E3 2009: Forza 3 in Seven Dan Greenawalt Quotes

"Mark my words, five years from now every racing game is going to have rewind."

Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt, on one of Forza 3's new features, the rewind button. Full Auto was the first driving game I can remember that gave players a do-over via rewinding time, and Forza 3's definitely the first sim game to adopt it. Think it makes the game too easy? Greenawalt noted that that's what everyone said when the 'restart race' option first appeared in driving sims.

"Physics is my happy place"

Which helps explain Forza's relentlessly comprehensive physics modelling. Greenawalt said Forza 3 now even takes into account tire sidewall deformation when cornering.

"If you're a racing game and you're not running at 60 [frames-per-second], you're not a racing game."

I'm not going to argue. Although it does clash with what the Forza team was saying back when Forza 1 was 30fps....

"We've got a game that makes a race car driver sweat, but it's playable by a six-year-old."

Greenawalt's concerned about the accessibility -- or maybe inaccessibility is a more accurate term -- of driving sims. Forza 3's driving aids include an 'auto-brake' option; combine that with the usual traction control, ABS, and superimposed driving line and staying on the track isn't too hard, as long as you don't mind the computer's help. Turn all those things off if you're already pro (though you might want to leave the ABS on).

"Your level sucks."

Greenawalt's a big fan of UGC (user-generated content, we like that at Bitmob, too), but not such a fan of track editors. Because building a good track is hard as hell, and you probably don't know how. Designing liveries, tuning, and video editing is hard as well, and Forza 3 will help you find the best community-created content by letting players rank the most talented producers. Along with the above three disciplines, photographers and 'social coordinators' will also be recognized and sorted into their own leaderboards.

"I'm excited to see what the community comes up with. And a little scared."

Forza 3 will offer a rules editor for online games, so players can create their own game modes, such as variations on tag. Like other UGC, the highest-rated modes will rise to the top.

"Less than 10% [of players] use cockpit [view]. Everybody tries it."

I asked Greenawalt what he thought of Need for Speed Shift's new cockpit cam, which more closely mimics the movement of a driver's head, leaning forward under braking, bouncing around when off-track. He wasn't a huge fan. I think it looks pretty cool, and contributes well to Shift's stylized aesthetic, but could get annoying after a while.

So does Greenawalt use cockpit view himself? Nope. It's harder to see the track from that vantage point, and "I want to win." Oops, I guess that's eight quotes.

(5)

Peter Thompson

June 04, 2009

I've been a fan of Forza ever since I rented the first game back when it came out. I liked it more than Gran Turismo because it felt a lot more assessable and I liked how you could get some cool cars early on.

David Costello

I think he's dead on about cockpit view. I think you should have a cool immersive cockpit view, but NFS: Shift seems to be overdoing it. There's too much there, visually and from the amount of development time being invested. Forza 3's looked fine and that's all it needs to do.

Toby Davis

Makes me want to play this game at least once to see what is the coolness

Alexei GB

I was never a fan of racing games in general, so when I got a free copy of Forza 2 I never even took it out of the plastic wrap. However, when my girlfriend recently wanted something to play and asked me why I didn't have any "driving games," I remembered I had this tucked away and I finally booted it up. What do you know, it was a lot of fun for both of us, even if she kinda sucked at it! I can't say I'm not a racing convert, but I've been thinking about playing it some more and the coverage of Forza 3 honestly has me excited for once about a new racing game.

@ Demien: Nice coverage! I like this approach, using a sort of preview structure to fill out what was most likely an otherwise buzz-wordy set of interview answers from Mr. Greeawalt. But I'd honestly like to know what you think. This is blogging, no need to hold back your own opinion so completely.

You said you've seen Need For Speed Shift in action, do you think the more Arcadey feel of that game would be more fun for a short term user like my girlfriend, who isn't obsessed with tracking stats and leveling up? And does Shift hit the 60 fps mark as smoothly as Forza? (I've heard it in fact does not...)

Andrew Thompson

I don't know what all the hubbub over NFS Shift's cockpit cam is all about - it looks identical to the PGR cockpit cam. It's probably great too, but it's not "revolutionary!"

Also, for the record, when I used cockpit view in PGR the extra movement never bothered me for a minute. I think Greenawalt is dipping into marketing-speak when he talks about it getting annoying.

Whatever though. I'm really looking forward to Forza 3. I played through the first one, never picked up the second, but now I'm probably going to buy it while I wait for 3.