Forza Motorsport: Week in Review 8/17/12

New babies (Baby Mech), new games (Forza Horizon) and new DLC (August Playseat Car Pack) for Forza Motorsport 4. That’s a whole lotta good new stuff! Needless to say it has been keeping all of us here at Turn 10 plenty busy.

With that in mind let’s get straight to the meat of it… welcome to the Week in Review!

New Horizon Screenshots! 

As we all prepare for the upcoming release of Forza Horizon, we are amping up the excitement with some never-before-seen screenshots from the game to tease and tantalize you. Keep your eyes out on our official Facebook page and our Twitter to feast on every bit of Horizon goodness as we release the shots. Just this week, we’ve released two new shots (which you can see here in this edition of the WIR) and we’ve got more coming next week. You can expect daily shots next week too, as well as the start of our much-anticipated car roster reveal for Forza Horizon. Stay tuned and, if you haven’t already, pre-order your copy of Forza Horizon now to get one of the sweet pre-order-only cars and the 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 to race in Forza Motorsport 4. And if you have your Horizon-themed Challenger, you can use it right now in our specially built Rivals Mode event "Race to Colorado" (found in the Community Monthly channel of Rivals Mode). Look for a new monthly Rivals Mode entry in the "Race to Colorado" series each month as we lead up to Forza Horizon's release starting on Oct. 23!

Playseat Challenge 

The August Playseat Challenge is still going on and there is plenty of time this month for you to lay down a clean lap time on Twin Ring Motegi East in this monthly rivals challenge. The top time will win a Forza Motorsport 4 Playseat Limited Edition sim-racing chassis; the four runners-up will get some cool Playseat swag.

Even if you know achieving the top time is out of your league, give the 2013 Lexus GS350 F Sport sample car from the August Playseat Car Pack a few turns at Motegi to experience its raw but tamable power.

Forza Life Lessons 

While Brian left Week in Review duties to me this week, he did have this to say about the “Forza Life Lessons” discussion thread from last week’s WIR edition:

“Thanks for all the congratulations and well-wishes for the Mechberg family. Mason (aka Mechberg 2.0) is happy little guy so far and I’m sure he can’t wait to (eventually) get online and drive some Forza with you all. I was feeling especially generous and gave everyone who responded to my thread from last week the unicorn car of their choice—think of it as the online equivalent of a new Dad passing out cigars in the hospital waiting room!

Thanks also to everyone who shared such great advice gleaned from the Forza series over the years. The responses were great and ran the gamut. There was humorous advice:

"don't underestimate how fast a man will drive because of his hatred of the Red Sox." -- Kamek69 

"My forza life lesson is Throttle control. You have to know when to ease it up and when to give it your all. Kind of like arguing with your wife, you have to pick your battles. When to let go of things and when to stand your ground." -- FOOLonTH3HILL 

"Never underestimate a mans will to get revenge if you wreck him in his favorite car..." I KIL U 88 

And some philosophical tenants to live by:

"there is always room for improvement" -- Ofai 

"Patients, Life is exciting and has a lot to offer, but one cannot just rush in to anything without a bit of planning.  There is potential peril and failure for blindly making a mad dash for the finish line." Tuff Puppers 

And, of course, more than a little very practical advice:

"when i first played forza 2 i had just started my light vehicle technician apprenticeship since then i have became a fully qualified mechanic alot of forza helped me through my exams and observations, forza helped alot when it came to suspension and brake set ups for things like camber castor toe in toe out i could rant on for hours but even though its just a computer game it has given me part of my education and life cheers forza!" -- omni jake 

"Stay Calm & Collected & let the other guys make the mistakes!!!!" -- kev7354 

Great stuff, folks!”

Community photo contest winner from Volkswagen yo 

Made for Mech Update 

As we are sure you can understand Mech has been very busy this week, not only with his new bundle of joy at home but he has been busy working on the unveiling of Forza Horizon cars. To give the credit and appreciation due those that made tunes for him to rock his way up the leaderboards in the “Hoosier Daddy” Rivals mode event, we are extending this week’s “Made for Mech.” So keep submitting your tunes for the 2013 Scion FR-S on the Forza Motorsport 4 storefront with the keyword “MECHBERG FRS”.

Next Friday in the Week in Review we will post his top picks that either improved his standing or were excessively fun to drive with. Thanks to everyone who has submitted a tune.

FYI About DLC—August 

In celebration of the August Playseat Car Pack we put out another request for cool intel about the cars of the pack to follow fun facts I posted in the FYI About DLC article. We gave out unicorns to all posters through page eight. Below are a few of our favorites.

lSl lAl lMl for his page one summary of Group B rally cars and the Peugeot T16

DigitalHitmanXL for his coverage and pics of the Boss, the ZL1, the T16 and the FR-S

boehlahz for the internet research and Forza shots of the Lincoln Continental. 

and CKarLCB for posting the full specs and and a cool pic of the Mercedes’-Sauber C9

There were many excellent posts and a lot of interesting tidbits, thank you all for your contributions.

Community phot contest second place from Maiden ftw92 

Turn 10 Track Day – Road America 

Join us on the official Forza Motorsport Facebook page for another Turn 10 Track Day event, coming this Saturday, August 18 for the Road America Road Race Showcase. Watch the race live with us on ESPN3 or on the ESPN app on Xbox LIVE beginning at 3:15 p.m. Eastern.

We will be giving out August Playseat Car Pack codes, unicorns galore and generally enjoying ourselves and your fine company via the our Official Facebook chat app. Who knows, we might even run a few laps around Road America with you after the race.

Community-designed Rivals event 

A few months ago we had a Community Bounty Hunter event built around the “Among Giants” Rivals Mode event. Players were tasked with weaving their small car through a maze of behemoth SUVs and, many players claim this as the hardest rivals event to date. Now with the help of Forza community member oXI ENIGMAZ IXo the community gets their chance at revenge on the same track with “Revenge of the Giants”. This is the first of many community-designed events in Rivals Mode; follow Forzamotorsport.net to find out more details on upcoming Rivals Mode events.

September VIP Polls 

Our Facebook poll for the September VIP Rivals event will be going up later this evening, but here is a sneak peak at the question and candidates:

As the 2012 Olympics have left their mark on London, this month VIP’s will be racing British built metal. Which manufacturer from the U.K. should they be racing this month? You decide.

Jaguar

Lotus

Aston Martin

Bentley

Land Rover

TVR

Vauxhall

Keep an eye on our Facebook page for the poll so you can get your vote in!

Cool Tandem Drift Video 

These guys are just having fun and you can tell. It’s easy to have fun doing what you love. I can attest to that. Thanks to SatNiteEduardo for finding and submitting this. Put together by Xtreme Drifters. Check out their Facebook page for more cool Forza 4 videos.

That’s it for this week, folks. Get ready for more Forza Horizon reveals next week, don’t forget to join us for our Turn 10 Track Day on Saturday and, as always, have a great weekend everyone!