Safety's Off

Turn 10 Studios, developer of the highly anticipated Forza Motorsport 3, has begun to foster quite an interesting reputation for themselves as time and time again the developer calls out rival racing studios with ludicrously absurd comments at demo showings and interviews. While it’s certainly somewhat admirable that the studio is confident in the quality of its upcoming racer, the remarks being spewed from game director Dan Greenawalt’s mouth are nothing short of pure and utter hyperbolic garbage. A recent interview with Xbox360Achievements.org highlights this fact all too well, and the consistency with which the studio lashes out indirectly (and sometimes very directly) against other racing developers is just laughable. Here’s a sampling of the truly ridiculous (and hilariously ignorant) quotes from the aforementioned interview to get us started.

I play a lot of racing games, including PC racing games and I have not seen anything that is even within years of what we’re delivering here.

Really? That’s so weird, because I could’ve sworn I’ve heard of this Gran Turismo game somewhere. And what about that GTR2 racer? Supposedly it’s pretty advanced too. Must be just a rumor.

We have lift, bump stops that can create a hell of an unbalance in the car, we even simulate the chassis stiffness that I’ve never seen in another game... where, like a Fox Body Mustang just twists under its own torque and it means that the tires can’t stay evenly attached to the road. We even simulate that.

Wow, that’s really deep. Strange then, that you can’t manage to simulate something as simple as a car hitting a concrete slab? It seems like that would be a more immediate concern than the way a Mustang reacts according to its own power.

I could go on and on with this material, and that’s from just a single interview. While I definitely respect that Turn 10 is trying to reignite the Forza flame so to speak, the fact that it’s effectively ignoring competitors like Gran Turismo 5 and even DiRT 2 is unbelievably bad practice. It’s not like Bungie presents a demo at E3 while ranting and raving about how there’s no other shooter on the market that handles the way Halo does. As a developer, you need to have a certain kind of reverence and respect for your competitors, even if they consistently outsell and outperform you. If anything, this should serve as inspiration to make your next project a labor of love that people can put up with the other guys side-to-side and say something along the lines of: “Wow, they really outdid themselves this time.”

With Forza 3, that is not the case. The hype over the much-improved graphics engine has led to a general feeling of disappointment as gamers finally got their hands on the recently released demo. The lighting model looks strangely “off”, illuminating the cars in a slightly cartoonish fashion that makes colors pop far too much and jaggies far too evident. Leading up to the release of the demo, trailers and gameplay videos never really made this fact apparent, but once I managed to get behind the poorly-rendered cockpit of the demo’s Mini Cooper (I’ve actually driven a Mini a few times in my life, and let me tell you, Forza does NOT represent the interior well) my hopes for a graphical competitor to Gran Turismo were dashed. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, which released a little over a year ago, still manages to outpace Forza 3, all the while Forza is being heralded by the big wigs at Microsoft and many outspoken members of Turn 10 as the best-looking racer on the market. If the “market” doesn’t consist of DiRT 2 or any of the PS3-exclusive Gran Turismos, then yea, this statement would be 100% correct, but for those of us living in the real world, it’s complete and utter bullshit.

Gran Turismo 5’s graphics easily rival real-life at times. 

But wait, you say. Forza is all about the under-the-hood performance calculations and rarely seen physics flourishes! While normally I’d be inclined to agree with you, these have little to no effect on roughly 90% of the driving experience. When you’re racing on the road, your car will handle pretty much like every other racing game out there with asphalt tracks (albeit less exciting because of the poor sense of speed, a recurring problem with the Forza franchise). The only time all these supposed “advanced calculations” come into play is in very, very rare situations, and even then, you likely won’t think to yourself: “OMG! That’s totally what the car would have done in real life!” What’s most disappointing about these physics, however, is the fact that crashing your car in Forza is painfully underwhelming. Even in a game like Need for Speed: Shift, which has comparable damage modeling (meaning it’s terribly lacking) makes crashes interesting by blurring the screen and violently shaking the camera while your car smashing the center divide creates a nasty crunch of bending metal and shattering glass. In Forza, there is nothing exciting or remotely thrilling about smashing your very expensive car into a wall. In fact, there’s nothing to marvel at in any way when your Audi R8 side swipes a reckless driver as he speeds past you, because the damage modeling is almost IDENTICAL to Forza 2’s. A scrape here, some paint removed there. The whole ordeal is so unspectacular it makes one wonder what the hell the team at Turn 10 has been doing for the last couple years. Granted, Gran Turismo 5’s damage modeling isn’t anything to write home about either, but at least bits and pieces fall off after impacts and doors swing off their hinges so that it’s apparent from even the cockpit view that your car has been affected by that 50 MPH head-on collision.

I could go on and on about Forza 3’s shortcomings, namely the absolutely dreadful cockpit view and pitiful sense of speed, but really I’m just going to let Turn 10 embarrass itself further and laugh my ass off when Gran Turismo 5 eventually comes out and Forza is left in the dust. It’s not often that I want a game to fail, and even more uncommon for me to want a developer to get humiliated, but the fact that Polyphony is speaking with gorgeous trailers and screenshots, while Turn 10 retorts with childish remarks and not so subtle insults makes me wonder just how hard the developer is trying to sabotage its upcoming release. Turn 10, you should be ashamed. Well played, Polyphony. Actions really are louder than words.

- Adriaan Noordzij

Love the article? Hate my guts? Check your fanboy rage at the door and leave a comment!

With the release of the newest Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer trailer, it looks like Infinity Ward has shown off a few, previously unconfirmed features that play on the developer’s past comments on making players “more famous,” as well as revealed some interesting new content that hasn’t been mentioned before. A few of the changes are immediately apparent, while others are not so obvious. Let’s take a look at the more visible changes first, shall we? If you don’t feel like reading, scroll down to the bottom to watch the video, then come back for details!

New Weapons/Equipment

This one is both expected and ridiculously obvious. Right off the bat, the trailer showcases the new SCAR-H assault rifle, complete with default iron sights and stock sand-brown paint job. In front of the player is a teammate with a riot shield leading the way, albeit without a weapon to defend himself with. The fact that the riot shield strips the player of most offensive capabilities will be an interesting thing to watch play out for sure (you can still kill people with riot shield apparently), but from past experiences (Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six) this looks to be a smart design and balance choice for Infinity Ward. By forcing the riot shield user to stick close to teammates, perhaps Modern Warfare 2 will encourage more teamwork amongst players than previously seen in other Call of Duty games. As the trailer progresses, more weapons are unveiled (some were previously announced but never seen in action), such as, in order of appearance, the MP5-K, AUG HBAR, LAW Missile Launcher, TAR-21, AA-12, UMP-45, and of course, Throwing Knives. While the throwing knives are, in my opinion, pretty dumb and out of character with the franchise, their implementation isn’t too bad, and whether or not their usage will be balanced remains to be seen. It does appear that players will only get one for each spawn, so that’s good news. Something else worth noting is the descriptions that appear next to weapons on the ground, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Near the end of the trailer there also appears to be either a new perk, or perhaps new device that disrupts nearby enemies’ radar display. Whether or not this is something you have to activate or merely equip is unknown, but it does not have to be held in-hand as fourzerotwo’s in-game avatar is sniping while the effect continues. While all those things are fairly obvious, let’s look at the less apparent (and more exciting) new additions to Modern Warfare 2, as seen in the trailer.

Customized “Namecards”

The first time the player gets a kill in the trailer, a small “namecard” appears at the bottom of the screen, detailing the enemy’s name, rank, and what looks to be some customizable tags and “gamer pictures” that make the card unique to that player. Think Street Fighter IV’s icon and status customization, and you’ve got a good idea of what to expect from Modern Warfare 2’s namecard system. It looks like ranking up as well as completing challenges will unlock new tags to use for players, and hopefully there is a wide variety of these that will allow individuality to flourish. This is probably what Infinity Ward were referring to when they discussed the prospect of making their players “more famous” in an interview some time ago. While it remains to be seen how far this system goes and how deep players can get into it, it’s still a nice way to identify yourself amongst hordes of players. Next up is something that should make a lot of people happy (including myself), and that would be…

More Attachments/Multiple Attachments

Oh yes. This is something that Call of Duty 4 was sorely lacking, and it looks like Infinity Ward answered the siren’s call for deeper customization of individual weaponry. Near the end of the trailer, the gun the player is holding has both a silencer and a red dot sight affixed to it, and although this could be a perk, it would be awesome to see players experimenting with different combinations of attachments while still maintaining their favorite three perk setup. Also seen in the trailer are new weapon attachments, such as an extended magazine, and “bling” which probably means golden or (let’s hope it isn’t) diamond-encrusted weapons. This last bit is pretty stupid. I know 50 Cent is doing some voicework in the game, but can we keep the flashy jewelry out of the game? This is Modern Warfare 2, not Blood on the Sand. Golden weapons are fine, rhinestones and diamonds are ridiculous. Although “bling” might be a little lame, the last thing gleaned from the trailer is pretty cool.

Different Killstreaks/New Killstreaks

We all know that customized killstreaks are in Modern Warfare 2, but what we didn’t know up until today was that there would be an Airdrop streak, or a Predator Missile streak. What’s even more interesting is that the Airdrop streak is rewarded for a 4-kill streak, rather than one of the previous 3, 5, or 7 killstreaks. From the looks of it, Infinity Ward is probably going to be letting players customize more than just the odd numbered killstreaks, and if I may be so bold to say so, perhaps even double kills or triple kills will yield additional rewards for players to exploit. What additional killstreaks will be available is yet to be revealed, but rest assured most of them should be pretty useful.

While there were some other things that the trailer revealed such as true host migration and a new HUD layout, these are most of the things that Infinity Ward has only hinted at in the past, and it’s pretty interesting to see how they’ve implemented them in this trailer. While some of the features are a little bit out of character, such as the throwing knives and “bling” weapons, most of the concepts look to improve the overall feeling of investment that players gain after being rewarded with tangible items for their in-game accomplishments. Modern Warfare 2 looks set to light the online multiplayer community ablaze this November, but only time will tell whether or not the new features are woven into the fabric of the gameplay seamlessly or not. Until we get our hands on it, it’s pure speculation from here on out. Check out the video below for proof of all the info mentioned in the post!

Enjoy!

Like what you read or saw? Leave a comment!