Forza 2 demo zooms/drives/careens onto Xbox Live

Already downloaded looks absolutely incredible.

http://www.ebizmba.com

Cool

shall download this later

while my console is offf

lol crazy

:)

I want honest opinions, folks. I hear people whining about the graphics, but I think it looks great on my Sammy plasma. Thoughts?

I also want KITT or at least one firebird from the 82-92 3rd gen production. I own an 83 Trans Am and I would buy a 360 and Forza just to play around with it.

Not exactly free, since it's another Gold-only demo. This one doesn't even have the excuse of being multiplayer and thus pointless for Silvers anyway.
Seems like there's lots of folk downloading it though, speed is atrocious, even for the Marketplace.

But the low-power download stuff seems to be working. The light is blinking away on the front of my XBOX, so I assume it's doing something. Don't know how you're supposed to tell if you can't check the screen...

@Mythor
"Not exactly free, since it's another Gold-only demo. This one doesn't even have the excuse of being multiplayer and thus pointless for Silvers anyway."

that's weird, i have a silver account and it seemed pretty free to me when i downloaded it this morning.

Not exactly free, since you need an HDD.. poor, poor Core users... left out again.

Anyways, looks good.

Yeah, it's free to all. I'm getting it now and I'm on silver.

Well nothing much has changed. I think I'll save my money and stick with Forza 1 or just wait till it's bargain bin and get it for the wheel support.

How does this compare to the Gran Turismo HD demo? (Besides the fact that Forza 2 will actually be released as a full game in this lifetime).

More than likely, Jason, it trumps GTHD. Of course GTHD is using PS2 assets so I expected that.

Here's the first 16 cars

1997 BMW Motorsport M3 E36
2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2003 Dodge Viper SRT10
2003 Dodge SRT4
2004 Ferrari F430
2005 Ford Ford GT
2005 Ford Mustang GT
2002 Honda Integra Type-R
2005 Lamborghini Gallardo
2006 Lexus IS350
2004 Mazda RX-8 Mazdaspeed
2005 Mercedes SLR
2003 Nissan Fairlady Z
2007 Porsche 911 Turbo (997)
2005 Subaru Legacy B4 2.0 GT
2005 TVR Sagaris

PGR3 looks better. I expected a bit better looking graphics.

Graphics arent exactly the best but damn gameplay is amazing, especially with the wheel.

What I'd really like to know is how this compares to PGR3 because that is the only racing simulator I am really into, will be trying this out tonight.

The graphics are great, but for some reason I was a little disappointed. Maybe a touch more anti-aliasing just to smooth out the edges.

And this may be nitpicking, but if they are going to go for close ups of the cars during the replays it is hugely noticeable how many logos are a little lower res. It's kinda jarring.

With the wheel it must be really nice. Lucky you have one. And yes, the gameplay is amazing. Can,t wait for the full game and start messing around with all the available tweaking options. And race on Live.

You people whine and whine about getting demos, Then when we finally get them, you bitch and moan about graphics or the demo is too short....shut the F up already!!

The demo is excellent in my opinion, classic Forza racing (better than PGR and GT)with next gen graphics. The gameplay is tight, the cars look awesome.

C'mon people, lighten up....you know you're going to buy this one for the simple fact that it's FORZA!! I can't wait for this one.....

I'd literally been waiting for this game for months, so guess what happens when I turn on my Xbox to download the demo today? My power supply burns out, and trips the power in my house... DAMN

Well I got the Ring of Death on the weekend so I can't even play it.

> What I'd really like to know is how this compares
> to PGR3 because that is the only racing simulator
> I am really into

PGR is just about the opposite of a racing simulator. If you're drifting in Forza, it's most likely because you entered the corner too fast. If you're not drifting in PGR, it's probably because your car has come to a complete stop.

That said, I haven't pulled the demo yet -- is it 60 fps?

Demo is dissapointing (unless you are a full sim head or forza 1 nut), do NOT expect anything fancy from the graphics, in fact there are quite a few distinctly last gen features and glitches (take a slow drive around the edges of the track). Mip Maps, LODS and certain textures are also shockingly poor for a game that was hyped as much and is supposed to be MS big spring game.

Game is smooth with no tearing which get's a big thumbs up (graphics aren't everything) but I can't get too excited about it as it all seems rather "done before", a nice racing engine dressed up in old clothes. Only the Higher res seems to help because it's still aliasing all over the place and the lighting is washed out. The cars also look less real than other (older) racers.

Well someone DID ask for an honest opinion ;)

"And this may be nitpicking, but if they are going to go for close ups of the cars during the replays it is hugely noticeable how many logos are a little lower res. It's kinda jarring."
Might having to compress so much have anything to do with this? And Microcrap said space is not an issue.

"I expected a bit better looking graphics."
This game and everyone after it will ALLWAYS be a poor-man's GT.

"Maybe a touch more anti-aliasing just to smooth out the edges."
Again...could space be the issue here?

"Well I got the Ring of Death on the weekend so I
can't even play it."
This is just too funny....Ah, the good old red ring of death.

It is my opinion that the DVD9,s limited space will become a bigger issue in the coming months and definitely by the next year or two.
Sure you can come up with better and better compression technology but at what cost? Developer resources wasted, time wasted, low res backgrounds?
Not worth it if you ask me. This is the "HD" era that Microsoft said themselves....hmmm, what to do, what to do.

The Wee is a joke, and a ripoff, and it is NOT next-gen or now-gen or new-gen....it is 7 year old-gen with an geforce 2 based GPU.
Pathetic

Jebus, aliasing and texture THIS low quality aren't because of space... textures take up space sure, but there's easily enough room on a DVD to do it. It comes down to art direction and lack of full quality @ turn ten.

Aliasing isn't anything to do with storage either, it's down to bad texture choices, shader usage and/or lack of spare performance to enable FSAA.

Don't start turning it into an "Xbox360 can't store enough" discussion cos it really is nothing to do with it. YOu do realise that the PS3 whil being able to store more on disc can store LESS in memory so they still won't use any more textures/quality textures in a SINGLE SCENE such as a fully loaded into memory race track (non streaming). In fact the box as the advantage here big time. Both systems are bottlenecked but the XBox is wisely bottlenecked (to cut costs) while the ps3 is stupidly bottle necked by it's inner workings (GPU/Bus/Memory).

In an ideal world the 360 would be better suited to the Blu Ray drive and the PS3 would be better suited to a regular DVD drive, but given the choice a normal DVD is the sane choice and NO excuse for the shoddy art direction seen in this demo. (PGR3 for example blows away every racer with it's textures and that's on a DVD)

IMHO, the graphics don't match up with GTHD -- gotta say GTHD looks sharper, and the replays are more cinematic. That said, the racing is superior in Forza2. The 60 fps really gives the sensation of inertia and speed, and the physics engine is spot-on. I'm paraphrasing this line from a preview I read somewhere, but its true -- I've been in a car wreck, and rounding a corner in the demo I lost grip and slid out . . . and I was right back in that Celica sliding acriss the road. I actually got a little queasy. If you've ever driven a car and lost control (real world, not gameland), this is the closest simulation you've probably ever seen.
Gotta get me a wheel -- it must be nuts with the force feedback and rumble!!

>>Might having to compress so much have anything to do with this? And Microcrap said space is not an issue.

Fool - this is a 600Mb demo - if space is an issue, I doubt it will be on a disk 15 times that size.

Yeah PGR is garbage. I was into PGR2 for a little while but I bought PGR3 used and have barely played it. I find the driving annoying and I just want to race. Forget CONE CHALLENGES, and pass challenges. Who the hell does that? Sure there is autocross but that is NOTHING like the cone challenges in PGR. Plus why have the ability to chose your car anyway, the game scales around your car there are no incentives to change cars.

Wow, all this whining. Is there a better sim racing game out there that I don't know about?

"YOu do realise that the PS3 whil being able to store more on disc can store LESS in memory so they still won't use any more textures/quality textures in a SINGLE SCENE such as a fully loaded into memory race track (non streaming)."

Go to gametrailers or gamevideos and look at the HD gameplay/developer walk-thru videos for Lair....and the come back and tell me that the PS3 cannot have more "textures/quality textures in a SINGLE SCENE" than your Crap60....go on, dddddddddddoooooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttttt.

I Triple-Double-Dog dare you to.

Oh, Heavenly Sword texture quality looks "kinda" good too.

Um, Ratchet and Clank looks "ok"

And uh Drakes Fortune looks "pretty good"

All of these games (to me at least) look as good if not better than Gears and they are Much, much bigger.

Spin this one...I know you will

Very good point. The demo is small so it is definitely likely that some graphics were cut back. This has been done before. Still Forza has never really been more realistic looking than GT. It looks cartoony in comparison. The driving is much better though.

I have been waiting for this game for a LOOONG time and I downloaded and played it some this morning.

My first impression was that I was underwhelmed. A group of us have been playing PGR3 in anticipation and as much as I hate to say it, the Forza 2 demo just does not look as good as PGR3. Also, unless I have missed something, I did not see an in-car racing view. I used the 430, the same car I use often in PGR3 and DO NOT want to miss out on having an in-car view.

My thoughts are that the gear-heads will be happy with this SIM and its endless options of tweaking the performance and visuals of the cars. The average player may very well save $40 and just pickup a copy of PGR3 if they don't have it.

Forza fans can flame me all you like but I am not a kid and this is my honest opinion of what I have seen with the Forza 2 demo. I am actually a tad letdown as I expected a tad more.

I think it's very pretty and fun. But what the hell do I know?

Oh, and it sounds great too! Then again, what the hell do I...never mind.

@TC

Forza isn't just about graphics. It never was. Forza 1 was NOT the best looking racing game for the Xbox, but that didn't stop it from being a great game. Shit, Rallisport Challenge 1 looked better than Forza 1 and it came out two years earlier.

@ AirIntake

Then I will just wait for the Wii port then...

Lets all remember this is a Demo. I can think of several game Demos I've downloaded on the 360 that didn't look up to snuff but was not an issue with the retail version. Even though this demo was released today, it was probably created many months ago from an earlier build.

The Wii port of a Microsoft game? Have fun.



And Forza 2 looks better than the Wii can do anyways, even with its 'crappy' graphics.

I was just joking AirIntake but the VAST majority of people who bought and own a 360 expected MUCH, MUCH more from this game. I think I am right about that.

We bought the 360 for GRAPHICS whether we admit it or not.. Are people really going to accept a mid-2007 game like Forza 2 having worse graphics than a launch title?

I think not.

Like I said, gearheads eat your heart out.
Everyone else may just pass.

Well, I've been in the process of a move, so my 360 is in a box and I haven't played the demo yet. If it truly has worse graphics than PGR3 (which I wasn't that impressed with graphically anyways) then I will be disappointed. But not disappointed enough to not buy the game or anything.

Played it. It is incredibly disappointing.

MS says they "limited" the customization options? There aren't any. It's like playing arcade mode from GT. You select a car and drive. You can turn on and off some driver aids, and thats it.

The graphics are about what I expected, which is rather poor. It does look better than Rallisport Challenge 2 (Xbox game) now, which also means it looks better than GT4. But it looks very poor next to PGR3. The cars do not look good at all, they seem to be modeled with low poly counts. In replays you can only get the same views (in car, above car, etc.) that you can get when racing. WTF?

The noise of the car shifting (click noise) is louder than the engine! It is difficult to shift by sound because the engine noises are so muted. It STILL has no reverse lockout, and no neutral below 1st.

The car AIs are okay. Nothing special that I noticed. One punted me on the race to the first corner even though I wasn't doing anything crazy. Inexplicable.

The only bright spot is the wheel works better for racing than it does in the force feedback version of PGR3. It appears to use the motors in a smarter way so the problem of the loose wheel shaft is very much minimized. It makes the wheel work well enough that I would actually recommend it to those who are dedicated to racing games (it is still a very poor wheel overall though). The UI is still screwed up, like the FF PGR3, it doesn't relabel any UI elements when you are using the wheel. So when showing a replay, the UI says you have to press "RT" and "LT" to change which portion of the physics model you are viewing. There are no RT or LT buttons on the wheel. It should say gas and brake. I paid $150 for this wheel. It came from MS. MS' games should take the extra couple of man-days it takes to customize the UI for the wheel!

The load times are AWFUL, just like in Forza. It's inexplicable. The console is how much faster than the old one? And the game is running off of hard drive! Hell, the whole demo is only 700MB, it could almost fit in memory. Why do I have to wait 20-30 seconds (with no progress bar) for a race to start?

All in all, the demo is a HUGE disappointment. I can't see how this demo will convince anyone who didn't already want the game that they should buy it.

I do have hope the game is better, because at least the tuning will be there. And online racing.

Guys,
I dont own a 360, but heart sinking all the same - I am afraid this game and Grand Turismo 5 as well will end up being the same old stuff (Forza 1 / GT4) with just moderately better graphics.
Lets hope I am wrong

I just can't understand why they can't make it at least look more realistic. Don't pump up the saturation so high. Real life doesn't have colours that burn your retinas. As long as the graphics are solid I will be ok with it. I had a lot of fun with the first Forza even though it didn't pop like Rallisport and such. More arcadey games tend to add special effects and such that sims avoid so it's to be expected. You really have to wait for the final product to fully judge but with the final product due out in a few short weeks...who knows.

"Real life doesn't have colours that burn your retinas." - James

But if the game doesn't, then people will complain that the colour of next gen is brown.

"Yeah PGR is garbage. I was into PGR2 for a little while but I bought PGR3 used and have barely played it."

Oh no. PGR2 is the best console racer *ever* thanks to its excellent online multiplayer (people are still playing it). Solo game was way better than Gran Turismo's, which was simply too boring and had too many cars.

I wish Digital Polyphony would concentrate on *gameplay improvements* (especially online) instead of masturbating with 1593 "different" car designs and releasing the game in 2014.

Forza 2 seems a bit too similar to the first one (which was by no means a bad game). There are like, what, three new tracks or something?

Of course PGR3 is gonna look better....they didn't have active damage models implemented to contend with.

Jebus: You are obviously a PS3 troll and since you are left with no games and a bunch of Blu-ray movies you come here to start trouble. There is a bottleneck with the RAM, it's the architecture of the PS3, now take off your fanboy blinders and realize this is fact. Lair does look great but as was stated before this has to do more with developer decisions than it does the size of the disc. The very fact that this is a demo under 1gig already ownz your comments about disc space.. you lose..

Take a look at games like Gears or Mass Effect and tell me this "crapbox" can't do just as nice textures as the PS3 and while you're at it grow up.

Actually, Lair doesn't even look that great, I mean it has pretty CGI but the in-game looks like a PS2 game. Not to say it can't get better, but for now I'm unimpressed. Also, I played GTHD at Target and I do think the Graphics in Forza are better, I didn't like the handling though(forza). I guess I'm not that much of a Sim guy. Give me easy controls any day over realistic. lol

I downloaded the game and got a quick couple races before I had to head off to work. I've been waiting for the game and the demo for a while and have to say that it's what I expected. I have yet to use my wheel with it (will do that tonight) so I can't give feedback on that just yet. I'm confident that the final retail version of the game will show more polish than this demo that was release to Microsoft, what, weeks ago to pass certification on LIVE. Regardless I thought that the car models looked solid and the physics were nice. It'll be a great pickup for any Forza fan or sim fan out there.

I'll probably be playing the demo nonstop till the game ships.

I totally agree real life doesn't have bright colors that burn your retinas.

However, real life does have stereoscopic vision (for most of us).

The bright colors of GT help make up for the lack of stereoscopic vision and help you better determine the distance to the corner and where the on and off track areas are. Additionally, in real life, you are expected to warm up on a track and in a car for hours to get the feel for the track. In these racing games, people pretty much want to get in a car and have a chance of getting on the podium on a new track the first time they drive it.

Forza 1, despite having a very accurate looking track surface (complete with skid marks from previous laps) was muddy enough that you had to rely on your memory to know what the track configuration is up in the distance. Real or not, that's a negative when it comes to a racing game.

Forza 2 is a little better because the higher resolution helps out.

"Jebus: You are obviously a PS3 troll and since you are left with no games and a bunch of Blu-ray movies you come here to start trouble."

Come here to start trouble? This is joystiq...not joytrash60stiq. I am at work and I like to see what is new in the computer entertainment world. You say I need to grow up, what exactly did I say that makes you say that?

Actually, Lair doesn't even look that great, I mean it has pretty CGI but the in-game looks like a PS2 game. Not to say it can't get better, but for now I'm unimpressed.

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2657
Watch the developer walk-thru in HD, a PS2 game? Yah, right, really.

GTHD is just GT4's car models that were optimized for PS3. It is NOT GT5.