Be Excellent To Each Other

The paintshop has been revised - and not entirely for the better.

For example, if you make an bostin design for your car, you cannot then select it all and save it as a vinyl group as in Forza 2. Oh no, you have to have done the vinyl group ENTIRELY in the 'make a vinyl group' mode, which is white background (which you can't change the colour of) and then saved it as such. Want a black background because you're doing white lettering? Then you have to place a huge black square first, and then do all your work on top of it, and then remove the square before saving the group. AAAAAAARGH.

TOP TIP: When you paste in a vinyl group (or indeed reload it in the editor), it's been clumped together into one grouping... you can push A on it to ungroup it and thus edit individual parts of it. I found this out the hard way, as I made Team Maddie lettering with a black background (square primitive) so I could see what the hell I was doing. Except, said square was retained when I saved the group, and at the time I didn't realize I could split the clumping of it to remove the square. And so did the logo again for a third time (the first being when I painted it on the car and didn't know I couldn't then save it for future use as a vinyl group)

Changing vinyls has been smartened up slightly - if you're writing something, for example, you'll find that now it's quicker to paste as many copies as you need of an existing letter and THEN change them all to the statement or word you want en masse, and THEN move them all into position. Start using the interface and you'll see what I mean.

Read how Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5 measure up graphically in this tedious article! The brief 'ah, look at how Forza 3 is indeed nicer than Forza 2' spark will be utterly eroded by the third page of this drivel - at which they quite knowingly declare that it doesn't really matter, in the heat of a race, how many polygons your opponent's Porsche is made of.

They've gotten rid of Class U and R4, I noticed, and you're now allowed to tune some cars in the race classes (although not to the same extent as a normal car).

Hoho! Just did my first point-to-point race, along the Amalfi coast. Their fancy Italian sports cars couldn't compare with the sheer size and power of my Dodge Ram Pickup (in proper Rumble Bee paint too, thank you again rednecks on the Storefront). M. Rossi unwisely invoked my fury by giving me a hard tap, so I utterly crushed his Ferrari into a wall. A later opponent in an Exige wisely stayed back, it was rather amusing watching the top of his roof (for that's about all you can see, you're so high up in this thing) probing desperately around for a gap to get past.

I think we might need a rally tournament in the new year once the stock cars are done.

Can someone explain why and how Forza 3 is better than 2, to the tune of £40 better?

There appears to be a microscopic bit of butter on the cracker.

Amalfi Coast and Fujima Kaido.

That and it's better to drive, and the in-car view works. And looks better. And the menus aren't as annoying. And quick upgrade is quite nice for blasting through the seasons, to get times on the leaderboards which I can then spend the rest of my life improving.

Lettuce?

I looked at that eurogamer page that MetalAngel linked, and the screenies of F2 look better than those for F3. I asusme this is some sort of mistake.

So I'm not convinced this is worth full price, as there seems very little that's really new.

A problem with your eyeballs. In person and motion, F3 is clearly better looking, though the brighter lighting can go wrong in-car - some track surfaces become all-glare. A minor complaint.

I thought the same at first, Mr Chris. But then, all they've done is added to it. Yes, all the old stuff (well, most of it - that insane Chrysler concept car seems to be gone) is still there, but there's piles of new stuff, options, tracks. The driving physics are better, the framerate smoother, and it's an all-round improvement in most areas.

Currently on the A34 heading home and I'm going to buy this on the way. Where's the cheapest in-store price found?

Tesco I think, just under £30. Dunno if it was a launch day offer though.

Worth £30, you reckon?

Of course, what else tips in its favour is the Bezzie migration from 2 to 3 - we'll be left with no choice to catch up!

Any confirmation of more than 8 people in a race?

Definitely worth it. I really like cars (I get the urge to play this every time I watch them hooning around their track in a new sports car on Top Gear) and this has them a 'plenty. Plus it now has SUVs and pickups and stock cars, and the Veyron!



The back of the box says online 2-8 player

Anything more concrete than a 'it cost £x in y superstore two weeks ago'?

http://www.gamestracker.com/forza-motor ... ox-360.htm

Zavvi cheapest at the moment on-line - £35.

You've missed the part where I've just re-entered th country and plan on buying it today in a shop.

So what you're asking is whether anyone is in a shop right now looking at a price label on a copy?

No I did read that. I then forgot it 30 seconds later. Goldfish have nothing on me.

Short back and sides please mate.

Not necessarily today, but within the last week say. I guess most people go to supermarkets and suchlike?

Well yeah but looking at games you own to find out how much you could have got it for cheaper had you waited a bit is like scratching itchy balls with a cheese grater.

Bloody chunks fall off you?

I might have a look in Tesco on the way home. Or Game failing that. Asda don't even stock it, as of yesterday.

I guess it is up to the man who's been up 24 hours straight to go browsing then. I can tell I am actually going to end up paying £55 for it.

WAA WAA I WENT ON A LUXURY HOLIDAY AND NOW I'M TIRED.

Cry me a river, emoboy.

Send your wife out to get it for you. That's why you married her, isn't it?

No, I married her because my hand was getting sore from slapping her every time the whingeing bitch moaned that she didn't have any diamonds.

Hang on what? When the fuck did that happen? Weren't they going on about either twelve or sixteen ever since it was announced?

Right, just phoned Tescos they have FM3 currently at £29.87 nationwide.

I don't think you'll get better than that off the high street and you can buy cakes and crisps whilst you're there.

now stop moaning!

Hooraaaay!

Yeah, because GT5 has 16 player. They seem to have quietly dropped that, don't they?

The Egg, I could kiss you.

If it's not all over and with tongues I'm not interested.

If it's in stock in my local store, you bet.

Just give them a call, individual store numbers are on the Tesco website and you get to speak to a real Humanz who can tell you if they have any in stock.

Got it. Anyone up for some races tonight?

The more I play Forza 3, the more I think they've managed to screw the game up quite badly.

How so? After a few hours I have come to the conclusion that the cars drive better and there are some excellent new tracks. I haven't ventured on line yet though.

Is that because she's heard people die while they're trying to find them?

Anyway, good racing last night.

NOTE TO DRG AND OTHERS: The 'staggered start' thing doesn't seem to do what we thought. I chose a rally stage, and sure enough it let us start every 15 seconds, as I'd set it to. However, it started counting MY lap from when myp (who was first) started, which meant that I still lost because his lap time was 2:15 and although I also finished the lap in 2:15, my time was 2:45 because it had started counting when he started even though I wasn't allowed to for 30 seconds.

It could just be I still had a setting wrong.

I bought this yesterday Out of its many things I have one complaint, the brakes appear to be binary.

Now all I need is the fucking Openreach man to turn up with wires n shit & then I can drink drive with you lot

It's a whole host of little things. Having to start from the back (Or near the back, I'm now starting from sixth) on a 3 lap race on a track with no overtaking opportunities means the only real way to win is to barge people out of the way.

The AI seems to make no attempt to not hit you (Suzuka, I was on the outside on a straight, and it still moved over and tipped my rear into a spin)

But more than that, the AI suffers from computer-game-3-lap-AI-syndrome. That is, it's shit, even on hard.

If you remove the single player racing section from it, it's much better than FM2.

I've never come across a race series that has no qualifying of any form, and has only 2 or 3 laps, but that's the entirty of the single player I've played.

(Oh, and Amalfi coast has to be one of the worst racing courses ever)

So are you saying it's still only 8 player multiplayer? If so, that's very shit.

Thanks to the 8 player thing and Dave I'm not seeing any reasons to upgrade from F2 here.

I'm with Kissyfur.

It has all of the F2 content plus a big chunk more. That's a good thing, not a bad thing; it's like the Rock Band 1->Rock Band 2 song import.

I've not found the AI bad at all, really.

Enjoyed the brief online play last night with Myps and Kalmar - particularly once I'd got used to the fierce brakes on the FXX and accommodating the much much shorter braking distances needed around Silverstone. That car is quick. I went back into career mode after and the race I had to do next was A class around Silverstone which I used my tweaked R8 V10 and that felt slow and heavy in comparison.

Online the racing feels a lot more fun and a lot less twitchy than F2

That would be true, if all the Rock Band 1 tracks were already in RB2 out of the box.

After Gamestation failed again to get any Borderlands it has now been consigned to the folder marked "opportunity cost" and I have a shiny new steering wheel with my trade-in money instead.

As if my magic I am looking after the offspring this afternoon while Mrs Trousers goes for a job interview. I shall use this opportunity to teach her about opposite lock and oversteer.

It is a bit less twitchy and whilst I can see how this might be a good thing in multiplayer one minor criticism is that it feels almost too hard to spin in single player, it's easy to get it out of shape but it then seems to kind of sit there and nine times out of ten you can recover. Compared to Race Pro where recovering from a near spin is much more difficult and hence more satisfying it seems a bit dumbed down. I guess it's to accommodate the drifters