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Sooo… the demo for Forza 3 came out yesterday. Have you played it yet? It really hasn’t been that long since Forza 2 didn’t leave my drive for months. Two years, really, at the most, and it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. What I’m getting at is that confusion ensued the excitement of the trailer for this game. I didn’t understand why they’d be releasing the next version so soon.

After doing some research, I’ve come to my own conclusion that it’s either A) a stab a making bank this Christmas season, or B) an attempt to steal some more Gran Turismo fans with yet another awesome racing sim before they have the chance to stick to their brand loyalty with Polyphony. Did I mention that Gran Turismo 5 hasn’t come out yet? Did I mention that it had been pushed back again to Spring 2010? Oh… well, Gran Turismo 5 hasn’t come out yet, and won’t until Spring 2010.

Clean & responsive menus

As stated in my Mirror’s Edge review, having a set of menus with some fucking contrast is an amazingly satisfying breath of fresh air. The backgrounds have been switched from the dark colors they’ve always been to this really bright color; I think it’s called “white”(?). It could totally be a personal preference, but I appreciate graphics more when they are visually stimulating, not just “awesome looking”. It helps take the presentation in when my eyes are being challenged with a cool, clean contrast from the white to a true green of the “Class D” ranking, or to the notorious Ferrari red on the new California model. Once again, a welcome change to a library of games consisting mostly of monochrome “earth” colors.

Fully modeled, detailed, & functional interiors…for every car

OK, so over 400 cars have had their cabins visually raped. That’s pretty impressive set of tick-marks to tattoo on your arm. The game now offers a driver’s seat view of the race, complete with moving parts. You can even turn your head to use the side and rear-view mirrors to work on your passing blocks. Obviously nothing new to the racing genre, but something Forza, or any other racing game with this amount of data & capability, had yet to accomplish.

“In…a half a mile…turn…left.”

Dynamic Drift Mode

Pressing Left on the D-pad turns “Drift” on, switching your car’s handling from your classic racing sim to your classic arcade style-point collector. The mode is reminiscent of the Project Gotham series. You get more points the faster you’re going and the more sideways your car is while maintaining that speed. Slipping outside of the track lines into the grass or shoulder, hitting a guardrail or an opponent disqualifies the drift and relinquishes you of those precious points you had well into the thousands through that turn. You suck. 🙁

«REWIND

I’m not just talking replays here (although, that’s also been added). I’m talking about true in-game, mid-race rewind. Think you can take that corner back there a little faster? Go for it. How about avoiding that love tap with that guy in the Porsche Cayenne? Make it so. Again, not the newest facet in a racing game, let alone video games in general (See Blinx: The Time Sweeper). Grid used the feature last year as “Flashback”, but only allowed you to use it if you actually crashed (if I remember correctly). Not sure at this point if there will be any penalty for use of this technique in the full game, but the demo let’s you pull back nearly the length of the particular track given. Awesome.

Flippin’ whipz

How many times have you tried to roll that damn Pikes Peak Escudo by crashing on the ridiculously banked turns on the test track in Gran Turismo 3, only to slam some invisible roll limit and hang out there for a second or two before floating back to all fours? Well now you can slam the shit out of things and get your car flipped, too. I’m pretty sure FM3 will be the first mainstream full production racing sim to have full roll capabilities. Not only that, but you don’t even have to stare at a gray & bland underbody when you look up your car’s skirt after flippin’er over. That’s because these bastards took the time to model the undercarriage and chassis for every vehicle in the game. Fuckin’ rapists — more tickmark tattoos please!