Excellent idea for a thread, here's my beef(s)
I have GT4, Forza 1 and 2 and had GT5 Prologue.
GT and Forza are both awesome games
I actively dislike the shitty engine droning in GT and the same damn tire squeel sample since GT3, it's such a small thing but it makes me feel like I'm playing the same damn game each time I play a new one, it's very repetitive and annoying.
That being said, GT4 had absoloutely lovely menu music and I loved the layout of the menu too, the mess was nice with the whole map thing, I felt like I was going from event to event, not just selecting a menu option, I also found the music very un-intrusive and relaxing - you can play GT4 all weekend long and just chill while working on the car and doing stuff, Forza has angst rocker punk rubbish in the menus (although F3 menu is sounding a bit better in the demo)
Forza 1 and 2 specifically have some fantastic physics in the tire squeel noise, engine roar and controller rumble, you really do feel like you have a wheel in your hand and a pedal at your feet, I can totally feel when I'm slipping out because it's just conveyed so well through those things, GT is lacking this feeling a bit.
Back to GT though, I actually DO like the long, dragged out session of owning my first car and loving it, upgrading it and bonding with it, it's like my first real life car, there's something to be said about it that weird attachment.
Forza throws cars at you like I'm some kind of cheap whore, it's good for the gamers who want to try everything but basically it means my first 5 cars I don't bond with and ignore later on, my MX5 in GT4 totally became a tough little beastie that I respected.
Overall both games are great and I'm buying both, if I was to throw a slightly nasty one in to the mix, to be honest I think the GT fans are a bit overly optomistic, GT hasn't delivered much lately, their last full game came out before the FIRST Forza game for goodness sakes.
Furthermore GT fans seem to wildly believe every claim that PD make and I find Forza is very often dismissed by GT fans who have never, ever even played Forza or simply refuse to think it's good (I know 2 of these people, anecdotal but true)
It's as if Forza is 'incapable' of being a good game in their eyes, yet from where I sit, frankly the physics feel better in Forza to me, it's just the charm of GT which keeps me coming back.
Before anyone throws some kind of chip at me for the record, I loved my Xbox 1 more than my PS2 and I love my PS3 far far more than the Xbox 360 I reluctantly purchased for Forza 3 and ME2. I'm not a 'fanboy' of either game, I tire of Forza being dismissed as inferior but I'm most certainly purchasing both games without question.
god help PD if they still include that SAME OLD tire squeel sound though, it's like a magical brown note for my brain and makes me tired (not joking or exaggerating, it actually really makes me tired) I really hope they damn well change it.
In conclusion I give my post an 81.275 or 1 star.
EDIT: I don't intend for this post to start some kind of war, despite this ..well being a debate thread, just like to hear if anyone has some similar thoughts, thanks guys and girls.
One other quick edit: I do have to give the GT series specific credit for the lighting and colours, while Forza may be more detailed in the backgrounds I find, the colour of GT is kind of slightly plain but in an awesome way - it looks closer to what real life does, not over saturated, the lighting and shading of the cars, the colour of the sky, grass and gravel in GT is really really nice though, very realistic looking.
