First Impressions

My first impressions of Forza Motorsport 2 come down to one phrase: Gran Turismo 4 for the XBOX 360.

The game has much of the same feel (and many of the same tracks) as Gran Turismo 4. However, it is far less complex than GT4 in many aspects, including tuning, which is actually far more accessible than its PS2 counterpart.

The vehicle restrictions early on make for a surprisingly less steep learning curve. By virtue of forcing you to learn how to drive on essentially off-the-lot cars, you form a better appreciation for the capabilities of the later vehicles in the game and are better prepared to "wheel" them. It also gives you a greater sense ofaccomplishment when you unlock the more powerful cars as opposed to PGR3, where you merely have to play through a few of the series to make enough money to get the F50 GT, which can win any race in the game.

Powersliding is not advisible in this game. A technical, tight racing line is the way to go here. You don't get Kudos for driving like you do in PGR3. In some ways this is better, as there is less pressure to try and pull off a slick trick here and there with your F50 GT or Supercar Prototype. Instead, good driving is rewarded by virtue of actually winning the race, which becomes more difficult the higher the difficulty level.

I especially love the depth of the customization available to you from the get-go. The ability to paint your car however you please and put whatever sponsors you want is almost a game in and of itself. It makes the game experience much more immersive.

Speaking of immersiveness: the game's environments are beautiful. I personally think that the graphics, at the very least, equal those of PGR3. The car detail is definately on par. The damage detail, however, is the best part. Try driving your car into a wall on Easy Mode and then free look at the front of your car. Also pay attention to see if anything flew off your car. Then take a lap. Yep...that's your left-front fender you just drove past. The attention to detail is nothing short of astounding.

The game-unique tracks are extremely boring. However, the actual circuits (Suzuka, Laguna Seca, Nurburgring, etc.) are breathtaking and fun to navigate.

These are only first impressions, though. I've got a copy of it until Saturday. I'll write a full review then, in addition to continuing my blog series on the top driving simulations.

I'm Facetious!

You know what really grinds my gears?

Two things:
1) Arrogant young teenagers on XBOX Live.
2) Annoying (and arrogant) middle-aged folks on XBOX Live.

Some of the most agitating (and some of the best, too) gamers are on XBOX Live. Which really kind of ruins the whole experience of being able to VOIP with your team in games like Halo 2. I'm a big proponent of "shut up and play your own game". It's one thing to mess with your friends, but its another when you're messing with some unknown entity.

So my advice is shut up and play the game.

Unless you're making a constructive comment to your teammates or chatting with friends, you don't need to be using the headset.

And no, you are not a good singer. Gears of War isn't the place for a bad karaoke. Halo 2 isn't the place for you to sing some horribly annoying Usher song.

Shut up and play the game.

Because I'm too lazy to mute you. :P

Driving Simulations I

Unfortunately my level isn't quite high enough for me to write reviews for these individually. Those will come at some point I'm sure. However, that doesn't mean I can't write comparative entries for these games in hopes that it either helps people or is at leastmildly interesting to other gamers. This is the first in a series of three posts. I intend to do a post on Gran Turismo and Forza and another post on Forza and Project Gotham Racing. Well, if I can get get my hands on Forza....

I'd like to preface the substantive portion of this post by stating an alternative theory to comparing these two games: GT4 and PGR3 are two wildly different types of simulation and cannot be compared blow-to-blow in terms of their features because they are simply because the angle which each game spins on racing achieves totally different ends.

I believe this was done on purpose by the folks that made the PGR series for two reasons:
1) Gran Turismo 4 (and previous titles in the series, for that matter) allowed for near-complete modification of most of the vehicles in the game, including gear ratios, camber, caster, and toe, among other things. In addition, Gran Turismo 4 allowed for the purchasing of individual parts for further customization. This sort of customization doesn't appeal to everybody. In some cases, depending on how each person played the game, modifications would have to be made in order to win certain races. This doesn't appeal to everybody, especially if you know little-to-nothing about more complex things such as gear ratios. PGR developers understood this and removed most of the customization options, requiring drivers by buy vehicles which are tailored to their needs rather than allowing players to purchase the best car in the game and modifying it to be unbeatable. That is, you could by the F50 GT, but if you aren't talented enough to wheel it, then no matter how good the car is, its impossible to win. In Gran Turismo, I would constantly race with people who simply had a superior car which could just steamroll through the tracks. As long as they didn't hit the wall, they would win. PGR developers thus deliberately eliminated customization to even the field, so-to-speak. The lack of a customization element differentiates the games from one another significantly enough to make them incomparable.

2) Gran Turismo doesn't reward you for showing off your driving skills, no matter how intricate or spectacular your driving is. Instead, Gran Turismo offers their challenging license tests which, if you do well enough, unlocks new races and some new cars. However, these were required to advance further in the game. Project Gotham Racing, on the other hand, allowed players merely to win a certain number of series to advance in the game and used the Kudos system as both a means by which to unlock concept and special cars (none of which were required to beat the game) and as a means of competition. Driving finesse was given a concrete number. The higher your Kudos, the more breathtaking your driving was, The implementation of the Kudos system thus shifts the attention away from traditional, tight racing lines and allows for a new, creative means of getting around the race track which greatly changes the complexion of the driving simulation experience offered by the PGR series. That isn't to say that you can't or shouldn't drive using traditional lines in PGR3, especially in multiplayer where there are some very talented drivers who have found very quick ways around the racetracks. I am merely suggesting that in PGR, there is more than one way around the track. That makes it radically different than Gran Turismo.

Given these two points, it would seem almost unfair to compare Gran Turismo with Project Gotham Racing. They are simply two different entities. On a basic level, they are the same because you drive around in circles and try to be first to the finish line. However, getting down to the specifics, Gran Turismo aims to be a pure driving simulator focused on technical ability and tuning while PGR3 appeals to a different audience, appealing to both street and technical driving talent without the need for tuning, in addition to providing the opportunity to fuse the two talents.

To sum it up, it's like comparing the Olive Garden with an A&W Long John Silver's. Everyone loves Italian food and everybody loves root beer and hamburgers, but you cannot compare the two because their aims (past feeding people, once again this is on a basic level) are totally different.

I've been gaming since the ripe age of five. I've owned almost every significant main-stream console that's been released. However, I must say that the best and, at the same time, least durable console I've encountered is the XBOX 360 (herein referred to as "Halo3BOX").

The graphics are spectacular, as is the general quality of the games released for the system. The first and second generation games of the Halo3BOX are, to me, some of the most addicting and well-made games I've seen in sixteen years of gaming. Games such as Project Gotham Racing 3, Halo 2*, and Gears of War are just scratching the surface. However, this isn't a review of the Halo3BOX or a fanboy post. Quite frankly, for me and for many others, the console has been a nightmare to keep in onepiece.

I have two examples of this: one of which belongs to me, while the other belongs to a good friend of mine.

First, me. I received a Halo3BOX this Christmas, which was purchased in November of 2006. After roughly a month-and-a-half of play (I'd say February 1st), the console started malfuctioning. It wouldn't read or play games correctly and, most importantly, it wouldn't run Halo 2, even with the latest console update. Now, if we go back to the beginning of this post, I said I'd been playing videogames since the age of five. That's sixteen years. My very first console was the original NES. It still works. Sixteen years any original Nintendo Entertainment System still works. Yet Microsoft's next-generation console doesn't hold up a month-and-a-half.

Naturally, though, I bought another one and this one seems to work fine. I've invested all of $20 in a console cooler to prolong the life of the console. Of course, this shouldn't have been necessary.

Now my good friend's shortstory. His Halo3BOX worked perfectly until literally a week after his Microsoft extended warranty expired. The console just stopped working. Poof. Out of thin air. Microsoft is charging him $140 for the repair, which a week before would have been free. Ridiculous.

Sixteen years of console fabrication knowledge since the NES and Microsoft can't construct a stable, durable console? I find this very, very difficult to believe. I shouldn't have to go through multiple consoles to find one that works. And my friend shouldn't have to worry about paying $140 to repair a console which has been outlasted exponentially by a console which has been long out of production and had its own share of hardware issues.

Come on, Microsoft. Get your heads in the game. When you release the XBOX 1080 or whatever you decide to call it, make sure it lasts longer than theduration of your warranty.

* - Yes, I know it's an XBOX game. No, your perceived intelligent and/or witty comment about "n00bs" is not intelligent or witty. Or both.

~The Juggernaut