All those nagging questions about the Xbox One aside, I knew I was in once they showed the Forza Motorsport 5 trailer. The Forza series has been a favorite of mine since the first iteration on the original Xbox console. Each Forza has been better than the last, with the last couple able to easily stand with Gran Turismo's best work while welcoming in players rather than shutting out the less-than-hardcore.
There's no question that Turn 10's video, posted yesterday at GameSpot, is PR candy. Let's just get that out of the way right now.
At the same time, the video is a great historical retrospective of a single game developer from the developer itself. Clips of Forza Motorsport and its successors are cut with short clips of Turn 10 staff talking about their past work and the endeavor they're coming up against the tail end of in the next few months, the release of Forza Motorsport 5 as an Xbox One launch game. Fans of Turn 10's work and anyone interested in peeking behind the scenes of game developers should be watching this.
While there isn't anything new in the way of Forza 5 footage, a few tidbits come out of the interviews.
The company is definitely proud of this game and doesn't feel like it's just a first iteration on new hardware the way Forza 2 might be perceived as, or the way each console generation's first Madden game is looked at. They also state explicitly that the game will run at 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second.
The devil is in the details, and so are many of the improvements in Forza 5. Creative director Dan Greenwalt mentions the 0-60 time in Nissan's GT-R and all the computers that make that happen:
"[The GT-R] doesn't break the laws of physics, but we don't always simulate all the laws of physics that make that possible in a last generation game, so we're nowhere near tapped out there."
Much of the work in Forza has been with regard to how the tire interacts with the asphalt. Between Forza Horizon's much wider variety of surfaces and the specs of the Xbox One, the team should have ample room to expand the simulation to make an even more realistic effort for those that want it. The team even talks about an effect called orange peeling that can occur on a car's paint job and how they're able to incorporate that, capitalizing on the imperfections of cars as a way to increase fidelity further.
PR fluff or not, the video has me more excited than ever for Forza Motosport 5. It might be enough to make the Xbox One a day one purchase.
If nothing else, there's tons of awesome beard action going on in this video.
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