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FM4 Review; there you go Diddly :)
Topic Started: Oct 12 2011, 10:25 PM (908 Views)
Killer Miller
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First, I'm going to preface my review by admitting that I hated FM3. I hated FM3, and I hated developer Turn 10's response to many of the issues and problems even worse. So much so that I am actually banned till the year 4377 or something like that at the Forza forums. So, I'm coming into this game from a perspective of extreme doubt.

While the reviewers were dazzled by FM3 to many it lacked something. Those less inclined to push for every tenth and race door to door loved it as well. And rightfully so. Even if you really don't care to race at all, Forza can give the creative juices a run in a number of avenues. The problem with FM3 was that developer Turn 10 seemingly forgot that they were producing a racing game. Countless major "racing" features that had been a staple of the series such as car clubs and custom hosted lobbies were removed while many features less important to on track racing were added. It wasn't that the additions were awful, it was what they took away that killed FM3 from the perspective of many long time fans of the franchise. And that was the soul of a racing game.

For FM4 it appears Turn 10 has listened to it's fans on some key features and returned them from oblivion. Much is still on the cutting room floor, but two bigs ones are back. Car Clubs, one of the features that made FM1 the success it was make a long overdue return. In the age of social media and online group websites, it's surprising Turn 10 removed this feature in the first place as it's all about finding like minded individuals within the community and teaming up with them. Also making a much needed return of the user hosted custom public lobby. FM3 forced players into a "hopper" system which was a failure from the start. You can't take a game that literally gives players millions of options on not only the cars, but how they're built and tuned, and then take all of that and try to shoehorn it into a few classes of hoppers. Beyond that the hoppers removed all control from the user of tracks/laps/classes etc. The idea was to help the new, casual, racer to get into Forza. It had the opposite effect. The hoppers were largely run by the types of drivers most players would have preferred to avoid. The veteran Forza player had a large friends list of racers, or knew of leagues to join to find good racing. The new guy got on, saw the carnage, and gave up. Probably the biggest news in the pre release hype of FM4 was the return of the custom public lobby. It's been the lifeblood of every good online racing game since PGR2.

On to the meat of the game. Much has been made of the tire physics and the Pirelli partnership. Many have reacted that they think the physics in FM4 are a big step up. Closer to the standards of GT5 and more serious PC sims. I will say there is a difference to the feel of the physics, but to me, largely they feel the same. They feel a bit as if they took the model from FM3 and removed a little bit of grip, while adding a bit of understeer. While others think the change has been huge, I see it more as a small step towards being more sim, while still keeping the same accessible feel that the FM series has always provided.

Career is about the same as FM3, just dressed up a bit. You are taken on a World Tour mode that basically runs like the seasons of FM3 did. One big negative to many that has not been fixed is the lack of leaderboards in career mode. Which removes any competitiveness in the mode other than beating the still kind of slow and still stuck on rails AI. Leaderboards in the career mode added competitiveness to the sometimes repetitive task of earning credits.

Thankfully career mode is not the only way to earn money in FM4. The new Rivals mode is another areas where racers will be spending lots of time. In this mode there are various time trial, autocross (think PGR4 cone challenges) and drift events. Each with "Rivals" leaderboards. In this mode you will select your Rival and race his ghost. If you beat him you get a bounty, plus bonuses for how you race. If you can keep just barely beating your rival and working your way up the leaderboard there is considerable money and XP to be won.

Also, would be remiss if I didn't mention Top Gear. They are heavily involved with the game and is represented in many areas of the game itself. Turn 10 has made good use of the license. Much, much, much better than the Top Gear stuff found on the other racing game. In addition to the famous Top Gear track everyone sees on the show, there are 5 other ribbons. Top Gear is also worked into the career and Rivals mode heavily with various events from a time trial with the Kia cee-d just like on TV to the goofy with car bowling and soccer.

On graphics, I'd say they're about the same as FM3. Which is good. Things are a bit more brighter and greener on some tracks. But it looks good. 60 fps has been very smooth. The paint booth is also improved. Lighting is much better and you can zoom closer to the car. Also FM4 allows you to import all your vinyl groups from FM3 at the beginning.

In summary. Coming from a guy who hated the previous game I'm cautiously giving this one the thumbs up. Still alot to be decided to see if it will truly be a return to form for Turn 10. But so far so good.
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Retrovertigo
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There are still things I wish they had focused on instead of nonsense like autovista. Let's be honest, most people will ooh and ahh at autovista a couple of times and then never use it again unless they want to show off the pretty car models (which aren't nearly as impressive in-game) to mates.

I'd have preferred them to have spent that time trying to add something like weather effects, rallying, maybe add more than a measly four new tracks. Anything than spend all that time (and money on Clarksons no doubt considerable pay packet) on window dressing.

I have heard about the dynamic career A.I not being up to much? Taking the difficulty options out of the players hands seems crazy - especially as Insidersimracing said that they have breezed through career so far without ever needing to upgrade a car :(

Still looking forward to the game immensely (my LE edition might get here today hopefully) but this seems like as incremental update as FM3 was - and clearly they are holding back a ton of stuff for DLC.
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Diddly
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Thanks m8, an interesting insight into the game from someone who's probably played more Forza than is good for him. I'm disaapointed about the AI - Shift 2's actually made some occasional mistakes and acted like they were fallible, I was hoping for something similar with F4.
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Killer Miller
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Yea, probably too much Forza. But there's no golf games worth playing so what else am I going to do.

On the AI, I have noticed a bit more of a dynamic thing from them. I did notice a guy I just slammed out of the way in one corner came in and dive bombed me in the next. For me anyways, they're still pretty slow. In equal cars it rarely takes more than a lap to leave them well behind so they could be doing all kinds of stuff back there I just don't know..lol.

And going back to your Shift 2 question last night. The more I think about it the more I can see that, atleast if 2 was anything similar to one. The feel of the tires on the track when you get near the point of the limits is pretty similar. But it's still Forza and feels very similar to previous games. To me they're good physics, but still far behind Race Pro which is the standard on consoles to me.
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Diddly
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Yeah the AI seems to make mistakes more frequently with the faster cars (although in my experience this is limited to bumping into me or more often just overshooting a corner wildly), but they don't ever have a 'tail slapper' because they put the power down too hard or anything "human" like that - Shift 2 did, FM4 AI drivers all appear to have ABS and traction control on.

I think I'm level 38 now and have hit the point of "Meh", playing with a manual gearbox, sim steering and everything 'off' except rewind if there's a chance I'll be distracted by passing P.I.T.A.s asking me stupid fuckin' work-related questions or the phone.

After my experience with FM3 and the mostly homophobic, agoraphobic, xenophobic morons who inhabit the game I haven't even had one race online yet, which will be an amazing fact to some of you, and I'm not sure I will.

I think the game looks mostly great, the backdrops are excellent and the skies too, but there are some horribly OTT sun blooms (as if in misguided response to criticism of FMs's lighting FX) and more than a little jagginess (particularly where there are a lot of lines on the track surface), but it's definitely an improvement on FM3, particularly a couple of the tracks I really hated; the awful "plastic fantastic" Ladera test track, the mindlessly winding Fujimi Kaido (should have been thrilling, but what a fucking bore) and the Amalfi coast (which looked like something out of a Mario game) tracks, but they've aged them, and made them look a bit more 'lived in' - at least they tried.

As for playability the graphics move smoothly but do seem to lack depth, and picking out an apex from the in-car view on some corners (I'm thinking Sebring, the Indianapolis infield, the confusing mess that is Infineon, and less surprisingly the runway-based Top Gear track) can be tricky, probably due to a lack of shading and lighting effects that still lag behind the competition.

I think the handling is noticeably friendlier with regard to powerslides and braking and the steering a tad smoother (although try a Peugeot 908 down the Mulsanne straights and see how it lacks subtlety compared to GT5 and Shift 2).

The Autovista is quite an impressive toy (particularly when showing a n00b it with Kinect or letting them go for a driive with a Kinect "invisible steering" wheel), but I wonder how many more tracks & cars we could have had if they'd left it out? Likewise the head tracking, which, unlike GT5's actually works, but how many people are going to use it? To get it to work accurately I had to either move the Kinect camera to a weirdly close place or sit forward in a completely unnatural position - so what's the point?

I think I'll be playing FM4 for months to come, but it's also made me yearn for a return to Shift 2 to to check it out again, if only to see if it's as good as I remember it.
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