I've had the chance to try Forza 4 on a friend's xbox (I'm a PS user since PS1 and a GT user since GT1, and I've never had any other console from then on).
Well, the GAME itself is absolutely amazing. They have improved lighting, shadows, polygons on cars and tracks, and pushed the hardware to unexpected limits. What I like the most in Forza is it being sort of "plug and play" game: it has a simpler interface than GT5, and in that reminds me the glorious GT3, in which "fun" was the key word and which has been -in my opinion- the most entertaining GT so far.
Forza is a strange case. This series begun as a copy of Gran Turismo, so that people on xbox can have a comparable racing game too. It never reached the spirit and the enchantment of GT, because, amongst other things, it is rather about driving than about "loving cars". But Forza 4 is TECHNICALLY a better game than GT5 is, and that's mainly because it looks like a finished and well polished product, where GT5 seems to have been released before it was completed: a lot of great ideas, whose development has been suddenly ended before it was finished because the game had to be released. It is hard to say that for me, having played and loved all the 5 GTs, but this time PD has been bested. Not by turn ten, but by themselves. The errors have been mainly logistic: they should have released GT5 at PS3 launch just by adapting, upscaling and improving GT4, a work that could have been done in a couple of months, and then they could have worked on the masterpiece (GT6) they intended to develop, being more relaxed: without fans, sony and competitors forcing them to hurry up all the time. Instead, what we've got is an improved version of GT4 (which should've been released 5 years before) along with some parts of the masterpiece which should have been released later and called GT6. Also, they have probably overestimated the PS3 potential, and on that field I'm pretty much sure that the x86 based xbox 360 is way more "programmer friendly" than the cell based PS3 architecture is. As an example, any graphic programmer could render a car for Forza using any 3d program, and it would be a piece of cake to include it in the game. Conversely, on the ps3, each single car, and every single 3d element has to be SPECIFICALLY designed for the ps3 structure, which takes an enormous amount of time to the developers.
That being said, Gran Turismo is still the milestone for what concerns car physics and driving pleasure. It's Gran Turismo, no doubt about that, and I wouldn't change it for any other driving game, that including the amazing forza 4, which I would enjoy playing, for sure, but AS WELL, not INSTEAD.
Hope this thread of mine does not generate anger, flaming or bashing. Hopefully, it will produce a pacific exchange of opinions from those who have tried both the games, instead. I am a PS3 user, and a huge fan of the gran turismo series, and I've tried to be the most objective that I could.
