Impressive.
Been playing this for about 12hrs now and its bloody excellent but obviously not perfect. You cant help but compare it to GT4 but in all honesty its a well designed and structured game in its own right.
16:9 - Yes
480p - Yes
Custom Soundtracks - Yes
Graphically its up there with Rallisport Challenge 2 as one of the nicest racers on the Xbox. Its artistic style appears to be very understated, its not flashy or over-shiny but it looks very good with some courses definitely looking better than others. The car models look great but not as good as whats in GT4 but given the damage model that in here its forgiveable.
Sound is average and a bit of a letdown. 5.1 obviously but engine noises are very weak even when you get to the meatier rides. Its acceptable but seems to lack grunt. The Junkie XL soundtrack you'll either love or hate but custom soundtracks sort that out.
What makes the game is the handling, personally I love it. Forget what you think you know about the demo, the demo was utter **** and this is a completely different game. Even the earlier cars (I started in Europe with a Golf R32) handle great and it just gets progressively better with the newer classes. Hard to find fault at all here.
Also the game is VERY easy to begin with but once you start hitting the races where you must start configuring your vehicle setup to get in under the class restrictions it starts becoming much more challenging and the AI is pretty much some of the best Ive seen.
On that note, the AI is sometimes a bit odd but I believe (unless Im wrong) that it learns from your driving style and treats you differently based on that. There were times in the initial courses I spun out taking a few cars with me, drove really aggressive and basically didnt give them an inch... because of that it seems they were happy to shunt me in the odd heavy braking routine.
Now though, mainly due to the higher difficulty and driving more sensible lines they seem to be giving me much more respect and space. Its impressive anyway and a huge improvement over whats in GT4, Ive even seen some of them competing against each other for 1st place and clipping each other forcing themselves onto the gravel... nice!
Structure-wise... the menus are ok, nothing crash hot but just ok. Has a bland feel to it but it works and the customisation of the car from parts to decals to tuning is all there in easily laid out format.
Online? Awesome. There is one thing I dislike, the ability to turn off the racing line assist as a toggle option when hosting. With 8 people racing though it becomes a small issue. Think PGR2 in terms of lobby design, including the race map view when your spectating... have had no lag in any games locally and some excellent races. I believe this is what GT4 should be when it eventually gets its arse online folk, except its already here. A wealth of scoreboards on offer, ghost downloads etc... Just on a grand scale.
All up... a great 9/10 for me. Its not ultimate racing nirvana but where it counts in terms of physics, handling, online and customisation it has what you need to put in hours of race time. An excellent start to a new racing series. I look forward to Forza2 on Xbox 360.
Buy it.
Been playing this for about 12hrs now and its bloody excellent but obviously not perfect. You cant help but compare it to GT4 but in all honesty its a well designed and structured game in its own right.
16:9 - Yes
480p - Yes
Custom Soundtracks - Yes
Graphically its up there with Rallisport Challenge 2 as one of the nicest racers on the Xbox. Its artistic style appears to be very understated, its not flashy or over-shiny but it looks very good with some courses definitely looking better than others. The car models look great but not as good as whats in GT4 but given the damage model that in here its forgiveable.
Sound is average and a bit of a letdown. 5.1 obviously but engine noises are very weak even when you get to the meatier rides. Its acceptable but seems to lack grunt. The Junkie XL soundtrack you'll either love or hate but custom soundtracks sort that out.
What makes the game is the handling, personally I love it. Forget what you think you know about the demo, the demo was utter **** and this is a completely different game. Even the earlier cars (I started in Europe with a Golf R32) handle great and it just gets progressively better with the newer classes. Hard to find fault at all here.
Also the game is VERY easy to begin with but once you start hitting the races where you must start configuring your vehicle setup to get in under the class restrictions it starts becoming much more challenging and the AI is pretty much some of the best Ive seen.
On that note, the AI is sometimes a bit odd but I believe (unless Im wrong) that it learns from your driving style and treats you differently based on that. There were times in the initial courses I spun out taking a few cars with me, drove really aggressive and basically didnt give them an inch... because of that it seems they were happy to shunt me in the odd heavy braking routine.
Now though, mainly due to the higher difficulty and driving more sensible lines they seem to be giving me much more respect and space. Its impressive anyway and a huge improvement over whats in GT4, Ive even seen some of them competing against each other for 1st place and clipping each other forcing themselves onto the gravel... nice!
Structure-wise... the menus are ok, nothing crash hot but just ok. Has a bland feel to it but it works and the customisation of the car from parts to decals to tuning is all there in easily laid out format.
Online? Awesome. There is one thing I dislike, the ability to turn off the racing line assist as a toggle option when hosting. With 8 people racing though it becomes a small issue. Think PGR2 in terms of lobby design, including the race map view when your spectating... have had no lag in any games locally and some excellent races. I believe this is what GT4 should be when it eventually gets its arse online folk, except its already here. A wealth of scoreboards on offer, ghost downloads etc... Just on a grand scale.
All up... a great 9/10 for me. Its not ultimate racing nirvana but where it counts in terms of physics, handling, online and customisation it has what you need to put in hours of race time. An excellent start to a new racing series. I look forward to Forza2 on Xbox 360.
Buy it.
Thanks for your views on the game. Sounds like it has good graphics- ok sound and excellent handling. The demo was obviously a really early build- I was watching some vids recently and it has improved beyond my expectations.
, playing up on the likes of TOCA II and moaning becasue thier ranking was going down . 
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