Forza + Gran Turismo = Racing Ecstasy

This year's E3 unleashed what is for gamers who love racing: Heaven. Both Turn 10 Studios (T10) and Polyphony Digital (PD) showed up to L.A. with their guns blazing and both left everyone in attendance saying, "I WANT IT NOW!" Unfortunately for Gran Turismo fans and gamers who only own a Playstation 3, there is still no official release date for Gran Turismo 5. Rumors have come about with a release date slating it for November in Europe, but there has been no official word from PD. Though, unlike T10's secret approach with Forza 3, PD has been slowly letting gamers get a taste of Gran Turismo 5 via the Playstation Network with Gran Turismo HD Concept and later with the "supersized demo" Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. T10 has kept Forza 3 a secret (even though we all saw it coming) up until E3, then surprised everyone with the release date of October 27th, 2009. So let's break down both what has been speculated and what has been officially said for both games.

Let's start with Forza Motorsport 3. Officially, T10 came out at E3 showing that yes the game is coming and it's coming out on October 27th, 2009. They've said that it will be on 2 discs, there is a collector's edition that comes with bonuses such as: "Forza Motorsport 2GB USB Storage and keychain: Show off your Forza pride with these specially branded items. Forza Motorsport VIP Membership* and Exclusive Car Pack*: Want to be a top painter, tuner, driver or just more active in the community? VIP membership is the way to get yourself noticed. Includes special treatment within the online Auction House, Community Storefront and on the Forzamotorsport.net forums. Also includes 5 of the hottest cars from the roster of Forza Motorsport 3, available only through your VIP membership. Exclusive Collector’s Edition Car Pack*: This one is for the fans. This pack includes 5 cars that have been hand tuned and hand painted by the developers at Turn 10 to fly the Forza Motorsport colors. Exclusive Forza Motorsport 3 Theme:* Customize your Dashboard experience with this limited availability Xbox 360 theme." -(Gamestop.com) Also T10 has officially said that there will be over 400 cars in the game (excluding DLC and CE cars) as well as over 100 tracks.

The biggest aspect of Forza is and has always been realistic physics and T10 claims to have raised the bar yet again. Officially T10 has revealed that there will be obscenely realistic physics all the way down to tire flex. Also they have shown that you can, in fact, roll your car in the game and that if you mess up during a race you can press the back button to enter rewind and try and fix whatever it was that you did wrong without having to restart the race. T10 has also said that the car models in Forza 3 contain 10 times the number of polygons from the cars in Forza 2, in other words, the cars look like sex. As far as game modes are concerned, "An innovative single-player season mode puts you through a completely personalized racing calendar that includes more than 200 different events, including Circuit, Oval, Drag, Drift and Timed Events. No two calendars are the same; they react to the cars you love and the races you enjoy most. In addition, the online multiplayer mode* gains an all-new game rules editor. This gives players a never-ending variety of ways to play with friends." -(Forzamotorsport.net) the only other things that have been officially revealed are the prices ($60 for regular $80 for Collector's) and a few cars which I will list after we talk speculation.

What would the internet be like without speculation? We're not going to find out! Ever since the leak of the Forza 3 logo, there has been TONS of speculation about the game, and the devs at T10 just fueled the fire for fun as well. Before the game was announced, the weekly pitpass report that is posted by the T10 devs on their site Forzamotorsport.net talked about "their next big thing" and "water physics". With the logo leak, speculation got as far as the next big thing being Forza Watersports. Someone actually photoshopped the logo to turn the M/roman numeral 3 into a W. It was really quite ridiculous but a lot of people bought into it. Thankfully it was proved false with the unveiling of Forza 3 at E3. But this has me thinking, they haven't officially said that there was going to be weather effects in the game... but they kept talking about water physics. So via the powers of speculation, I'm almost assuming that there will be weather effects in Forza 3. T10 has said that the modification of cars in Forza 3 is much more in depth than Forza 2, but didn't go into detail. One thing that I am hoping for is more tuning options, particularly with boosted cars. Boosted cars have a tendency of having an absurdly high PI rating (which is returning for Forza 3). If we could adjust the boost pressure, we could better tune our cars to specific PI levels so that we can use them in more races. Also, with the inclusion of timed events and drift events, it makes you wonder if the point-to-point races and tracks will be returning from Forza 1. Uphill and Downhill tracks like the point-to-point ones in Forza 1 are perfect for drifting. There has still been no mention of rally racing though T10 has said that they still have tons of feature to announce. There has also been speculation of time of day effects. It's going to be a long few months. Of course, the most speculated thing for racing games is always the car list. So here is a list of confirmed and rumored cars for Forza 3. The cars in the list are speculated unless otherwise noted.

Alfa Romeo:

8C (confirmed)

Audi:

R8 V10 (confirmed)

R8 race car (confirmed)

R10 TDI (confirmed)

TT-S

S4

S5

Aston Martin:

DBS (confirmed)

DB5 Vantage (confirmed)

DB9

Bentley:

Speed 8 (confirmed)

BMW:

V12 LMR (confirmed)

'08 135i (confirmed)

'09 M3

M5

Z4

Cadillac:

Northstar LMP (confirmed)

'09 CTS-V (confirmed)

XLR

Chevrolet:

'06 Corvette Z06 (confirmed)

'09 Corvette ZR1 (confirmed)

'10 Camaro SS

Cobalt SS

Dodge:

Challenger SRT8 (confirmed)

Viper SRT10 ACR (confirmed)

Charger SRT8

Ferrari:

F333SP (confirmed)

California (confirmed)

F430 Scuderia (confirmed)

599 GTB (confirmed)

F50

F40

Enzo

FXX

Fiat:

500 (confirmed)

Ford:

GT (confirmed)

'68 GT 500 KR (confirmed)

'10 GT500

Focus RS

Honda:

NSX (confirmed)

Fit (confirmed)

Civic

S2000

Infiniti:

G37 (confirmed)

Jaguar:

XKR-S (confirmed)

XJ220

Lamborghini:

Murcielago LP-640 (confirmed)

Murcielago LP-670 SV

Gallardo LP-560-4

Lexus:

IS-F (confirmed)

Lotus:

Elise (confirmed)

Evora (confirmed)

Maserati:

Gran Turismo (confirmed)

Mazda:

Mazdaspeed 3

RX8

6

Mercedes-Benz:

CLS 63 AMG (confirmed)

SLR (confirmed)

ML 63 AMG (confirmed)

SL 65 AMG BLACK (confirmed)

Mitsubishi:

Evo VIII MR (confirmed)

Evo X GSR (confirmed)

Evo IX

Eclipse GSX

3000GT VR-4

Nissan:

GT-R multiple gt class race cars (confirmed)

R390 GT1 (confirmed)

370Z (confirmed)

Sentra (confirmed)

GT-R R33 (confirmed)

GT-R R35

Versa S (confirmed)

GT-R R34

Silvia S15

Pagani:

Zonda C12-S (confirmed)

Zonda R

Porsche:

997 GT2 (confirmed)

997 Turbo

997 GT3

Carrera GT

Caymen S

Subaru:

Impreza STi (confirmed)

Toyota:

GT-one (confirmed)

Yaris (confirmed)

Supra

TVR:

Sagaris (confirmed)

Speed 12

Now on to Gran Turismo 5. Though Forza has taken the throne from the racing kings at PD, Gran Turismo 5 may just be what it takes to reclaim that throne. PD hadn't said much officially about GT5 prior to E3. They said it would have tons of cars and super realistic graphics and not much else. GT HD Concept was more or less GT4 reskinned in HD. GT 5 Prologue, as PD said, is about 1/100,000 of what GT 5 will be. It shows a few cars, a few tracks, and a little bit of the new physics. So what all happened at E3? They announced that GT 5 will include NASCAR, FIA WRC, damage modeling, weather effects, and time of day effects. With the inclusion of NASCAR and FIA WRC brings forth many questions such as, how will the races take place exactly? Will you just randomly have a NASCAR race or will there actually be a league with points and everything? Same goes for FIA WRC. The beginning of the GT 5 E3 trailer shows someone walking in DuPont racing gear exactly like Jeff Gordon's, but whether Jeff Gordon is in the game or they just rendered matching racing gear is in the air. While the game plans to take up all 50GB of space on the dual layer blu ray disc, it does make you wonder how far will they actually take it?

Without a release date still and without much official talk of what will be in the game, I can't quite comment on GT 5 as much as I can on Forza. Will they be able to get roll overs like Forza? Will their new physics engine compare to the one that Forza blew GT3 and 4 out of the water with? This is all speculation of course. Gran Turismo will likely have a larger car list than Forza just based off what they have done in previous games and their larger disc space. Even with 2 dual layer dvds, Gran Turismo 5 has more than twice the space Forza 3 has to use. But will Gran Turismo suffer the repeating cars that past GT games have? Will there be 300 different kinds of Civics again? Will all the american cars sound like vacuum cleaners again? Will you be able to mod the cars in more detail? Will you be able to mod race cars again? Tons of questions still remain. As far as car lists go, you can pretty much rest assured that everything from GT HD Concept and GT 5 Prologue will be in Gran Turismo 5. The tuned versions of the cars on the GT5-P list will likely not return, though, that is assuming they bring back the option to mod your car (which they better bring back or I'll be pissed!). Obviously you can add stock cars from NASCAR and a few rally cars the list.

From GT 5 E3 trailer:

Various NSX gt class

Citroen rally car

Various GT-R R35 gt class

Maserati MC12 gt class

Various Supra gt class

350Z gt class

RX7 gt class

Ford Focus rally car

Suzuki rally car

Subaru WRX STi rally car

R33 Skyline (clearly modded)

Ford GT (clearly modded)

Corvette Z06 (clearly modded)

Bugatti Veyron? (can't tell, if it is, it's modded)

Mercedes Benz SLR

Mazda 787B

Audi R10 TDI

From GT HD-C:

1995 Suzuki Cappucino

1989 Mazda Eunos Roadster

2004 Honda Integra TYPE R

1996 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV GSR

2006 Infiniti G35 Coupe

2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX GSR

2005 Lotus Elise 111R

1994 Nissan SKYLINE GT-R Vspec II

1995 Toyota Celica GT-FOUR Rally Car

2006 Ferrari 599

From GT5-P:

Acura NSX '91

Alfa Romeo 147 TI 2.0 TWIN SPARK '06

Alfa Romeo Brera Sky Window 3.2 JTS Q4 '06

Amuse S2000 GT1 Turbo

Amuse/Opera Performance Gran Turismo 350Z RS

Art Morrison Corvette'60

Aston Martin DB9 Coupe '06

Audi R8 4.2 FSI R tronic '07

Audi TT Coupe 3.2 quattro '07

Blitz Dunlop ER34 '07

BMW 135i Coupe '07

BMW 135tii '08

BMW M3 Coupe '07

BMW Z4 '03

Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (C6) Tuned Car

Chevrolet Corvette Z06 '06

Citroen C4 Coupe 2.0VTS '06

Clio Renault Sport V6 24V Tuned Car

Daihatsu Copen Active Top '02

Daihatsu OFC-1 '07

Dodge Viper GTS

Dodge Viper SRT10 Coupe

Dodge Viper SRT10 Coupe Tuned Car

Ferrari 512BB '76

Ferrari 599 '06

Ferrari F40 '90

Ferrari F430 '06

Ford Focus ST '06

Ford GT '05

Ford GT Tuned Car

Ford Mustang V8 GT Coupe Premium '07

Honda Integra TYPE R '04

Honda NSX Type R '02

Jaguar XK Coupe '06

Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione '91

Lexus IS F '07

Lexus IS F Tuned Car

Lotus Elise 111R '04

Lotus Elise 111R Tuned Car

Lotus Elise '96

Lotus Elise Tuned Car

Mazda Atenza Sport (2007 Tokyo Motor Show reference exhibit)

Mazda RX-7 (FD) Special Tuned Car

Mazda RX-7 Spirit R Type A (FD) '02

Mazda RX-7 Spirit R Type A (FD) Tuned Car

Mazda RX-8 Type S '03

Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG '02

Mine's BNR34 Skyline GT-R N1 base '06

Mini Cooper-S '06

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX GSR '05

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X GSR Premium Package '07

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X GSR Tuned Car

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX GSR Tuned Car

Nissan Fairlady Z Version S '07

Nissan GT-R '07

Nissan GT-R Proto '05

Nissan Skyline Coupe (V36) Tuned Car

Nissan Skyline Coupe 370GT Type SP '07

Nissan Skyline Coupe Concept '07

Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec II Nur '02

Nissan Skyline Sedan 350GT Type SP '06

Peugeot 207GTI '07

Peugeot 307cc Premium AVN '04

RE Amemiya FD3S RX-7

Renault Clio Renault Sport V6 24V '00

Subaru Impreza Sedan WRX STI spec C Type RA '05

Subaru Impreza WRX STI (18inch BBS Wheel Option) '07

Suzuki Cappuccino '95

Suzuki Cappuccino Tuned Car

Suzuki Cervo SR '07

Suzuki Swift Sport '07

Suzuki Swift Sport Tuned Car

TVR Tamora '02

TVR Tuscan Speed 6 '00

Volkswagen Golf GTI '01

Volkswagen Golf V GTI '05

Both games seem to have taken their own unique route, and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Some final details if I may. Forza 3's native display is 720p though the Xbox 360 will easily display it in 1080p and most will notice nothing different. GT 5 is native 1080p. Both games claim to run at a smooth 60fps. I'm getting them both, pretty much no matter what.

-CA

NEWs UPDATE 7/8/09: Forza 3 developer Che has just revealed via Forza Motorsport forums that there will NOT be weather effects, night races, or rally races in Forza 3. :-(