it.

[stray]

Hmmm... I should do a review for WoW.

[Sky]

Good review. I like the arcadey stuff, too. Me and a friend played a ton of NFS: Hot Pursuit (the first one). Then one day I went to his house and he was on lap 27 of 983 or something and he was telling me how awesome this gran turismo was. A thousand laps on an oval track. And he had some hotrod car that was lapping the shit out of everyone else. I slammed a beer quickly to be sure I was seeing and hearing properly.

Actually, I slammed the beer so I could get the fuck out of there. It kind of creeped me out, like peeking in your parent's closet to find your xmas gifts and finding an s&m dungeon instead.

So...I can dig where Az is coming from. It's ok if the rest of you have s&m dungeons.

[schild]

I love Gran Turismo. I love Ridge Racer.

I could not get into the new Forza. The liveries were >>>>> the rest o fthe game.

[stray]

OK, I admit that those high level goals in GT are ridiculous (it ain't 983 tracks, but it's still pretty bad). And usually, you'll get a pretty crappy car as the reward. So it's not even worth it in the end.


But... There is a game in these sims for the most part. Oval tracks are the least part of what they offer. And the game is 1) learning a track enough to be able predict changes 2) maintaining your best/most optimal speed in it without fucking up. Just getting to the finish line isn't enough.

At it's barebones, that isn't unlike most other games really. i.e. learning a level or a boss, and trying to make a perfect run through it.

[Roac]

I hate most sports games but fricking love Mario Hoops 3 v 3 on the DS. What does that mean?

That Mario Hoops 3v3 isn't a standard basketball sim.  Which... none of the Mario sports titles going back to the NES days are.  I used the word genre, but what I really mean is that any product has an intended audiance; what is it trying to do, and does it do it well.  Mario Hoops isn't intended to be a basketball sim, so if it is being rated on that scale it is going to do poorly. 

This review is by someone who doesn't much like racing games saying he doesn't like the the next big racing game.  This is not a surprise, but says more about the author's tastes than the game.  If I were interested in getting into racing games, would this be a good one?  Does the difficulty ramp just right up so that I could get into it easier?  How does it compare to other, similar, games?  The 360 pushes hard to have good online play, so how does this game do online?  A key point is that this is boxed with the XBox Elite, except at Wal-Mart, so apparently MS thinks it has enough mass appeal to be worth packaging it in.  Az says no and that's fine, but I'd be interested in knowing *why* so that as a potential customer I could make something out of it.  Afterall, every single review on Metacritic gave this game high marks (edit: all but 6 of the 65 reviews being "universal acclaim").  I've no problem with someone wanting to break from the pack, but why?  He got bored on SuperEasy mode after a few laps around the starter course?  But he doesn't like racing games, so he's going to be predisposed to turning it off when he runs into things he dislikes.  He assumes it's not for him from the start.

[Velorath]

I hate most sports games but fricking love Mario Hoops 3 v 3 on the DS. What does that mean?

That Mario Hoops 3v3 isn't a standard basketball sim.  Which... none of the Mario sports titles going back to the NES days are.  I used the word genre, but what I really mean is that any product has an intended audiance; what is it trying to do, and does it do it well.  Mario Hoops isn't intended to be a basketball sim, so if it is being rated on that scale it is going to do poorly. 

This review is by someone who doesn't much like racing games saying he doesn't like the the next big racing game.  This is not a surprise, but says more about the author's tastes than the game.  If I were interested in getting into racing games, would this be a good one?  Does the difficulty ramp just right up so that I could get into it easier?  How does it compare to other, similar, games?  The 360 pushes hard to have good online play, so how does this game do online?  A key point is that this is boxed with the XBox Elite, except at Wal-Mart, so apparently MS thinks it has enough mass appeal to be worth packaging it in.  Az says no and that's fine, but I'd be interested in knowing *why* so that as a potential customer I could make something out of it.  Afterall, every single review on Metacritic gave this game high marks (edit: all but 6 of the 65 reviews being "universal acclaim").  I've no problem with someone wanting to break from the pack, but why?  He got bored on SuperEasy mode after a few laps around the starter course?  But he doesn't like racing games, so he's going to be predisposed to turning it off when he runs into things he dislikes.  He assumes it's not for him from the start.

I think you missed something.

[stray]

I can't be bothered to read the rules again, but if there's something about them that says that people who don't like entire genres can still be qualified on whether something in said genre should be played or not, then I'm not down. It's an excellent game for what it is -- at the very least, he should qualify his "stay away" comment with some exceptions.

[Velorath]

I can't be bothered to read the rules again, but if there's something about them that says that people who don't like entire genres can still be qualified on whether something in said genre should be played or not, then I'm not down. It's an excellent game for what it is -- at the very least, he should qualify his "stay away" comment with some exceptions.

You mean like where he said "If you're a Gran Turismo afficionado, this might be for you, but for players like me...", just before he gave the rating of "Stay Away"?

[stray]

No, like, he should give two ratings. "Stay Away", and then something else. Don't just end it on that note.

[Velorath]

No, like, he should give two ratings. "Stay Away", and then something else. Don't just end it on that note.

He's going with the format.  I did suggest elsewhere that these topics be done as polls so everyone can register their own opinion and have it viewable at the top of the thread for convenience sake, but for now this is the format that schild wants it would seem.  Besides all that though, any of us can read the original post and decide for ourselves how much stock we put in the reviewer's point of view.  Azazel saying "stay away" isn't going to have an effect on the metacritic score or cause Forza 2 sales to plummit, and these reviews aren't being put forth as the official position of f13 or anything.  It's just a quick "what game are you playing right now and right from the start, are you having fun with it?" kinda thing.

[stray]

Eh, OK. Fair enough. Still though, that F13 is seemingly one of the sites with a bad rating on Forza 2 makes me a  . Meta-critic or not. Official statement or not.

[schild]

Forza 2 is a bad game for people that like arcadey racers. Ridge Racer and F-Zero and such are much better.

Forza 2 is a great game for people waiting for GT5. Which is the better simulator. Fo' serious.

[Azazel]

This review is by someone who doesn't much like racing games saying he doesn't like the the next big racing game.  This is not a surprise, but says more about the author's tastes than the game.  If I were interested in getting into racing games, would this be a good one?  Does the difficulty ramp just right up so that I could get into it easier?  How does it compare to other, similar, games?  The 360 pushes hard to have good online play, so how does this game do online?  A key point is that this is boxed with the XBox Elite, except at Wal-Mart, so apparently MS thinks it has enough mass appeal to be worth packaging it in.  Az says no and that's fine, but I'd be interested in knowing *why* so that as a potential customer I could make something out of it.  Afterall, every single review on Metacritic gave this game high marks (edit: all but 6 of the 65 reviews being "universal acclaim").  I've no problem with someone wanting to break from the pack, but why?  He got bored on SuperEasy mode after a few laps around the starter course?  But he doesn't like racing games, so he's going to be predisposed to turning it off when he runs into things he dislikes.  He assumes it's not for him from the start.

No, the review is by someone who doesn't get into realistic racing sims.
I qualify this from the very beginning to make readers aware of the perspective that the review is written from - Mr Super-Casual Driving Game Guy who spent an hour or so (trying) to play it. If you're a noob to the genre, and not willing to spend a lot of time with the game, then no, it's not very friendly at all. The difficulty ramped up from ridiculously easy in my first race to a brick wall hitting me repeatedly in the face in my second and all subsequent ones. I played a number of races, not three laps around the initial course.

How does it compare to other, similar games? Not sure, I don't play a lot of these. Go read the IGN/Gamespy/Gamespot review where no doubt their top car racing game playing guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre fought for the honor of reviewing a title they assumed they would love. Online play? Not sure, my LIVE gold ran out a few hours before I played it, and while I have a card here, the SP experience was not the type that would make me put in my code to try it out online.

As an aside - I had the beginnings of a mess around on PGR3 last night afterwards. MUCH more playable for people like me. I'll write it up after I've spent a little more time on it.



Stray - stop being a fanboy. I qualified my perspective at the start and also made the exception for GT fans.

Roac - I went in with an open mind. As I said, I've enjoyed many racing games of various kinds through the years, it's just not my genre of choice. Forza has an option on the menu called "Arcade Mode" so I was certainly willing to give it a go. It was shortly after that that the game beat me over the head with the difficulty stick. One of the GT series (on PS1) had an "Arcade Mode" and that was actually okay for me. I remember it because it had a Cardigans song on the soundtrack.

[stray]

You're reviewing something for what it isn't, rather than what it is. It's the best thing that genre has to offer right now, and all you can do is trash it for not being Burnout. How am I being a fanboy for bringing that up?

[edit] Eh, screw it. At least you got people talking about it.

[schild]

You have a PS3. It's region free.

The best thing in the genre right now is GT5 Prologue.

[Azazel]

You're reviewing something for what it isn't, rather than what it is. It's the best thing that genre has to offer right now, and all you can do is trash it for not being Burnout. How am I being a fanboy for bringing that up?

[edit] Eh, screw it. At least you got people talking about it.

No. You're not reading it right. I'm reviewing it from the perspective of a non GT-fan trying it out. It's not Burnout and that's totally fine, but it's also not an accessable game to the non-hardcore. If you love it so much, why dont you marry it? write your own review from the perspective of a serious racing fan? That would provide a good counter-perspective to my review.

Mine is from:
Do you like the occasional racing game? Thinking of picking one up for you and your girlfriend/wife to have a play around with? Checked the reviews of racing games? Gee whiz.. it looks like Forza 2 is about the best racer on the 360 right now. All of the reviews fellate it endlessly so it MUST be for you. Except, it's not..

wait.. "at least I got people talking about it." What the fuck? Not a fanboi?

[Rasix]

Counter point to this from someone that does not like/buy/rent racing games: I love Forza 2.  It nearly made my top 20 list.

Arcade/sim doesn't matter: I didn't like Need for Speed, Gran Turismo, any Mario Kart except the original, F-Zero, etc.  I'm horrible at all of them and generally don't play them enough to ever get good. However, I took a chance with recommendations here and picked it up after getting better at the demo and even enjoying it somewhat.   

The game really has a great diving model and the controls are just near perfect.  Plus, there's a lot of difficulty settings you can tweak in the case that you're like me and REALLY suck at driving games.  I have most of the assists turned off, except when driving RWD cars exclusively, because I'm just bad at it.  The performance tweaking/upgrading system was excellent also.  There's something appealing to me about driving a 400hp Mini that handles like a go cart. Heck, this game even got me to try my hand at artistic creation designing a Monkey Island themed car.  I'm pretty much artistically retarded but I managed to create a Murray graphic and the MI logo before the driving pulled me back.

My achievements on this game are a bit misleading, I sunk a lot of time into it.  Other games pulled me away and if there's any knock, it can be a little bit difficult for those of us that absolutely suck at driving games.  I refused to make it too easy, because I thought (besides RWD issues) the difficulty was appropriate for me at the default settings.  And there's something thrilling about winning a tightly contested race where your maneuvering, not the AI's retardedness, won the day.

Caveat: I don't play the arcade mode.  I don't find that to be this game's selling point nor strong point.  Comparisons to GT's nutcrunching are a bit off base, I think.  The endurance races run about 30 laps as far as I remember and that's the only category of that kind.

I'd recommend this game to anyone, knowledge of their tastes unknown.  It's just excellent. Looks great, sounds great, plays great. 

[Azazel]

See, here we go. I disagree with Rasix' recommendation of the game to anyone. 

But that's the thing about reviews. When it comes down to it, they're opinion.


Rasix, you say you've put a lot of hours into it, what did you think of the game when you first started playing, since this is supposed to be reviews of those first few hours?

[Rasix]

First hours for me would be misleading since I played the demo for a bit. 

First hour or so I generally liked.  I started right away on the career mode, started in Europe, picked a Mini and started rocking (sort of).  I won/placed in a race here and there, but generally didn't win enough to take the Gold in the series I was trying.  I kept practicing, kept upgrading, kept playing and was having fun. 

Some initial comments of mine from the original thread: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10153.0

Looked at the Forza disc and actually cleaned what I'd term "crud" off it.  Then played for like an hour or so more with no problems.  Still, I am worried. 

I'm getting better at the whole driving aspect of it.. but I'm still absolutely terrible.  Probably my worst genre outside of rhythm games.  I made a f13 logo car, but it's pretty shoddy quality.

Heh, forgot about the whole gunk-on-the-disc nightmare.  My first hours may have been extended due to technical problems. 

My butisitfun review may have been more guarded since I technical issues piss me off pretty fierce, but there would have been a line about why I'm still playing the game.  Any racing game that manages to keep my attention outside of multiplayer is impressive.  I imagine at the time I was somewhat amused I wasn't cursing and tossing my controller.

[stray]

wait.. "at least I got people talking about it." What the fuck? Not a fanboi?

Dude chill. 

Besides, even if I was a fanboi, whoopty-fucking-doo. Cars are cool. Pretty much got the world on my side with that one.

Anyways, what I mean is: At least it has sparked discussion, and wasn't completely forgettable. Good for you. Most successful review evar, in that respect. You don't seem to realize how controversial (for lack of a better word) your review is. Controversial enough to get more people than usual to jump out of lurkmode and offer alternative opinions. That's a good thing.

[Lt.Dan]

Eh, OK. Fair enough. Still though, that F13 is seemingly one of the sites with a bad rating on Forza 2 makes me a  . Meta-critic or not. Official statement or not.

THE FINAL RATING ISN'T IMPORTANT.  Fuck.  This attitude is the problem with game reviews.  Sure there's some shonky ethics and questionable journalisms but if readers only look to final rating and can't read the whole thing and form their own judgements on the game then we'll forever be stuck with 7 to 9.9 out of 10 reviews.

[stray]

Ratings make for good referencing. Doesn't necessarily have to be a number though. I don't know why you made that jump. I never said anything about it.

[Azazel]

Dude chill. 

Besides, even if I was a fanboi, whoopty-fucking-doo. Cars are cool. Pretty much got the world on my side with that one.

Anyways, what I mean is: At least it has sparked discussion, and wasn't completely forgettable. Good for you. Most successful review evar, in that respect. You don't seem to realize how controversial (for lack of a better word) your review is. Controversial enough to get more people than usual to jump out of lurkmode and offer alternative opinions. That's a good thing.

/golfclap dude, Given the tone of your posts, expect some stick right back.
You've spent your last several posts in this thread attacking me for giving a game you like a poor review from my specific perspective (OH NOES ZELDA ONLY GOT 8.8 OUT OF 10! BURN TEH WITCH!!) and feeling sorry for the poor game's metacritic score (which is one fo the things that does make me think fanboi, though at least you're admitting as much now)  - I love me some Max Payne but I don't know or give a rats ass about what the overall Metacritic score thinks of it. Is It Fun? is the important thing for actual gamers, so why would you give a fuck about the Metacritic rating? A poor review of a game you like doesn't hurt you. Disagree if you like, but stop taking it as a personal affront.

Alternative opinions are a good thing, and not every review of this type of a popular game has to be a love-fest. We're not GameSpotIGNetc.

[Margalis]

I demand that only fans of a game can review that game, and only give it a "Buy It" review. The last line of the review can always read:

"If you're the sort of person who likes this game buy it!"

Helpful!

[stray]

I'm not, nor do I have any reason in the slightest to take anything personal. I don't even own the game. I said that in my first post here. A post that started with "lol" at that -- all of which are not the words of a man getting defensive about a beloved game, I must say.

[stray]

I demand that only fans of a game can review that game

The complaints in this thread were never about defending specific games... But just about reviewers needing a little more open-mindedness when it comes to genres. No one expects a guy used to reviewing Garth Brooks albums to review a Tool album either. Same should apply here.

I have no problem with Az trashing a game. He'd just get less shit from me if he trashed one from a genre he did like.

[Azazel]

I. DON'T. HATE. RACING. GAMES.

I am not a fan of realistic driving sims. I do enjoy an arcadey kind of racing game. Forza proudly boasts "Arcade Mode."

dots. join. the.