Right, managed to get a go of the Laguna Seca build earlier today:
Positives: Game looks glorious. There is no argument here - it is easily the best racing game visually on console this Christmas, and probably, until PCars/GT6. There was some aliasing on the track but nothing like FM4's level and tbh, nothing noticeable once the action got going. Absolutely gutted i didn't get to play a livelier track like Prague 5 or Spa.
The game is a lot less forgiving than Forza 4, IMO. It will be nice to pick up the game and be challenged by my own skills again as well as the cloud AI. I never used a wheel with FM so my views are tainted with console pleasentary but i went into my first go in the P1 thinking i was the 'big i am' turning all the assists off (whilst i could here the groans in the queue behind me) only for me to spectacularly screw up the corkscrew. To this extent it wasn't the newest/shipping physics build AFAIK so this is sort of arbitrary feedback, which brings me to the triggers...
They're great, really, but i think it will take me at least a while to get used to it. At first it felt odd, maybe even wrong, but i can see how in Forza at least they're a top design point. The best way i can describe it is when parts of your body become desensitised after taking recreational substances and it felt like i was fighting, genuinely, to keep the car on the track. I couldn't work out of this was due to the rumble messing with my mind on how much more/less trigger i should give it or if it was a faulty pad, but trying to straighten out the car was a nightmare - in the good sense i guess - and again, i don't know how much was down to the triggers + the less forgiving mechanics.
Negatives: The load times from hell
are back although as we know this is an old build so take with a pinch of salty.
The demo was lacking. It's Laguna Seca with 4 cars over 1 lap. It couldn't be much drier as far as a racing game is concerned.
I suppose a negative could be the impulse triggers but this is probably me being a bitch - i think it will take me a long time to get used to the effect, although "long" here being closer to an hour compared to 4 minutes in the middle of a packed shopping centre in Manchester.
Other: You'd have fooled me if you told me i wa susing a 360 controller and not the new one - ideal.
I got in the dashboard (hehe) and all was smooth. Plenty of balck/blank tiles but you could pan around and, unless i was deceived, it was a Project Butter like performance.
For some reason MS have two controllers plugge dinto their demo-stations and both are the 'master' controllers. I was waiting for the game to start up and got to the 'Press A' to start screen when some chump picks the other controller up, presses A and is control of
my race - WTF MS?
Sorry i couldn't offer more up, and what i've said has pretty much been said before but there's only so much you can take from the outdated demo
Edit: My friend just got back and said he asked one of the reps which TVs were being used and he said he didn't know but they're
720p sets. What?