Did you know Forza Motorsport 3 is the definitive racing game this generation? In a behind closed doors demonstration of Forza 3 at E3 last week, the game’s creative director, Dan Greenawalt, reiterated this fact to us as he touched upon the experience he hopes gamers have with the definitive racing game. We were given a quick (almost lightspeed) look at the game’s on-track navigation arrows, what the underside of a Forza 3 car looks like, how pretty the water and lighting were and the controversial rewind feature which can be used infinitely and at any time during a race.
The total demo was about three minutes with Greenawalt basically redoing his Microsoft press conference speech for the rest of the session. It would’ve been nice to actually see more of the game in action and how it’s going to be able to appeal to hardcore racing fans, casual observers and children; the session was more PR claptrap than demo/interview as originally planned.
There was an interesting moment, however, when Greenawalt made a comment about Gran Turismo and its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, influencing him greatly in becoming passionate about cars. In true Star Wars “apprentice becomes the master” fashion, he went on to say Gran Turismo has since “dropped the ball” and Forza is there to “pick it up.” Sweep the leg! It’s a pretty funny comment, but if you think about it, fans have been waiting for the full Gran Turismo 5 prior to the release of Forza 2 and with the third entry in the series set to launch in October, Greenawalt’s words have a ring of truth to them. Anyone else ready for a racing game dev catfight?
