Just thought I’d let everyone relax and sit in comfort knowing that the game is really good!
I played just over an hour this morning, doing the first three races, starting a Seeker cup and messing with some tuning. It’s just a shame that I had to go to work.
Here is some feedback from my short stint.
In terms of the negative things.
Crates - Not a big fan, but see why they have included it. It is new and maybe fun for a bit, but it is just a gimmick to supply bonus things to the generation that like to be rewarded for breathing. ?>Looks like there will be a regular free crate to pick up as well as buying with credits or winning them.
Race loading times are long, but I hardly noticed as I could choose my car and make some tuning tweaks to it while I was waiting.
Shake Cam- I switched off simulation pretty quickly and put it on normal to keep trying it rather than switching it off.
1st three races - Been playing Forza for years, I just wanted to get past them as soon as possible. Found them too easy as you couldn’t change drivatar difficulty, but I could turn all the assists off.
Seeker race length - The races are too short, I had two laps on Nurb GP, Suzuka and Monza. Not enough in my opinion. I was trying to find a way to change the amount of laps but couldn’t.
The good stuff.
Racing trucks - phwoar, good fun.
Top 3 not necessary - I no longer ned to finish top three to go to the next race. This means a bit of a crash, a bad start, poor tune, wrong car etc don’t matter - you just race to the end and take your points.
Homologation - Having all the cars racing within a constrained configuration is great. I had a little play with putting in new parts. To give you the most options a low PI car will allow you to play with upgrades, my McLaren F1 couldn’t have any engine upgrades and had its power limited to 600hp through a restrictor.
Packed races - The races on unbeatable are really tight, some real fun close racing. Cars are solid and feel rightly heavy when you knock into each other. AI is unforgiving and will hold the racing line especially when you go around the outside and shoulder you out on the grass.
Suzuka is back - Great to have Suzuka back and its amazing in the wet. Looking forward to coming across Maple Valley
Driver view - I chose the McLaren F1 as my first car, so I could sit in the middle and look out without seeing the steering wheel. I’ll be using this most of the time.
HUD configuration - seem to be a lot more options for setting up your HUD which I liked.
Other stuff
I imported designs and vinyls from the previous Forza games without a problem, haven’t looked at them yet on the track though.
Got all my VIP stuff and F&F pack straight from the start
Haven’t cranked up the volume yet due to everyone else sleeping, looking forward to hearing the engines.
Will try split screen with the kids at the weekend.
Thanks Turn 10, I’m going to really enjoy this game, hope you all enjoy too.
Just a note mate, you can change race length in I think its the assists menu, right at the bottom, the narrator dude actually mentions it. Just check the various option menus and you’ll come across it
I couldn’t agree more old pal great to see the old tracks & for me the lower down cars feel like they have more character & are fun again,I’ve not enjoy forza 5 or any of the horizons but this one feels like the fun of the original games with all the great new features the series has picked up along the way
Winston Wolf you old dog, how goes it?
Was just thinking about the good ole days the other night and when you entered that 350z into my tuning comp. Happy days.
Only done a few races but so far so good , feels a bit like a cross between grid 1 dirt 2 and forza 4 ( all in a good way ) love that we can now change race length.
First impressions = good.
You forgot to add in the Negatives about the VIP system not being permanent like in the past and only being given credit cards to use as mods for 25 races. I agree with you overall on your review, but this whole VIP thing is really putting a sour taste in my mouth.
Edit: The load times are not bad if you are able to use an external SSD to load the game on.
The game is really good if class based leaderboards and homologation leaderboards aren’t your thing and the UI doesn’t bug you. Also seems you haven’t tried tuning when not waiting for a race.
Basically single player is pretty good from what I’ve seen. Once you try doing other stuff it gets frustrating.
Everything else is pretty much fantastic though I spent probably three and a half hours playing last night doing the beginning of the game getting all my free cars and doing some races and I loved it. You hardly notice the loading times because you can do your upgrades and tuning and assist changing within the menu.
A big positive is that you can go from tuning to upgrades menu and back with a button press and the test drive feature is back. You can test drive on the track you will be racing with that car from the race loading menu which is pretty awesome.
The one thing I did not like as mentioned in the OP is the short race length at the beginning of the seeker cup. There is an option to adjust the race length but it’s pretty poor. You have three choices, standard, long, extra long. And in that first set of Secret Cup races those race lengths are two laps, 20 laps, or 50 laps. Two laps is ridiculously short to race clean and have any meaningful hope of a good finishing position when you start so far back in the pack. At almost three minutes a lap on some of those cracks what if I want to do a decent raise but don’t always have an hour to do a 20 lap race? I don’t think it would be hard to make a slider for that option or simply give more numerical options to choose from even if they just did increments of five you could have a race from two laps, five laps, 10 laps, 15 laps and so on so on until you get to 50 laps.
Not sure the tuning thing will bug me, maybe just need to change the way you do things. For example if you have a car you want to tune, crack open free play, load up your tuning circuit for that type of build (Nurb GP is my tuning track) get the screwdriver out and go give it a test.
Maybe just a different way of doing things?
Game is only good for the new school casual horizon player.
They removed last bit of key features for the old forza that kept playing.
It’s like taking MP out of COD and replace it full zombie mode only.
I don’t think its that good. I’ll stick to Project Cars 2 if I want realistic racing… But Forza is fun even though they have sucked that out of this installment
So far I like it. The option to make longer races in the career with the improved drivatars are the best news for me. The player is not forced to smash through the entire field in two laps - I had some really fun and races so far, it was a pleasant surprise. The first couple of corners could be a little messy but after that I had some good battles.
The physics also better now: less punishing but I wouldn’t say its less realistic. The grip loss and regain is more controllable and progressive and the curbs doesn’t send the car airborne instantly: good example is the fast left-right in VIR in the middle section before the fast uphill right-hander. In overall single player experience improved.
The core of the game is great, best it’s ever been.
I think a lot of the discussion is revolving around specific features that each player liked in the past that have either been changed or removed.
I don’t think there is anything fundamentally wrong with this game but there are quite a few “quality of life” quirks that are driving some criticism on the forum.
Wait until you’ve finished the career Kev. What is it that keeps you coming back for more? If it’s multiplayer racing you might be OK but I don’t go anywhere near it. The things that keep me playing Forza games have been removed. I’ll be switching back to Horizon 3 or FM6 unless some things are changed.
The absence of leaderboards is the game breaker for me. As you know I’ve just finished a 36 week series of Hot Lap Competitions on Horizon 3 with the intention of starting up on FM7. How is that possible without leaderboards? This decision by Turn 10 caught me by surprise. If I had known before pre-ordering I wouldn’t have bothered. This will be the first Forza title that I haven’t played non-stop for 12 months minimum. There is nothing in this game to hold my attention and I’m sad.
On top of all that, the UI is a shambles. They have managed to spoil the tuning interface and the painting and vinyl design editor. Why?
Driving is ok, but why do we race? Most of us do this to compete with friends and others, but the possibility of racing your friends ghost or just your friends times on a leaderboard is gone and therefor the game itself is very bad.
Its actually one of the biggest flaws I seen in a game seeing its essential for racing to have a leaderboard!