Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh, man. You are weak!

And this is news...?

Edit -- anyway I'm not weak. I'm overpaid, impulsive, stupid, and weak.

Well let's just wait and see which of us ends up better off when our driving games arrive, eh? Me with a LAN and 2GB flash stick, or you with your silly wheel and pedals.

I should point out at this juncture that the wheel makes me a lot worse at Forza, because all my instincts are wrong and I've never spent long enough with it to rebuild those instincts.

It's a lot more fun though.

And I'm much better at Outrun with it.

And I didn't waste £95.

No. I'm just jealous of your disposable income.

We did have the odd blast you're right.

I doubt I'll be online on weekday evenings, although I'm out of the hotel and into a flat next week there's no internet connection so would need to do some tethering/3G modem shenanigans which may or may not be shit.

I am about on Sunday (at home), if anyone fancies laughing at my dire skills ping me an invite.

Woo and hoo! It's just plopped through the door! Forza3 1 Postie strike 0.

How's the game then Mr itsallwater?

So far it's very good. Pretty much forza 2 but with better looking scenery and better feel while driving. It's, how I would consider, fresh.

Extras disk takes under 2GB to install to HD and to save space you have can customise what cars and tracks you want to install. Menus seem to be faster and slick, yet less flashy than the last game.

Not been as impressed with the music selection so far either.

Only done 4 or 5 races, as I've a mate round for the evening.

Rewind has saved me a few times when dicking around, but not 100% I agree with using it... although with my driving it should help me through some of the tracks.... even if I feel dirty.

With the limited play I've had it's currently a solid 8 out of 10 bananas.

I got carded yesterday - it was returned to the sorting office, not the post office - then the news came in that the strikes are definitely on.

Thankfully, the sorting office was still open this morning so Forza is mine! The key fob is ridiculously heavy.

I thought the strikes started next week.

CURSE YOU, POSTAL WORKERS.

Amazon are apparently still shipping despite the strikes and have arrangements in place with alternative carriers. Here's hoping it arrives tomorrow.

My copy of Windows 7 was ordered through Amazon and they used City Link so you might be ok.

Been doing some more playing and I was really enjoying it until I was presented with my first Forza 2 circuit... farrr to soon into the game. Gone are the marvously rolling mountains and septacular circuit sprawling across new bumpy terrain. BANG back into the same old circuits I'd only just been trying to finish mastering from Forza 2... but whats far far the worse than that, I found that they hadn't even been re-tarmacked. They appear to still have the same oil stains in the same places, as the last time in Forza 2.

The new tracks really do make it seem like a new game but the older ones make me feel, almost instantly , like I'm back playing Forza 2. I wish they'd saved these until I was further into the game. I wanted to be pining for my old friendly tracks instead of being served what feels a bit like a fresh cup of coffee with stale doughnut.

It's still a great game but some of the spit and polish seems to have been lost on re-using old circuits too soon.

Best order this and Borderlands today then.

That's a shame. You're putting me off, now. I found most of the tracks in Forza 2 to be so incredibly, tediously dull. The one from the demo of 3 alone was an absolute breath of fresh air.

Well I'm only 1.5 percent through so far and I'm pretty sure things will get better.

Part of the problem was playing Forza 2 soooo much over the past few weeks means I know most of the tracks too well and dropping the old ones into the new game upset the flow for me. Could be very different if you've not played the game for a while. Also the feel of handling does seem to have been improved.

I had a fright yesterday, the new corner sofa arrived and it was obviously too high for my patented coffee table driving solution. However thanks some lateral thinking I flipped the bottom cushion up and sat on the still cushioned bottom bit and the panic was over. Phew.

WHO'S BEEN FUCKING WITH THE IP BAN SETToh right.

It took me a while butttt

Ha.

Our lovely new CUS:

Is there a sticklebrick trapped inside?

Don't say things like that. You'll make him paranoid.

Apparently game will give me £30 trade in for Need for Speed Shift....treats

Still, thats cost me £5 a go on Need for Speed...not even Virtua Fighter at the arcades cost me that much!

Yay I have this game now, however on this day of all days I have to work from the office, so no lunchtime Forza session. My birthday too

Happy Birthday. Consider yourself lucky in so much as I don't actually have the game yet and I'm doubtful I'll get a chance to get it today or tomorrow.

I put it on for a "quick go" last night and completed seven races. It appears the magic is back. Having that new stand for my wheel has enormously improved matters -- it's rock solid during play and far more comfortable. I actually feel like I might be more better with wheel than pad now.

For example, during a long sweeping right hander, I was toying the throttle to keep the car just on the edge of sliding out. I could feel through the force feedback as the nose got lighter and heavier, so I could keep it right on the edge.

And then it was just a dab of oppo, and I was away.

Hand over your Doctors badge.

Oops. That's what I get for posting before my second cup of coffee. I'm not smart pre-caffeine. Or post-caffeine, for that matter.

It's "more betterer".

I vaguely considered picking this up from Game on the way home.

£54.99!??!!?!?!?

I'm not paying £54.99.

You can get it from the Game webshit for 32 using a 3 pahnd off coupon at the moment. Still haven't heard whether it's actually good or not, though. 2 was like sitting down to a 12 course meal consisting of just Jacobs Crackers with no water to drink.

My £20 limited edition arrived this morning. Woo!

I tired of 2 quite quickly. I got to about level 20 or so, but just had no appetite for it at all towards the end. I nearly didn't get 3. But last night, I was enthralled. I was whooping as I slid past three AI cars on the outside of a sweeping left-hander.

The auto-upgrade and auto-tune car stuff seems to be very good, it'll definitely take the sting out of that bit if you don't like it.

You fucking what?

It was more the "100 bajillion races around the same 6 tracks in slightly different coloured cars" bit that made me cry.

You don't have to use it, it's just there for people who can't be arsed. I'm sure that doing it manually and being canny you'll get your car faster cheaper.

I'm gonna hold off 'til everyone's had it for a while, then pick it up if everyone (especially you, given you felt the same way about 2 as I did) think it's any good over a decently long period.

The one thing putting me off is the track list, though. It seems that too many of them are variations on the same track, or old ones brought through from Forza 2. This doesn't give me a lot of hope.

Choose car. Choose upgrade level (like E250), and it auto-chooses bits to try and hit that performance level.

It's optional, obviously.

I've said it before but being into cars is a bit of a pre-requisite for this game. And to be fair I'm not sure how the marketing could really be any clearer on that.

Yeah. I was more into the second controller with 2.

That's great for online races.

Sounds fine to me - the upgrading stuff seemed rather rote and artificial anyway. Likewise on tuning - I found it immensely tedious fiddling with the settings and test-lapping it, it's not fun to do as it is with a real car.

They almost need a sort of AI garage-guru: "I noticed you're oversteering a lot - I recommend tightening the anti-roll bar 10% and blah blah" - and you press accept or go and fiddle manually if you think you know better.

This was also my thinking. We could propose a "class B race" and buy, upgrade, and tune a car in about a minute flat.

No you couldn't. You could guarantee that somebody wouldn't have the funds, so would have to grind out a joyless race in the career to scrape together the pennies for some new tyres.

I'm surprised that's coming from you.

That's the only reason I got 2, the fact that it came with a wireless controller for cheaper than a wireless controller was normally

I've played up to the second E class championship and so far so good.

Small tip - don't go buying the Clio Sport for the French races as you get to win one pretty soon thereafter.

Menu navigation is still shit - having to back right out from a race again to do a manual upgrade and having to go into the race to see what you're up against performance wise. Dicks.

Yeah silly upgrade section. Sometimes the auto upgrade rapes my bank account.

Also does anyone get really bad Forza 3 performance when you get prompted by someone coming online? I've crashed a couple of time as two people came on line one after the other causing the screen to freeze for a few moments.

I do like the fact that I'm slowly being drip fed Achievement points though.

Fucksake.

I don't know which is worse: the idea of the interface designers not actually playing their game, or the idea of them thinking this is good interface design.