I wouldn't say blow away but you won't be disappointed.
Erm.... well...
Eh, for what it's worth, here are my initial impressions.
The graphics are surprisingly kind of... uninspiring. Bland. The sterile white look of the menu system that MS has adopted is in full swing. The garage is completely blank except for your cars. Oh well, it seems to be all the rage these days. In Prologue, you have superb looking models which are a little too perfect and have a hint of unrealness about them. But the F3 demo almost shouts at you that it's a computer game you're looking at. After the glory of Prologue, it's a little disconcerting. While I haven't looked at all the cars up close, the models and graphics are more polished than in Forza 2, although I'm puzzled that they look even more CG in F3.
The track looks like something right out of Half Life 2 as well. Once again, the CG look is apparent. The water looks excellent, everything is well textured... sort of. The rocks around the track look kind of like a movie set made of almost convincing styrofoam. Watching replays is odd. Nothing even hints at you looking at real cars going around an environment that's "there," save for occasional moments. Everything looks plastic, including the cars. When those instances of realness come, they're fleeting, and then the rumble strips will look slapped on with a paintbrush, or the trees will look like stage props, or the mountansides will resemble inflated tarps. The same dysfunctional foam rubber looking spectators are there from F2, gyrating and flailing in a whirlpool of random emotions. I haven't seen the shadows of cars fade completely to black like they did in FM2 and Ferrari Challenge, which is nice. The sun has an overly golden cast to it, but that adds a cozy effect which is much better than having too much blue, which makes everything look like a yucky video.
Racing is... different. The forcefeedback from the MS wheel is pretty well narfed; it's not bad, but communication is iffy. The physics are... Forza, but different. It feels rather gene-spliced with some Enthusia or rFactor, and from what I've experienced with rFactor, I don't care for either one. Especially with Enthusia, thanks to the almost absent tire sounds, I didn't just feel disconnected from the car, I felt like I was pumped full of novocaine.
Oh, and speaking of tire sounds, the awful truck tire growls are back in full force, which was something I grew to absolutely LOATHE in Forza 2. In their infinite "wisdom," Turn 10 took a Buick and ran it on low tires in order to capture those hideous sounds. WHY! Forza 1's sounds were perfectly fine. I just... don't understand people, especially the deaf nitwits who insist that tires don't squeal. ZOMG... 👎
Anyway, the effect of racing isn't exactly disconnected, but it's problematic. First of all, the driver views once again blow. I haven't found a cockpit view which satisfied me yet, and Turn 10 didn't let me down with this one. Bad driver views combined with rather odd Forza physics and those throat clenching tire sounds make for a rather haphazard experience, if you're used to Prologue or GTR Evo. Driving doesn't feel natural to me. I'm fishing around turns just like I was in Ferrari Challenge, and taking them badly. Because of this, I'm having problems pushing the lowly Cooper up to catch the Dodge Charger... or is it a Challenger? Whatever it is, it's a bit much of a challenge. I'm racing with everything off but anti-lock brakes, and the hardest difficulty, and am having problems doing better than consistent tail chasing second. Oh, and those anti-lock brakes? Forget it, the lightest touch on the pedal can have the wheels seizing up.
It doesn't help that the bots are utter tards. They limp around turns and clog them, and as much as I hate to grind through the pack, I'm finding my own inner murderer emerging. Much as I did with GTR Evo, I'm plowing through the pack sometimes with ruthless intent. I really miss Prologue...
The collision dynamics aren't what I expect from Live For Speed or Codemasters, but they are very good. I did the usual torture test and plowed headlong into the pack, and it was much like I experienced in Forza 2, a decent somewhat lifelike pounding, grinding, bouncing with a few parts flying. The demo doesn't seem to have anything more than the Forza 2 damage build, or actually less than that. At least in the case of my one head on with the Dodge, it didn't kill my car and was able to limp around the track at about half mast. I suspect the full game to be more punishing.
The ambient techno is very good, and a HUGE step up from the terrible drug casualty frat boy drek that had me killing music entirely in Forza 2. For some bizarre reason, Turn 10 hasn't figured out how to have music off during races, and
on during replays. Microsoft has a bad case of the WTH-were-they-thinking. As for replays, they're okay on the one track, but nothing I'd miss for not saving. Once
again, fixed camera behavior which never changes from lap to lap. And what's up with only having two lap races, at least with the Cooper??
I'm beginning to have second thoughts about FW3
and Shift now...
).
