Forza Motorsport 5

[Knowlesy]

It was a real drag.

[MoMedic9019]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Damn, if it was an 360 game used a couple weeks later could be worth it for Spa but for a whole system and the game I think I'll have to sadly pass. Bought FM4 but think I made it under 50% of the way through, think leveling up to max level so fast made the rest boring and repetitive. And I got all achievements in FM1-3 but bored in FM4? Maybe I'm just getting old.

I did the same, the game just gets too repetitive, not enough to hold my interest..I think they went too far on the tire modeling, and I just can't be bothered to buy a wheel and pedals for an absurd amount of money.

[broadrun96]

Glad I'm not the only one that thought FM4 could have used some adjustments. Think I was fully leveled up within 3-4 weeks of buying it, if I had still been in college it prob would have been a week maybe 10 days. Plus I HATED the top gear bowling section, let me chose drift/gimmicks or enduro, I did a couple of the lower class enduros multiple times to find a car that would make it. You wouldn't lead until the rest pitted but there were a couple that would run out JUST before the line and coast across.

[Spudgun]

Well it look like things will be improved for Xbox one in the steering wheel stakes if the quick Google search I just did was anything to go by.

That's the thing that always got me with the 360. It has had the best variety of half decent driving games, but the woeful steering wheel support just ruined it. OTOH, I could happily use my G25 on the PS3 but the only driving game I really got on with was GT5.

FM5 does look really good and with some decent steering wheels in the pipeline I will be slightly jealous as it is unlikely I'll be picking up an Xbox One.

[The Original Instag8or]

Shortly after FM4 came out, about the time I got tired of the single player career mode, I found a link to TORA left here by my since that day friend NickyF1. I agree that single player mode in FM4 was pretty bad, and teh public lobbies can be great... until some doofus shows up to play demolition derby in a Raptor, but online Forza league racing is great. A lower cost alternative to iRacing (moree appropo a cost-effective alternative to building a race sim computer)

A couple years in, and I am still racing at TORA, as well as hosting a weekly rotation of Friday Night Series (current series is Can Am, five weeks of X Class open topped LMP cars on real world US circuits)

FM5 looks great, but still can't justify the costs of a whole new console to run it. I will probably wait until a price drop or two, all the while happily racing on FM4 until I can afford XB1.

[nickyf1]

If it wasn't for online racing, I'd have given up with Forza. Gaming just isn't for me any more, but I had some really fun times on Forza 2 and 3 with UKOG and TORA. I really don't see myself buying an XBOX ONE...

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by nickyf1

I really don't see myself buying an XBOX ONE...

I think I've reached that point too with gaming. Shelling out X hundred quid for an hour or two of gaming a week doesn't really stack up - I use my PS3 for tv catchup more than anything else now

[Knowlesy]

I'll still buy it. As much as my gaming enthusiasm has waned, there is still the odd great title that reminds you why you love it. GTA V for example. Looking forward to seeing what Codies do with the next gen F1 games too.

In any case, a few hundred quid for something that lasts most of a decade isn't such a bad investment. I will keep telling myself that!

[jimothy84]

300 cars and 6 or 7 tracks less than FM4? I'll pass ta. If it wasn't for online league racing with WLR I'd have been done with the game a long time ago. Considering picking up a PS3 again for GT6.

[Knowlesy]

The cars I can deal with, you don't really need that many. Quality is the key.

As for tracks, depends what they dropped really.

[jimothy84]

All of the good ones, basically!

The car list, at first look, seems a difficult one to group some cars together. The Hot Hatch Cup is one od our most popular series, we've just completed its 14th season, its run all sorts of cars but half the cars we've used are gone, likewise the WTCC series we run. Most of our regulars are stickimg with the 360 and FM4.

[Purist]

From trailer footage, it looks like the Yas Marina F1 circuit is in FM5.

[Knowlesy]

It is. As is Spa.

No Nordschleife thankfully, once such an exciting addition to gaming and now a big fat bore.

[Purist]

I don't think I'll ever be able to not like the Nordschleife, but tracks on that scale should be taken in limited doses, probably.

Forza has, over its iterations, had at least three very good, very long courses: Nordschleife, Fujimi Kaido, and Rally di Positano. (There was a long, mountainous course in the first Forza, but I'm not sure if that was a different track, or the first rendition of Fujimi Kaido or something.)

I wonder how tedious some of the Tilke tracks may seem in game form after a while.

One course that I think would be pretty wild to bring back for Forza 5 and flesh out in current graphics is the Rio de Janeiro street circuit.

[Knowlesy]

The Rio circuit is the best track they ever made. There was a decent night circuit as well on the first game with an absolutely hellish hairpin that I'd like to see again.

The Tilke circuits are terrible. I genuinely struggle to learn them because I find them so boring. I cannot for the life of me memorise Singapore for example, and have only just got my head around Abu Dhabi. If a track bores me I just can't be arsed.

[Purist]

I think you're thinking of the Tokyo street circuit from the first Forza, which had two horrendous hairpins, and several chicanes or chicane-like complexes.

[broadrun96]

I agree with the Rio circuit being great with the HIGH speed right-left on the long front stretch after the kink and a tightening uphill turn before the tunnel. It was a great track to run a car one class lower and be braver into the corners and try to keep up momentum.
I HATED Tokyo with all the banging into the two TIGHT chicanes, although there were two could right-lefts that you could lose cars in. And until you memorized the long race into I think the backstretch right-left I nailed that armco more than a few times in the dark.

[MoMedic9019]

I loved the Tokyo circuit's first hairpin, high speed in, full stop, full throttle blast out...I think it's one reason I always enjoy the NYC circuit.

What circuits got dropped?

[Purist]

I think the better question is, which ones didn't. From what I've seen, at initial release, the game has ~200 cars, and 14 tracks.

The tracks I know are in are:
1. Bathurst
2. Bernese Alps
3. Spa-Francorchamps
4. Yas Marina
5. Prague
6. Indianapolis
7. Sebring

I've seen some shots that indicate to me that Laguna Seca and the Top Gear Test Track may well be in also. I'm pretty sure they did the laser-scan for Hockenheim for FM4, so I'd imagine that one is in as well.

Tracks I know are out are:
1. Suzuka
2. Fujimi Kaido
3. Nurburgring
4. Sears Point

If they haven't gotten around to doing a laser-scan of the Silverstone Arena Grand Prix Circuit, then I'd imagine that one is out.

I hope that Maple Valley, Mugello, Road America, and Road Atlanta made it in.

[MoMedic9019]

Wow....think I'll head for PC racing then.

[Knowlesy]

Silverstone is in with the new layout.

[jimothy84]

Well it would appear that FM5 is a complete disaster as far as racing leagues go... no multiplayer reolays, lobby invites hidden in the menus, all the restrictions on paints and vinyls, glitchy tracks, the list carries on, just check out the official forum... glad I've not shelled out for an XBOne!

[broadrun96]

It seems to me like most of the official forum whinging has come from people who think the system will divine exactly what they want and actually looking at the options was too much. Just watching the direction systems, and mostly users, have gone has turned me off from buying either of them and I have had almost all the systems since the PSX cost me a months work back in college. No one is ever content with want the system does and expects instant perfection and forgets that almost all launch products have massive teething problems. And everyone buying one now is theirs almost non-stop, there's going to be some network and connection problems with the servers.

[jimothy84]

I'm not so sure everyone expects exactly what they want in the game, they do, however, expect at least as much as was in the previous game. Fewer cars, fewer tracks, fewer options, much less usability, I don't see how this is an improvement. Oh wait, it looks shiny. But less shiny than the E3 gameplay, as they've turned the visuals down a touch...

[Knowlesy]

I am enjoying it personally. I didn't think I would, but I am.

It is pared back a lot, but most launch titles are. They are rushed out for day one, so with that in mind this is a solid game.

I really enjoy the drivatar AI! Makes for fun racing offline.

The downside are the P2P mechanics, money is hard to come by and there is a definite push to try and get you to buy cars with real world money. But I won't be doing that, I suggest you don't either, and hopefully it will go away for next time.