Be Excellent To Each Other

23 minutes?!

7 minutes 47 seconds.

How many stops to plug in?

I was thinking C.

Hardly.



I'd forgotten quite how shit that game was.

So you found one? I still think that qualifies as unlikely.

I thought it was ok. Some of the cars were a nightmare to control though.

Closest I can think of to a town stage is probably Amalfi Coast or whatever it's called - that village with the cobbled streets.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Suits the little cars quite well.

The huge multi-stage Amalfi Coast is gone, all that's left is Rally di Positano.

New York is gone too, as are the hated 'snake tracks'.

Watching Top Gear earlier reminded me why EA are cunts - because of them, no Porsches, and that means no Carrera GT.

I didn't actually mind New York once they added in the chicanes. The original one was terrible though, almost impossible to judge braking distances after the long straights and no margin for error with the walls and 90 degree corners.

Prey tell, enlighten me - what are these snake tracks of which you speak? Appear they in Forza 2?

Yes, and 3 if you buy the game brand new. King Cobra and variations thereof.

Because I use the handy-dandy braking line, I liked New York much more without the chicanes.

I hate the braking line. Ok when you're setting hot laps, but when racing against others it's just distracting.

I just use other people to slow down when playing MP

I gave in and starting using the braking line. There's no way my tiny brain can remember and/or work out on the fly the braking distances for each different car I use around all the different tracks I race. Admittedly, I've never cared for Forza's actual line -- I prefer Gran Turismo's flashing red "you need to slow down now" light. It's less distracting and feels less like cheating, because it doesn't guide you around the corner, it merely hints that, for your current car's breaking and cornering performance, you're going too fast. But Forza doesn't have that, so line it is.

How does the racing compare between this and GT5?

New New York would have been great except the ridiculous BF3-style high contrast lighting (everything is either fullbright or in complete shadow) meant that in a lot of cases the chicanes were impossible to see from a distance.

Off to make a class C town car suitable for di amalfi... I knew there was more to that place perkies, very sad

I'll be on tonight for a session, but not at 8.30. Thankfully we have 16 slots these days.

Wait, what are we classing as a town car? Fwd, hatch, sub 2litre, or originating in a certain class?

I'd say E or F souped up to C.

A car you own through necessity rather than wanting one. Corsa, 207, similar.

Is 20:30 confirmed for tonight? Thread title says "TBC".

Should I be tuning a class F rollerskate up to class C beforehand? I don't have huge amounts of in-game cash

Oh, and why isn't anyone angry about the "car token" bullshit?

If you level up the affinity on that brand, you'll get massive discounts (including free at level 5 I think) for all upgrades.

I've seen the car token thing, but not really understood it, so ignored it. I'm guessing by your question it's a case of buying them for real money? A bit wank, but if people want to waste their own cash it's up to them, I guess.

Probably because the game is so generous with credits that only the most impatient or cack-handed buffoon would ever use the car tokens thing.

Yeah, I know. I have level 4 with Ford, so there's that at least. Guess I'll be rocking my Ka or Fiesta!

Yeah. A token is 80 MS Spacepoints for one, or with discount for buying in bulk. I dislike this sort of in-app purchase nonsense in general, and am unhappy about it creeping into "core gamer" titles.

I'd be much more disappointed if they did that for certain cars instead of DLC packs, but if it's an alternative to grinding the cash in-game, I don't care so much. It's not like there's a small core to the game and they've bolted on the rest of the game needing car tokens. I guess it's the same as those DLC cheat packs you can buy to unlock everything in game. If people are too lazy/rubbish to play it properly and want to shell out, that's their own look-out.

I don't see why everything in the game doesn't start unlocked. I don't commonly buy a book, then, half way through, have to undergo a literacy test before I'm allowed to finish it.

Look at the bigger picture. It's bad because it actively incentivises developers to make games that turn into boring grind-fests halfway through, as they make more money that way. There'll always be specific games that swim against the tide, but as this sort of IAP becomes common, the only way is down. This is already well underway for iPhone games.

By the same token (lolz), you don't decide to take chapter 8 out for a spin before you've finished chapter 3. The point of this sort of driving game is to give you time at the beginning with low powered cars so you can get skilful at driving them. If you were put in an LMP at the beginning it wouldn't be accessible.

You wouldn't play an RPG and expect to march up to the final boss and kill it in the hardest dungeon before levelling up a bit killing lesser creatures first.

Ok, I see your point, but Forza games were grindfests long before they put this feature in. If they do it with Mario Kart I'll agree with you fully.

Did people buy the Season Pass DLC? My gut tells me Forza already has enough cars, and I don't need 60 more.

After the Gears 3 Season Pass, I will never buy another one again.

If you don't change your details, someone might buy it for you!

You laugh, but the hacker actually bought the first lot of DLC on my behalf, despite me already having the Season Pass.

I note the endurance races are gone... and car tokens are in? Could it be leaving the game running for 90 minutes with an AI driver and coming back to a quarter million in cash was a bit naughty?

I actually enjoyed the endurance races. I always did a couple by myself before turning the rest over to the AI.

In the days before AI drivers I used to love them. You'd enter a sort of zen state and have deep and meaningful thoughts while you drove the car on instinct.

Yep, until you started thinking about the driving again and missed the next braking point. 'Ooh, I'm doing so wellaarrrGGGH!'

This is why I much prefer doing time trials (or hot laps as they're called now) than racing against AI drivers.

Also in relation to Malia's point, I agree that all games should come unlocked. It should be up to you how you play a game you have purchased. Going back to the book analogy, whilst you wont necessary start at chapter 7 instead of 1, there is nothing stopping you. It just wont be as fun.

Would anyone really ever do the Citroen Saxo races if it was all unlocked though?

Nah, I enjoy the process of being rewarded with new cars/guns/skills/whatever. If they were all there to begin with then making the choice to not use them would just feel arbitrary and strange. Imagine playing Crackdown "right I could jump up that building but I won't, I shall only jump up there once I have played for another four hours". I don't agree with forcing people to pay for cheat codes either, though. Cheating should just be there as an option, but I dunno prevent people from appearing on leaderboards or collecting achievements.

Dont get me wrong, I like having to unlock stuff, it gives you a sense of achievement. If given the choice I think I would rather play through a game properly.

However, having to grind through stuff for the sake of grinding does not appeal to me. I think having the option to unlock everything in a game once you have finished doing it properly would be handy and also extend the life of many games. Much like the cheat codes you could enter in the good old days.

DocG will recall the only reason I endured Metropolis Street Racer for so long was to get a decent car. It was absolutely crushing to race for hours, reach the next level and be rewarded with a Vauxhall Astra. You didn't get to choose the car, see, but you did know what you were going to get at higher levels.

I quite like starting small and working my way up.

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Which track are we racing the C class cars on tonight?