Volume 43 -- April 20, 2007
By: Che Chou
Sunday Drive on Mugello Circuit...
Fridays means one thing 'round these parts -- another late night with the Weekly Pitpass Report, a project diary of sorts for us here at Turn 10, developers of console's best racing sim, Forza Motorsport 2. Seeing as we've had over 32,000 unique visitors at the site today who hadn't visited in the past 20 days of April, I'm going to wager that some of you are new to our weekly tradition. If that's the case, please check out our extensive (and probably exhaustive if you tried reading them all in one sitting) archive of previous Pitpass Reports. Yup, go ahead and click on the link. Otherwise, you know what we're here for, and what we plan to do tonight. That's right, it's race weekend and we've got a nice little video of a 3 lap battle for you cooking up on one of our new tracks, Mugello Autodromo Internazionale located in beautiful Tuscany, Italy.
But before we get to the good stuff, let me just address a few things that have cropped up this week. First of all, there's the matter of a release date. Microsoft officially announced today that Forza Motorsport 2 is slated for retail here in North America on 5/29. There's a murmur of disappointment out there, to be sure, but keep in mind that we never did commit to a date in May, simply because we knew, as a dev studio, that we've got little control over stuff like this. We want everyone playing the game as soon as possible, but there's a rhyme and reason for every (non)delay so just keep that in mind. Plus, think of it as just an extra couple weeks you all get to spend familiarizing yourselves with the 24 car demo. Speaking of demo, we're shooting to get that online as soon as it's done going through the rigors of certification. The trial version should be out of our hands early next week, so... <fingers crossed>
Secondly, I just want to comment real quick on Forza 2 cars. As many of you know, we released the last of our vehicle lists (for race-class cars) yesterday, making the total count 310 in-game. But of these 310 cars, 7 of them will be acquired through different circumstances -- so let me explain what these are. If you preorder Forza Motorsport 2, EB or Gamestop should give you an Xbox Live Marketplace code when you pick up your copy of the game that you'll then use to redeem the special Nissan Fairlady Z that's on the cover of the North American version of the game. This is the only way you'll be able to get this car, so if you're a completist, I urge you to go and preorder the game.
If you purchase the Limited Collector's Edition of Forza Motorsport 2, your copy of the game will come with three extra cars not found in the regular version. No, we haven't announced what these cars will be just yet, but don't worry, they're not all super cars that will dominate and destroy the delicate multiplayer eco-system we've tried so hard to nurture in Forza 2. These are just rare cars in the context of the game, and you'll see folks racing 'em online with their own designs on them and you may even kick yourself for not having purchased the LCE version when you were at the store. Like with the Fairlady Z hero car above, you won't be able to get these three LCE cars anywhere else.
Lastly, we've got three unicorn cars in the game which the men behind the curtains here at Turn 10 will be placing onto the FM2 Online Auction House on a daily basis. These are cars that you'll only be able to purchase off the Auction House if you're obsessed enough to complete your Forza 2 car collection. Again, these cars aren't super cars, and they aren't going to magically make you the fastest kid on the block... but they are hard to get and they'll be a status symbol in the community, to be sure. Again, all 7 of these cars that we've mentioned so far will be restricted from gifting and selling. The fun is in the chase! Right?
Anyway, final note I want to make is that there won't be a WPR next Friday as I need to go out of town. Instead, I'm moving the WPR to Thursday. That is all. And now, onto the good stuff!
FM2 Video #1: R2 Battle on Mugello Circuit
It's been a long time coming, but here it is, video of a replay from one of my races against the AI today. As many of you will inevitably ask if this is the latest build, yadda yadda -- yes, this is a pretty late build, but since we're not all on vacation and sipping [insert your drink of choice here] yet, it means we're not 100% finished with the game. So just keep that in mind as you watch this as last minute polish is still being applied. But I dunno, I think this video looks nice and is fairly representative of how final replays will look in the game.
The race itself is 3 laps around the full Mugello circuit in R2 class cars; without edits of any sort, the video came out to be over 6 minutes long. So we cut it down and spliced together the replays of 3 different cars: the ALMS favorite Chevrolet Corvette Racing C6.R, the Xanavi Nissan R390 GT1 (a car we saw in a recent video of a certain other racing game), and a sleek Saleen S7R operated by Konrad Motorsports. The C6.R was driven by yours truly (which I'm sure you'll notice right away), while all other AI were running on "Intermediate" difficulty.
I also want to point out how I created a dream race like this. Since I'm restricted by our licensing agreements with manufacturers on which cars I can show without going through a lengthy approval process of sending them the video for their review, etc., I had to choose my cars carefully. If I were to have just gone into a single-player arcade exhibition race, the AI field would have been picked out based on the class and performance index of the car I chose at random. Instead, I created a multiplayer game in our "system link" mode which essentially allows you to set up your own lobby, complete with all the options and restrictions of a multiplayer game, except you don't even need to be online.
This is an awesome tool to create some "dream battles" between rivalry cars. Plus, you get to choose how many AI you want to race against, which cars they use, and how good they are. Trust me, at Professional, the AI is very very tough (but fair! no rubberbanding going on here). I suspect a lot of you will be setting up rooms like this on Xbox Live, and playing against the AI until your friends or random competition pop into your room to play.
So onto the race itself. It's fairly self-explanatory if you watch carefully. Since we cut between the viewpoint of 3 different cars, you might get a little confused on your first viewing. Keep in mind that in a typical replay after the race (or in the replay theater), you're kept to the events of only one car throughout the race, unless, of course, you switch between cars manually.
During the first couple laps of the race, my C6.R had a pretty heated battle with the Xanavi Calsonic R390, swapping places with "him" a few times. With traction control turned off on this beast, the Corvette loved to get sideways as soon as you went flatout on the throttle. I eventually spun out on the third lap and limped my way to the finish line while the AI battled it out between the R390 and the Saleen S7R which crept its way to the lead and eventually won the race!
If there's one thing I'm really learning to like about Forza 2 over the first game is how much better and more dynamic our AI has gotten. Watch the AI react to my less than orthodox driving during the series of esses after turn 2, and how the pack shifts their position to keep from piling into my line. One car even goes off the track a little. Sometimes, if I'm rubbing a little too much carbon fiber, I almost feel as if the AI takes revenge on me by getting kind of vicious itself. At any rate, treat the AI with the professional racing courtesy as you would on a real-life track and you will have some really tough tooth-and-nail races in single-player.
Anyway, we've encoded two videos for your viewing pleasure. Obviously, I recommend you watch the big, gorgeous, 720p version with the sound turned way, way, up. But just in case you can't handle Forza Motorsport 2 all up in your face on a Friday night, you can also check out the tiny streaming-sized version. Copy them, rehost them, put them on other video sites. Spread the love with these videos. Definitely more of this stuff coming your way next week!
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