I like to keep my console playing reflecting my PC (ie. about five years out of date), so after hearing they're officially dead have gone and bought myself one on ebay for £61 inc. P+P and 7 games (Halo, Prince of Persia, MM3, Hitman 2 and some random crap).

Now what I'm looking for is a place to get 3 controllers on the cheap, I can't see anywhere beating ebay for that and some more games for it. Already on the list are Halo 2 and Timespliters.

Now for some recommendations I was thinking either Burnout (or maybe Flatout but I think 1 looks hard to find and 2 is almost full price still) which Burnout is best a quick look on IGN seemed like 3 was the best in the series? Was thinking maybe Farcry and maybe Call of Duty 2 (3 is still too recent to get cheap).

Now the main point of this thread I'd like to get a semi-sim on a matter of principle I will not buy anything that is branded as a sim which isn't one so I will never get TRD however Forza seems to be the kind of semi sim type of game I'm looking for and AFAIK it's the only xBox game with the 'ring is it worth it?

well, Forza 2 comes out .. relatively soon, so i'd keep your eyes open for that one, it looks awesome, but if you're looking for a fun racing game, i never had the time to tell if it were realistic or not, is Project Gotham Racing 3

but if you plan on buying Forza, i say wait a month and get Forza 2

XC you've completely missed the point Forza 2 is a new game (ie expensive) for the Xbox 360 (a very expensive console). I've bought an obsolete console second hand and am looking for games because everyone else is upgrading to more expensive equipment.

ooooh i thought you meant xbox 360, my bad then..

nevvvvermind

lol if I got an xbox 360 and games for £60 I'd be very very happy

Burnout 1 and 2 are great arcade racers. Burnout 3 and onwards, IIRC, basically reward you for crashing at any time, whereas in 1 and 2 it's actually quite bad to crash while doing the racing. Forza is decent for a semi-sim.

Played Forza, didn't like it much. Physics were maybe slightly better than GT4. However, the single-player mode often forces you to race against cars that are significantly faster than yours. What's worse, it's often the car you're trying to win. There's also the issue of minimal precision with a gamepad, and I've never liked the xbox controller.

Got Burnout 3 (saw filurs post just too late) and Farcry.

Black seems pretty highly rated is it worth getting?

i've played Black before on my PS2 (sister's boyfriend brought it over just to play, he went through a few PS2s lol) if you like FPS games for consoles (i guess you do since you got farcry) i'd say its a pretty fun game, its kinda like.. James Bond games, except its military based, but yea its pretty fun

Also got Splinter Cell and Forza

Quote from XCNuse :

i've played Black before on my PS2 (sister's boyfriend brought it over just to play, he went through a few PS2s lol) if you like FPS games for consoles (i guess you do since you got farcry) i'd say its a pretty fun game, its kinda like.. James Bond games, except its military based, but yea its pretty fun

Yeah I've enjoyed completing Call of Duty (mac) and MOHAA AA (PC) on the hardest difficulty but after that found they're both pretty useless as SP games because they're too heavily scripted. Halo and Timesplitters have both been awesome for multiplayer 4 way action when I've played on xboxes in the past and I've always wanted to play Farcry after trying it but never considered buying it as I think on my PC would expire if it saw it. IIRC Farcry wasn't too scripted what's Black like from what I heard it has very dynamic environments and hopefully offers a change from the conventional fps.

Assuming neither Farcry or Black offer any good MP action?

I couldnt recommed Project Gotham 2 more thoroughly. I have had many a good hour spent playing the single player, but even more spent playing split screen and system linked with my brothers Xbox.

It is kind of semi-sim, but you won't find yourself spinning out or loosing control.

I played Forza on the Xbox too and found it to be pretty good. It was really as close as you can get to sim racing on a console IMO. However I did find it really tricky with the standard Xbox controllers as you have very little analogue travel on the triggers as your accellerator and brake. I'm sure more practice will make them better, but for the time I spend on the demo I had to resort to ABS as there was no feel etc etc. Still a very good and challenging racer (mostly because of controller in my case but it isn't a big turn off).

@Bogeyman - that's reassuring to hear, I'm hoping for an entertaining semi-sim which follows the basic laws of physics and then adds aids to make it drivable with a controller.

I found forza fun to play vs a friend who has an xbox - not a sim, but not noticably arcadey, pgr was too arcadey for my liking, but It was cool that I could race through the city where I live

Quote from ajp71 :

Now what I'm looking for is a place to get 3 controllers on the cheap, I can't see anywhere beating ebay for that and some more games for it.

If you have any Cash Generators nearby you should check them out, unless of course you want them brand new. I got 3 controllers from there (albeit quite a while back) for £1.50 a piece, and yes they still work . Hours of fun on Super Monkey Ball

Toca Race Driver 3?

Quote from DTrott :

Toca Race Driver 3?

On a matter of principle I will never buy any Codies racing game and I will also not buy an arcade game badged as a sim, so TRD3 rules itself out twice. I may be interested in that kind of product but if it badges itself as a sim I'm not interested because IMO that's false advertising.

Black is about as linear as it gets. Occasionally you might get a choice of two routes, but apart from that it's just follow the path to the end of the level and kill everyone along the way. Good though, except for the way enemies need an insane number of heavy bullets to drop them, if you hit them anywhere except the head.

Flatout 1&2are fun games. Doesn't take themselves seriously at all, so its just innocent fun + plus I liked the music in no. 1. I'd def go for it as budget, as it can be a little repetitive...I do load it up sometimes when the sims get to me too much though.

Quote from ajp71 :

On a matter of principle I will never buy any Codies racing game and I will also not buy an arcade game badged as a sim, so TRD3 rules itself out twice. I may be interested in that kind of product but if it badges itself as a sim I'm not interested because IMO that's false advertising.

I most say that TOCA Race Driver 3 feels alot more realistic than the others, or at least the demo does.
If you want I can mail you the demo disk if you want, it has demos of:
Black,
Toca Race Driver 3,
Stubbs the zombie,
Knights of the Temple 2.

Forza for me was a rather fun little game, shifting can be a pain because of how it works and the buttons used (just feels wrong), and when using the xbox type-s pad it seems very hard to drive (I have long hands so like the old huge version). But I picked up a couple of non-official pads for about £5 each at GAME here at Salford and they work just as well, and one of them is better than the xbox type-s, for me anyway. A fun little party game (if you can call it that) for me was Conflict Desert Storm II, which I recently founds one can get on the PC too. But me and a couple of room mates spent a few days completing it (only 10 levels but we only did 2-3 a sitting, some levels taking hours to get past).

TRD3 is good fun if you don't take it seriously - the Global GT light's are a barrel of laughs, and F1 cars at Norisring is so silly it's cracking fun.

Kinda off-topic, but Madden NFL 07 is fun if you are in to American Football - Create A Superstar has a wierd random fumbles that it thinks are in the end zone (so it's a safety) bug on PS2 (dunno if it is still there on XB) but Franchise is always gripping - and it's a good "sofa game" for people that like (american) their football.

If you want a football game, stay away from Fifa get Pro Evolution Soccer.

Forza has exceeded my expectations by doing what it says it does. I find the controls suprisingly natural on the smaller S controller, using the triggers is far far better than the PS2 sytem of the right analog stick for combined throttle and brake, and most importantly for a sim it's easy to balance the car. Takes a while to get used to the fact it's not an arcade game but once you do it suddenly gets very very addictive and with all aids off the physics aren't too shabby, certainly not simply a GT4 clone. The graphics look awesome (remember my PC is a pile of crap though) without over done effects.

For single player play the modding and career modes work really well and it's reassuring to find a console game where adding big wings increases drag and TBH it seems to make a better attempt at simulating chassis stiffness than LFS

For 6 quid it seemed money well spent.

Quote from DTrott :

If you want a football game, stay away from Fifa get Pro Evolution Soccer.

Package came with FIFA 07, not that it's been touched yet, will probably end up on ebay along with WWE RAW.

I did a similar thing recently - picked one up dirt cheap, so far been enjoying PGR2 the most. Its the perfect balacne of semi-realistic racing for a console IMO. Looks good too.

Forza I'm undecided on - its a fun game and more realistic in many ways than GT4 - I'd say its them most realistic console sim except perhaps Enthusia, but has a crappy tyre heat implimentation, runs at a lower framerate than most racing games (locked at 30fps or so?), some of the tracks like silverstone have a pretty overdone fog affect so you can't see the next corner coming up, and the Xbox controller isn't very good for it. Had to switch to using both analog sticks PS2 style to get anywhere. Forza's version of the 'ring looks great though.

Burnout Revenge is a brilliant title IMO, its not semi-sim or anywhere near it but its great fun in a completely different way. The multiplayer works very well too.

Also picked up Juiced & CM2005, both suffer from crappy gameplay, and cars have the floating feeling.

Quote from Rtsbasic :

Burnout Revenge is a brilliant title IMO, its not semi-sim or anywhere near it but its great fun in a completely different way. The multiplayer works very well too.

I've also been playing Burnout 3 and have found that split screen is a ridiculously fast and pointless destructive fix