Jamesways
Member
Mascot said:I fear we've known ALL of the new tracks since 1st April when the leaked trailer emerged:
Bernese Alps
Top Gear Test Track
Hockenheimring
Infineon Raceway
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Although it was dropped for the 'official' trailer that 'five new environments' statement was there for a reason, and there's been nothing in the four months since to suggest that any tracks other than these will ship with the game. I'm bracing myself for that eventuality and have come to accept it. If true, it will undoubtedly be Forza 4's biggest let-down, especially as one of those five (TGTT) is really nothing more than a novelty and will be pretty useless as a racing circuit.
To ignore the rich and varied selection of real-world tracks available (Spa, Interlagos, and Bathurst to name but three) is borderline criminal, as is under-utilising your in-house designers who have proven their ability to create fantastic original racing environments (Maple Valley, Fujimi Kaido, Bernese Alps, Shipyards). If more tracks are planned as DLC to maximise revenue then great, but these need integrating into the career mode for useres to get maximum value from them.
Dan must be living in a bubble if he doesn't realise by now that more tracks above everything else is what the franchise needs, and it shouldn't take an inferior product like Shift 2 to pave the way and show how it should be done.
Forza 4 is still my most anticipated game of 2011 but the lack of track variety will continue to be an albatross around its neck.
Thank god for your post Mascot, I was starting to think I was crazy. Surely I can't be the only one who's a bit concerned about the tracks? I know the game will be great, the graphics look good, the use of the Top Gear license is awesome, they fixed the FOV for the cockpits, etc.
But new cars or not, how different will the experience be if we've been racing on almost all of those tracks from 3, and 80% of those from 2 already? And if they've added no track texture and it's still the glass smooth ride, I worry it's going to feel exactly like the previous games.
I was leery of counting the environments seen in the trailer as officially confirmed, since they ran a trailer that showed Alpine Ring for FM2 and that never made it in. Badned hasn't confirmed Infineon quite yet.
You're right about Shift 2, it has a hefty track list. Toca 2 and Race Pro, another 2 games with great track lists. Real world tracks like these games have really need to be in Forza or GT IMO.
It just seems a shame to tout the ALMS license and add no tracks to it. You can't even run a Championship series in it. Hopefully we'll get some updated cars or liveries at least. The 12-16 car grids will be a big plus for this in custom mixed race lobbies, you can have more than just 2 cars per class now.
I'm still going to buy it the LE day one, still will buy every DLC pack they offer, still going paint a slew of race replicas (I'm a painting OCD addict), but I'm worried about the track variery. Time will tell though, maybe they've got some big surprises left.