At the same time -- and to bring us back toward physics -- I don't give a rat's ass how many polygons or texture pixels go into a car as long as it behaves properly on the track and is a reasonably accurate depiction anyway. I'm tired of all the scuffling over headlight lens geometry and interior door handles while other aspects of both the GT and FM games stagnate.
I really hope Horizon 2 ditches the festival nonsense and just offers up a variety of driving styles in an attractive setting. The Rivals map is brilliant for what it is and it's criminal they didn't include a photo mode.
Back to Horizon, it'd be great to have a beach front for cruising and racing from stop lights. Then a variety of roads from narrow lanes to highways leading out through a town and then some tight mountain and canyon roads in the distance. Then it could be centred around a Motorsport even with hillclimbs, drag races and P2P. So rather than a music festival, it could be a festival of speed.
I like the idea of some sort of event that the game is based around. It's probably even possible to do a music festival and not have it be cheesy. But Horizon was so stereotypically bro-culture that it was almost sickening at times. Fun, and there were some good laughs, but it all had to be taken with tongue firmly in cheek.
A motorsports event would seem to make more sense though. Motorsports with a side of music and other stuff thrown in, rather than the other way around.
Horizon has both, plus rallycross circuits (my favorite).Remember how the original NFS had both point to point AND circuit racing. That would be very welcome in a Horizon game.
The Horizon Festival itself was Totally Radical, but they did pretty much drop the "story" after the first handful of races.
In terms of physics, Horizon is still far and away the most sim-oriented open road racing game. Considering they got so much flak for the handling, even though it was obviously FM4 underneath (they altered the tire model and little else), I wonder if they'll even bother incorporating FM5's physics into Forza Horizon 2. No one seemed to appreciate the effort.
Horizon has both, plus rallycross circuits (my favorite).
EDIT: I just realized you mean actual circuits. I grew up with The Need for Speed, I should have recognized that.![]()
We'll each have our opinions of what's most important, but IMO Horizon's unreal braking is nothing compared to FM3's flypaper tires that won't let you drift without >300hp, and the indescribably woolly, awkward mess that defined FM1 and FM2 in anything other than a straight line. Yeah, Horizon grips too much, but its core handling dynamics are truer to life.^^ Aren't you forgetting the ridiculous braking depicted in Horizon?
We'll each have our opinions of what's most important, but IMO Horizon's unreal braking is nothing compared to FM3's flypaper tires that won't let you drift without >300hp, and the indescribably woolly, awkward mess that defined FM1 and FM2 in anything other than a straight line. Yeah, Horizon grips too much, but its core handling dynamics are truer to life.
FM4 just lacks the full range of handling balance, and it gets annoying when I'm pushing a car to its limits. Forza Horizon gets annoying too, because it's not much different. They're the sort of game where I find myself reaching for the handbrake button to initiate the off-throttle oversteer my brain expects. This is based on both real world experience and higher-level sims like Live for Speed.
- It's not a trick of the camera, the sense of speed is fine.
- I've tried your deadzones.
- It's not a matter of tuning, I test physics with maneuvers that probe the limits, not by how it "feels" while attempting normal laps.
- It's not caused by excess steering lock (I play from the interior view so I can pay attention to steering angle). The rear end remains planted when it shouldn't.
- A Stratos or MR2 should not skid lazily forward when you suddenly lift the throttle as you're diving into a corner. Downshifting doesn't upset the car the way it should, and neither does braking.
I'd love to try FM5 sometime soon, because I'm curious if this is something they've fixed.
We'll each have our opinions of what's most important, but IMO Horizon's unreal braking is nothing compared to FM3's flypaper tires that won't let you drift without >300hp, and the indescribably woolly, awkward mess that defined FM1 and FM2 in anything other than a straight line. Yeah, Horizon grips too much, but its core handling dynamics are truer to life.
FM4 just lacks the full range of handling balance, and it gets annoying when I'm pushing a car to its limits. Forza Horizon gets annoying too, because it's not much different. They're the sort of game where I find myself reaching for the handbrake button to initiate the off-throttle oversteer my brain expects. This is based on both real world experience and higher-level sims like Live for Speed.
- It's not a trick of the camera, the sense of speed is fine.
- I've tried your deadzones.
- It's not a matter of tuning, I test physics with maneuvers that probe the limits, not by how it "feels" while attempting normal laps.
- It's not caused by excess steering lock (I play from the interior view so I can pay attention to steering angle). The rear end remains planted when it shouldn't.
- A Stratos or MR2 should not skid lazily forward when you suddenly lift the throttle as you're diving into a corner. Downshifting doesn't upset the car the way it should, and neither does braking.
I'd love to try FM5 sometime soon, because I'm curious if this is something they've fixed.
I play with no TCS or stability control, no ABS. In Forza games, I always test everything in both steering modes. I don't play any console games with a wheel (Forza does not support my G25), but I seek out explicit vehicle behaviors, not just how it "feels" to drive. A realistic physics engine will do things right regardless of how you interact with it.
That's not accurate. MR2s are documented for their snap oversteer in the sort of situation I'm talking about. A friend of mine had one of the later model years of the W20 MR2, when Toyota tuned the car to understeer to make its handling safer, and he still spun it on a tiny autocross course.Also the MR2 is glued to the tarmac in FM4, I took one stock down Fujimi ages ago to see how it would handle been thrown around; and I had to force that thing to brake traction. The weight balance of that car, and the default tire widths make it a pretty fast car in forza. Its fast for both Touge racing, and for Circuit racing, lost count how many races I have won in an MR2. This also goes for the older MR2 in the game also.
There's certainly no lack of power oversteer (as in my first statement -- "it's all understeer when you're not hammering the throttle"), and as I said above, oversteer from lateral weight transfer (flicking the car) works relatively OK.But there isnt a lack of oversteer in forza 4 though...
No one I know has an XBone, but it's on my to-do list. I haven't gotten around to trying GT6, either, even though my sister has a PS3 I could ask to borrow...my expectations are low on that one.
I'm curious about your claim that FM5 masks things or corrects too much. Maybe the game provides some stabilizing steering corrections, but I'd expect the virtual steering wheel to reflect that. If you can know what the front wheels are doing, there's nothing hidden...unless the game breaks its own laws of physics, like Skid Recovery Force in Gran Turismo.