I've been playing this all weekend. Somewhere past level 30 at the moment.

I have mixed thoughts so far...

The physics seem to be better in this one. Biggest improvement is probably the tyre model. I feel like it would be a lot more realistic now, if only there wasn't this nasty steering aid stuff that can't be turned off.

I can't help it tho... it feels like a polished FM3 with ruined steering.

FM2 felt like a simulation, like i was in control of the cars... FM3 felt a bit arcadey in comparison (welcome to steering aid), FM4 feels even worse in this regard. Which is a shame, because physics have become better and better since FM2. The controls feel like NFS Shift now sometimes (obviously an exaggeration, but yeah)...

My biggest gripe however is that Porsche isn't in the game anymore. I want my 944 turbo!

Because it won't look cool when the bonnet is open.

Let's light a candle for we agree on something for once!

Quote from Greboth :

A quick google didn't answer this and I am work so can't get away with a lengthy google. I am sure I read you can transfer things from fm3 to fm4 but I can't find details of what. Guessing from Rappa Z logo's we made can be, what about bought logo's? Personal paintjobs? Bought paintjobs? cars from our garage?

Did a quick search and from what i've found... you can import your FM3 save game and depending on your driver level and cars in your garage, you will get credits and "prize cars" in Forza 4. You can also import stickers and complete car designs.

Apparently the import tool will only appear once at the beginning of the game. If you click it away, it won't come back until you delete your FM4 profile and start over.

On a related note, what's with people not giving two shits about other peoples property (cars) anymore?

I remember when this wasn't an issue here in switzerland, but over the last few years became very common... i'm talking about opening your door and hitting the car parked next to you with it while you get out.

I got my car back from the shop just two weeks ago after it was damaged from a hail storm recently. I always park it as good within the parking space as possible to give room to the cars next to it... but i have one big dent in the rear quarter panel and two paint chips in the door again already... i swear if i ever catch one of those bastards they are going to have a bad day... :chair:

Quote from Velociround :

snip

I might be wrong, but i'm pretty sure you didn't manage to fit without bumping into the cars a few times. If it was my car in the front or back and i saw you doing that... i'd have happily slapped you in the face...

Last edited by jibber, Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:11.

Quote from Klutch :

Blown engine = Multiple reasons, you can't put it down to "It blew up because it had a turbo"
Blown parts = Shit/China parts
Blown bank statement = Dont buy shit you can't afford.
Yeah, turbo'ing N\A cars properly are expensive. Who'd have thunk?

Blown gaskets = Depends what type of gasket we're talking...
Warped manifold = Stop buying china parts
A broken 3rd gear = treat the car nicely or get an aftermarket gearset



If you do it properly, all of that shit can be avoided. if you cheap out and don't do it properly, those issues will arise.

You talk a lot of BS when the day is long...

Blown parts on a boosted engine often means blown OEM parts that couldn't handle the additional power. This applies to 99% of people who install an aftermarket turbo setup to their cars, since most people just buy bolt on kits and have no idea what they are doing.

To properly tune a car with a turbo setup means more than bolting on a few parts (even if they are not cheap parts made in china as you say). If you do it properly, you look at an almost new engine compared to the stock engine it once was... the average joe doesn't do this, hence why so many are on their 2nd, 3rd, etc. engine.

Even if you go all the way and update your engine with expensive parts to handle the additional power, you would usually end up with a high-maintenance engine which will inevitably be more expensive to maintain compared to a stock engine from the factory.

There's a few exceptions like the 944 turbo which was built for more power than it had when it left the factory (built for cup races where they ran over 300hp, but the street version was detuned to 250hp... engine internals could easily handle a little more boost when chipped later), but generally speaking, stock engines are not built to handle much more power than they already have.

Just because everybody tells you it's fine, doesn't mean it'll still be fine 20'000km or 50'000km later.

Take an S2000 for example, forged internals and all that jazz from the factory... people will tell you it can handle up to 600hp when boosted... most people run around 350-400hp. Nobody is talking about problems.
But if you dig a little deeper, you'll find that many people have to replace their engine about 40'000km after they boosted the car. Stock engines hold up 200'000km and more easily.

XCNuse is right, boosted cars are expensive and "dangerous" (if you want to call it like that, personally i wouldn't say dangerous, but they'll break down earlier compared to when you leave the engines stock). Which is of course no issue if you have enough money to blow on a new engine every 50'000km.

They look out of place on your car. IMO (taste is individual).

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Cmon people, Spa is worth that money, everything else is meh.. I expected some changes to the online system, maybe racing rules/flags, qualificitions etc..

I'm not saying it's not worth the money. I'm saying PD should give the people a bit more... after taking so much time to release an unfinished game and then nothing for a long time... they manage to come up with two tracks and a few cars.

Quote from sinbad :

Cheaper, but not exactly packed with stuff I want.

Spa is good, but one track for 4 quid or whatever it will be is hardly a bargain, and the race models do not interest me at all, if the karts are better to drive I might be more interested, but only slightly. I'll buy Spa but not the other guff. Paint colours? Racing gear? Crazy.

Agreed.

Not much interesting stuff for such a long waiting time... same goes to the spec II update (basically standard cockpits that'll look ugly as hell).

Quite disappointing after all.

Pull up your pants!

Tried the demo two days ago (pre-ordered the game a few weeks ago).

Everything looks and feels very nice in my opinion. The cars have a good feeling of weight to them and the cockpit view doesn't feel as "dead" as before. There's some shaking and so on... good sense of speed, etc. At first it really felt like an awesome improvement over FM3.

But the steering correction, whatever it is exactly... i hope they'll fix this, but i wouldn't get my hopes up about it... most likely we'll just have to live with it again...

There's auto counter steer, but this time around it's somehow more annoying... not sure what it is exactly, but in FM3 i never had a problem to keep the cars on the road even with the "hidden" steering aid. In the Forza 4 demo, i often get some very nasty snap back oversteer effect when trying to drive the cars sideways. Never had this problem in LFS, Enthusia, GT, FM 1-3, etc... but in this demo it's terrible.

Meh, it'll be fun for racing anyway... still quite disappointed about this however, especially after they said it wouldn't be there anymore (steering assist) in simulation mode.

Is it a Maserati?

I went and looked for some vids on youtube.

Listen what Tiff has to say about it here: http://youtu.be/79__TqWib58
944 part starts at 1:40, listen at 3:45 onwards especially...

Jeremy's take... http://youtu.be/SK7yujspEoQ

Here's a vid from a 944 cup race in 1988 (from which the 944 turbo s derived later that year, basically a track car made street legal)... http://youtu.be/9W9xMGmxCGY

EDIT: Some commercials...
http://youtu.be/0LDWyFta4tU
http://youtu.be/dvTVk0doJJM

Last edited by jibber, Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:08.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

The 944 Turbo S (according to the figures I can find) does 0-60 in 5.6 seconds which is exactly 0.1 seconds quicker than the S2000. In that case it will be down purely to the driver. The 944 Turbo S does the standing 1/4 in 13.9 seconds, exactly 0.1 seconds slower than the S2000 (US Spec, slower than JDM/Euro). - times from here

In gear roll ons will be to the Porches strength but then that's not what the VTEC unit is designed for. Quote weight distributions all you like, there is more than weight distribution to a cars handling ability. Porsche 911, for example?

No doubt the 944 Turbo is a good car, still quite quick and perfectly able; but I have to say I think that a S2000 is a better, faster car and probably quicker around a track. And unfortunately unless we can find a test where is an S2000 and a 944 Turbo racing around a track, in the same conditions, with the same drivers, same tyres, it would be best for the sake of avoiding an internet debate if we just agree to disagree.

You can see some more info here

I have owned both cars and have driven them on various types of roads. Had the 944 for three years and the S2000 for two years. You have driven neither of those cars in your life.

I don't know where you usually get your figures from, but the 944 turbo (250hp version with the bigger turbo) varies from 5.7s (0-60mph) to 5.9s (0-100km/h). The S2000 needs 6.2s from 0-100km/h (dunno about mph figures). That's 0.3 seconds.

Both cars are not the best from a dead start (turbo lag, no vtec), but both have no problems once you get past this "lag" in the first gear and shift at redline into the next ones. The S2000 will start to become slow above 200 km/h while the 944 continues to pull nicely until about 240-250km/h, then starts to pull slower too. When i still had the 944 i met a swiss S2000 on a german autobahn with no traffic... we were next to each other and gave it full throttle from around 100km/h... he could keep up next to me up to 200km/h then started falling back. This is with stock cars by the way... 90% of 944 turbos are chipped and have about 290hp and 400nm at 3'800rpm.

The S2000 is good for twisty stuff with quick weight transfers at 60-100km/h. The 944 turbo is surprisingly good at slow speeds too (but more of a "heavy cow" of course), but way better above those speeds.

It is know about 944's that many were crashed because drivers did underestimate the speed they did and hit the brakes too late (front crashes are common with this car). If you drive a 944 turbo with 200km/h on the autobahn, you feel like you're doing 150km/h... With an S2000 it feels like 250km/h.

Blabla...

PS: 911's are very well "tamed" bad handling concepts that have the benefit of great rear traction.

EDIT: In your second link you compared the smaller turbo version with the S2000. As said above, the bigger version (called "turbo s" in 1988 and later on simply "turbo") has 250hp.
This would be more correct: http://www.zeperfs.com/en/duel975-178.htm

Last edited by jibber, Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:23.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Quoted for LOL. S2000 is 15 years ahead of the 944 which is no lighter, slower and less sophisticated.

My 944 turbo was built in 1990 (developed in 1988), the first S2000 was out in 1999. Thats roughly ten years, not 15. Also, the 944 is a porsche... everybody knows how fast cars they can build (handling wise)... 944's also have a perfect weight balance of 50/50 (S2000 achieves this almost, but not as perfect). In other words... 944's were way ahead of their times (handling wise). And for the record, a 944 turbo is not slower than an S2000... 250 turbo hp and 350nm of torque will win all day, even if the S2000 is a little bit lighter.

You're talking out of your arse again Jamie... which never ends well.

Last edited by jibber, Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:19.

They have great handling capabilities for sure. I would say they are a lot of fun and can reach pretty high corner speeds too, but on fast corners, i think a 944 will outrun an S2000. My 944 turbo felt more stable at high speeds... the S2000 will really shine on tight and twisty mountain roads (slower corners) because of less weight.

The first models (like mine) are known to have very unique handling (bump steer) and a quite aggressive suspension setup. You really have to respect these earlier models and concentrate on what you do, otherwise they will bite you, sometimes almost unexpected. Personally i love it like this, because it makes for a fun ride (if you know what you do), but some people are left clueless until they spin out or crash... i can imagine somebody loosing it with this car indeed.

I still miss my old 944...

Last edited by jibber, Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:12.

Still having fun with this one... (semi-slicks this season, very niiiiice! )

Last edited by jibber, Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:24.

Quote from Klutch :

To me, its like buying a turbo car and never hitting boost.

To us, you are like a human being with a brain, but you never seem to use it.

I was using my winter tyres for the whole summer... (on my daily driver, vw polo). I have a set of wheels with summer tyres, but i was too lazy to change the wheels...

Got it for xbox360. There's some technical flaws, too much bloom and a bit clumsy controls, but the game is good fun.

Can't believe you guys think it's hard. Played it on single player and found it incredibly easy! On level 10 so far...

Quote from G!NhO :

Cocks drive bmw's? haha oke

but mine is a ruined classic

Fixed.

Quote from e2mustang :

i didnt have any problem on I95 when i did 145(mph) every1 pulled out of my way very quickly
no im not a cock.im a dick !

They were probably just trying to save their lives...

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Don't worry mate, i drove an mx5 for almost five years, some of the best fun i ever had in a car. Being called a hairdresser is a small price to pay for having one of the most fun cars money can buy.

Quote from G!NhO :

mr hairdresser

You fail once again... hairdressers drive mazda miatas/mx5. Or in case that they are female, they ride as a passenger in an opel manta.

Quote from G!NhO :

Haha

Dude, that thing has more class than your off-road monster...