Scaff, I've said this before on these forums though not to you. You might as well be trying to teach evolution to the Pope. You're wasting your time with this lot.
Hey now, I take exception to that. For one thing, Darwinian Evolution just can't be right, because the fossil record doesn't support it, and even Darwin grew to loathe those despicable rocks.
You have to find another model.
Anyhow, I don't think either side in the Great Divide between GT and Forza is very open to input from the other, so I'd personally call it a wash.
I read many of you guys post. I get the impression that forza feels better, sound better and has better tire modelling, ok fine. Now how do you know that the game physics is accurate.
This is a tough call. Racing games strip away all the visceral feel of a car under your backside, and give you what it can with decent graphics and tire noise to communicate how the car feels, or should feel. If you culminate all the lucid arguments pro and con for both games, you should end up with a fairly good assessment of how "real" both games are. Sort of. Personal opinion and what I call "flavor preference" will skew impressions, perhaps a lot.
Forza 4 does do some great things visually to let you know it's more advanced than the previous three editions. The way the car behaves on its suspension is very lifelike. Hit a wall or another car, and it rebounds fairly realistically. I defer to Scaff on many factors like the tire modeling, because he's in the automotive biz in real life for some years now.
Likewise, GT5 is amazing in its own right. The feel of the car with a good "authorized" wheel controller, a DFGT or better, is tangibly real to many of us. Car performance for the most part is close to real world specs.
People who have adopted either game as their pet console racer will likely remain true to their original choice as to which is more true to life, because both have a "genetic" lineage which will define certain core traits universally through both series. Personally, I believe that Gran Turismo has advanced the most, simply because a lot of physics were fudged on the PS1 and 2, which are downright antique systems by today's standards. Both GT4 and Toca 3 on PS2 will give clues to both games skimping on different things in order to get so many cars on track in Toca, and such good graphics in GT4. When I jumped ship from sims in the 90s to Gran Turismo, I was blown away by the wealth of cars and tracks to race with, and thought it was tough to beat. When I finally became reacquainted with sim racing in the mid 2000s, I saw how simcade GT4 really was. Still, it was way too fun to play, and did enough things right that I still chose it over my PC sims, which after a while seemed stale and overly clinical in comparison.
Both Forza 4 and GT5 have lunged fairly strongly into the realm of a good simulation, though in different ways. While some of Forza's tire and suspension dynamics are superb, I have problems with the rest of the package. As I posted previously, I just don't connect well with cars in that game, so taking turns is a rather twitchy affair. The car does too things poorly for me: communication is poor, and the darn things tend to want to keep turning on their own through curves, no matter how I set them up, and I have to jerk the wheel to get them to quit. The tires also seem to load up and bog in ways that don't make sense to me. I use all the assists too. I should add though that this isn't everyone's experience, so I'm a bit baffled why it's so rarely stated among Forza fans... maybe the Fanatec wheel helps? Who knows. One thing that came to mind while racing through a session tonight is that I even have problems with Turn 10's 3D perspective. It's hard for me to judge well when I should be braking when racing in anything above D Class, where the serious fun is.
In Gran Turismo's corner, the tires do feel mushier, and in some sense, the suspension also. But having said that, the communication between myself and my car is very good, thanks to a superior Logitech wheel, as well as the graphics and tire sounds in the game. The 3D perspective is realistic, the car behaves in a lifelike, intuitive way (depending on settings), I feel connected and in control, and when I make the car take turns or brake, the car behaves in a way that makes sense to me. When I make mistakes, I usually know better what went wrong and what to do about it.
Still, when I'm racing one, I miss the other, because both offer me something cool, in spite of the shortcomings I feel in Forza. I wish I could gene splice a number of aspects from Forza into GT5, primarily those suspension physics, some of the tire dynamics, the wealth of body kits and that incredible Livery Editor. I could create race cars forever with those thousand rides in GT5! Add in the other cars and tracks from F4, and what a game that would be...
I am wondering if the Fanatec wheel would be worth it, and I am considering it - next year sometime. I have too much on my to-buy list with Christmas coming, and custom audiophile speakers to have built, so in the meantime, I guess I'll divide time between these two racers. For that matter, I have to get in one last race or three before bed.
). I placed 10th in the SLS AMG time trial event. I'm now taking a liking to the leaderboards of Forza.
Scaff that video you posted is completely useless.
