A hands-on start
In cooperation with BMW an event was staged at Munich’s airport which gave the motto car maker’s motto… The Joy Of Driving… new meaning. And the joy was not just to be experienced on the computer monitor. Before the assembled journalists and media types could get their hands on the latest iteration of the Xbox 360 exclusive drive simulator game there was a some good-natured theoretical instruction from a BMW driving trainer.
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- It came, it roared, it stole the show. Almost…
This was the preparation for the actual driver training sessions… at the wheel of either a BMW 330i or a 135i. Slalom driving, obstacle evasion, high-speed 180 degree turns… a wonderful experience for all who took part. After lunch came the next highlight when a new BMW M5 rolled in with an experienced racing driver driving it. And so then we had the opportunity to find out for ourselves just how potent this beast of a car is, how the M5 accelerates with such majestic urgency, how safe and well-supported we feel in the sports seats when the car is allowed to indulge in almost endless drifting.
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- Turn 10 head Dan Greenawalt presented the new game in person. He also brought his own car with him in the form of a true-to-life virtual replica.
Dynamics aplenty
With so much real-life excitement we might have been forgiven for forgetting the main purpose of this excellent event… to introduce Forza Motorsport 4. The presentation was made by Dan Greenawalt, head of development at Turn 10 Studios. He is almost inevitably a total car freak… in private life he drives an BMW M3 E92. With infectious enthusiasm he drew our attention to the key features of the new Forza game. One of the most important… Forza 4 comes with Kinect support. That means that you can control with your hand and body movements much of what is included in the Xbox 360 game. There is, for example, the AutoVista function, a virtual showroom in which you can move at will, lift up the bonnet hood and open the doors of the cars, even slide into the driver’s seat and turn the key in the ignition. It goes without saying that all of the automobile models are true to life down to the tiniest detail. In fact, thanks to Forza 4, you hardly have any need to kick tyres in a bricks-and-mortar car showroom.
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- The variety of tracks and the range of autos is practically unlimited… hundreds of models from more than eighty manufacturers are available to the player. And there are regular DLC updates as well.
A healthy collaboration
Other possibilities that Kinect support offers includes voice controlled menu functions, freehand steering with the new Microsoft ‘Speed Wheel’, and so-called ‘Head Tracking’… using a camera your head movement is observed and the screen shows a correspondingly altered point of view. According to Greenawalt the old physics engine has been thrown out. Now Turn 10 has worked together with Pirelli and had access to almost endless reams of data and measurements permitting a significantly improved simulation of driving physics. The aim of the Turn 10 development team according to Greenawalt was to fascinate car lovers and turn them into gamers and to intrigue gamers and turn them into car lovers. The subsequent Forza Motorsport 4 sessions convinced us that this target had probably been achieved.
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- Yes, this is how Forza Motorsport actually looks. And it plays that good, too!
Digitally convincing
After just the first virtual kilometre it was clear that Dan Greenawalt’s promises were fulfilled. Forza 4 is by far the best looking race simulator for consoles. Both the tracks and the autos are brilliantly rendered, the motor sounds are inspiring and the picture quality is... at 60 frames per second... second to none. As for the driving physics, they are certainly more realistic than in previous editions of the game and those who are in the know will recall that the level of realism was already extremely high. As well as working together with Pirelli, Microsoft has also collaborated with the Top Gear team. Players can get Jeremy Clarkson’s personal opinion of various car models and there are also some typically idiosyncratic Top Gear challenges to be confronted in Forza 4.
But there is even more to say about Forza 4 and it will be the subject of an in-depth Game Review on one of our future pages.
