I agree on both points.
But I can see why T10 would want to say that sort of stuff or get that point across.
Here's a few facts for consideration:
-most racing sim die-hards play on PC, nearly exclusively
-most console racing fans haven't really played proper sim games with proper setups
-there's no one in the gaming media circuit that is a die hard sim racer
With these in consideration GT being the only console sim racer out there for a long time has been considered the best console sim racing game. It has been more feature-packed than previous attempts by other companies. Sega GT anyone?
Fast forward to Summer 2007 when Forza 2 was released. It eclipsed GT4 as a sim and that's expected as it came out later on a more powerful console. It was the first console racer that could compare (though not beat out) PC sim racers. GT:HD came out and then so did GT5
and they didn't prove themselves to be better than FM2. They were very comparable and considered about the same but they were just tastes of the GT5 experience. Though it's not fair to compare Prologue to FM2, FM2 still wins out because it's a full game with all the features you expect. A person can say that FM2 is the best console sim experience and they'd be right...but again you're comparing it to demos, basically. So the media didn't label FM2 as king and were waiting for GT5 to come out to make a proper comparison and that makes sense.
So Turn10 can't really call their game the best sim racer out there, because they're consistently being compared to a product that doesn't exist yet, and hasn't existed for years after being first shown.
And that's not Turn10's fault. Maybe they feel they should get the credit they deserve. People aren't judging GT on its actual merits, but on promises that have yet to come to fruition.
And now they come up with FM3 a game that sounds like it can compare with games like RFactor as both games have a heavy focus on modelling the most realistic tire physics. That it can compare to PC racers in terms of physics. A game that looks better than PC racers (FM2 didn't look better) to boot. So maybe it's time the game/series got some credit.
Is there currently any other console racer that can compete with FM2? No. So should we wait for the competition, or give due where it's due?
I do agree about the "slap around" comment though, it's a bit far and comments like that are unfair because GT5 hasn't come out. You can say that you've delivered and they haven't sure. But you can't say you beat them when their title is coming out so soon and we don't know much about it. You can say your series is the best out now. Yeah. But to say it's the best out for this generation...you can't say that.
But I do agree with Greenwalt, the GT series has stagnated. Many of my friends who I used to race with over FireWire "LAN" parties in Gran Turismo 3 never made the jump to GT4. There wasn't enough of an upgrade for them to warrant buying it. GT5 features better physics so many of us got Prologue (never had a LAN party yet though, we were hoping for decent online play...yeah right) but we don't have that same buzz we had with GT3 that was a big jump. Anyways my point is there were so many ways they could have grown the franchise and they didn't. Forza on the other hand added better collisions where you don't bounce off each other to help take corners, cosmetic damage, parts damage, tire manufacturers, tire pressure/heat, realtime telemetry, etc.. Feature-wise it's what next gen GT should have been.
But yeah, I agree that we keep the zaniness of the GT5 thread away from this one. I'd like to keep an eye on it because the Nascar and WRC licenses are draws for me...but most of the talk will be on Forza on that thread. They talked for pages on the "Rewind" feature before I even pointed out how dumb it was to critique that option and then on the number of cars in Forza (I'm sure if I brought up the number of available tires you could put on the car in each game they'd make the same argument they are arguing against).
Right now I'm focus on getting a racing setup for BOTH games, and so I hope no one minds me talking about racing wheels compatible with both consoles, as well as racing seats,
in this thread. I want to keep it in this thread rather than another one because my biggest goal is getting a 900 degree racing wheel for the 360, that is hopefully multiplat compatible (if not I already have a wheel for the PS3).
If Dan is feeling that Forza isn't getting enough credit...that wheel issue is one problem right there. 900 degree racing wheels have been standard since the PS2 days. It's a major part of the experience and sometimes it doesn't matter how many features you have when your weakest link is the fact that you either play it on a controller or on a crappy wheel (never mind the 270 degree movement the wheel itself was a ripoff). In some ways it's like having a 300+ HP car with tires bought from Walmart. Turn10 did their part but MS totally mishandled the wheel issue.
