All Articles: Forza Motorsport 4
Leaked Forza 4 gameplay video is real, says Microsoft
Forza Motorsport 4, with some neat Kinect-based features, was first shown off at last year’s E3 expo. Yesterday, April 1st, a new video showcasing some gameplay footage and more of the Kinect motion controls leaked onto the Internet. Microsoft could have passed the whole thing off as an April Fools’ Day hoax, but instead, they confirmed to CVG that the whole thing is real:
“The video in question was not intended for public distribution and may not accurately reflect features and functionality that ship in Forza Motorsport 4. We will have more to share on Forza Motorsport 4 in the near future.”
Just a guess, but I bet that “near future” reveal will be at E3 2011.
A look at Forza Motorsport 4’s development
After Forza 3‘s two year-plus performance at retail was outsold by Gran Turismo 5 in little over a month, Turn 10 Studios is hard at work to take the racing sim crown with Forza Motorsport 4. This hard work was recently exposed in an excellent article at MSN Autos, exploring how racing games like Gran Turismo, Forza, and the upcoming NASCAR The Game 2011 translate real world driving into interactive entertainment.
As you can imagine, developing these racing sims is getting really insane. For example, Turn 10 is incorporating proprietary performance data from tire manufacturers like Pirelli to emulate how tires grip and slip in the game. Additionally, the team spends two three days accumulating terabytes of video and pictures to render every track down to subcentimeter accuracy. Finally, the developers teased a little bit about “Kinect-only Mode,” where you’ll be able to lean inside of the car in cockpit view to peek around blind corners or your competitors’ vehicles. The article also features input from the developers of NASCAR The Game 2011.
It’s been a big day for racing game news, and any fan of the sim sub-genre in particular should check out the article. Racing games are just as guilty as FPS for over-saturating the market this generation, but with the games still breaking new ground in accuracy, bring ’em on I say.