How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

[RaychelSnr]

How can Forza Motorsport 3 take the next step and go up a level on the quality scale? Operation Sports Staffer Erik Westfall tries to answer this question in his latest article.

"So you think you can race with the big boys? Well even if you can't, Forza Motorsport is one of the small handful of racing titles that actually simulates racing in an effective manner."

[Hooe]

This might be an insane idea, but how about an editor that allows the user to make his/her own race courses? I don't think any console racing game has even attempted such since the ReVolt games.

[Flawless]

Re: How can Forza take the Next Step?

They would have to go with race cars or a small number of manufactures to do roll overs. Most manufactures are made very uncomfortable by damage that would injure the driver.

[fishstick]

Forza has the physics engine down solid. Great car customization and a good array of cars to select from - I hate when 'the next level' to most is more cars and better graphics. Those two things do not make a cake - those are icing on the cake.

A big area of contention in Forza is the single player game. What Forza needs to do is build a career that is a racers life - be a pro. The management/franchise side of a sports game. Hire a top mechanic and get better default setups. Hire a top crew chief and get faster pit stops. Hire a better manager and get better sponsers. Build a team. Build a car. Hire a teammate. There is so many places this can go that it is a shame all race game boil down to a bunch of quick disjointed sprint races for a pot of money used to buy disposable cars. Car collecting IS NOT NEXT GEN.

Online the team needs to again, look at sport games. Why is there no player created league, ladders and tournaments? Why can you not have pre race qualifying and testing? Why are pit stops made insignificant in race games when they are everything in real life? Give me pits that mean something. Let me select what gets worked on and let that decidde how long I am stuck in the pits. Let host toggle options for accellerated tire/fuel ware so you have a need for a pit stop in a stunted 10 or 15 lap race.

Take it one further and make my online lobby like LFS so you can drive around until the host queues up a race. Even better let drivers pull into the pits (during the lobby) and get out and walk around in first person to look at each others cars.

And what about Forza theater. First fix the raply system so it is like watching a race on TV - not this garbage they have now. Let people FF/RW and move the camera arond how ever the hell they like if they don't like the TV view. Then let them bring friends in to watch their films just like Halo 3 does.

There is just so many places Forza 3 can go it will be a shame if all they do is add cars and a few tracks...or worse yet try turn it into yet another shallow arcade romp.

[bkfount]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

my main gripe when I had forza was just the lack of more tracks. When going through the career mode, they focused more on the variety of cars than tracks. While you worked your way to at least 300 cars, you did so in a career mode on the same few tracks over and over.

Most career races also felt the same due to the strict cpu AI that never really did seem to even pretend to notice you in their way. I'm sure we've all got knocked out by that Rossi guy.

[gta95]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

my main gripe when I had forza was just the lack of more tracks. When going through the career mode, they focused more on the variety of cars than tracks. While you worked your way to at least 300 cars, you did so in a career mode on the same few tracks over and over.

Most career races also felt the same due to the strict cpu AI that never really did seem to even pretend to notice you in their way. I'm sure we've all got knocked out by that Rossi guy.

Rossi

[rspencer86]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

LOL, freaking Rossi.

I'd like a true in-car cam with accurate interiors. That would make the races more intense.

Fishstick made some great suggestions. Single player needs to be overhauled.

[pk500]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

Take rspencer and fishstick's suggestions straight to Microsoft.

Add a few licensed series and venues, too, such as ALMS, DTM or a real Le Mans 24 Hours.

Take care,
PK

[forensicd]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

As many have said, we need series and tracks. I gave up on forza way to early because the tracks got old very fast, and I ended up spending most of my time painting cars.

Also, there is nothing compelling to keep you coming back in the single player mode, no championship to win, except for the 2 or 3 races in each group you race, and no real career.

[gta95]

Re: How Can Forza Take the Next Step?

Heres one, day and night cycles. 24/12/6 hour races anyone? Maybe weather (may be hard with the advanced physics)