Forza Motorsport 2’s game director speaks out

We’ve always been a car-sim nut. Progressed through all of the Gran Turismos on our PS/PS2, and now been playing Forza on our Xbox 360. Truth be told, we’ve fallen in love with Forza; it simply freaking owns most racing-themed games out in the market hands down.

The few things which sucked us into Forza would have to be the awesome graphics, the career mode, and the sheer variety of everything. Oh, and don’t forget Ferraris and Lambos! We’ve been counting down the days to the release of Forza Motorsport 2 mainly due to those beauties!

And what better way to ‘ease’ the wait than an interview with the game’s chief? The guys at IGN though were lucky enough to have a chat with Dan Greenawalt, Forza Motorsport 2’s game director. The interview, though a tiny bit short, answered just about all the questions about the game.

One of the primary reasons for loving Forza was the chance to play using Ferraris and Porsches. Gran Turismo had over 700 cars, but it did miss out on the real cream. Paganis and Saleens were fine for a time, but there’s no icing on the cake like a Ferrari. So what new cars would there be in the latest installment of Forza Motorsport?

Dan Greenawalt was quick to point out that while Gran Turismo 4 was missing all three big names (Ferrari, Lamborghine, Porsche), Forza had roughly 40 Ferrari’s and Porsche’s in the game; the Lamborghini and the McLaren F1 street version were not included. In the words of Dan Greenawalt, “Forza Motorsport 2 features over 50 Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini models plus the McLaren F1 street version. We are adding other brands such as Scion. But honestly, there is no other single brand is as influential as Ferrari, Porsche, or even Lamborghini are individually.”

Plus, there had been talk about a similar service to PGR’s TV mode. Personally, I’ve loved it; I watch real pros go around circuits, just so that I can check out their racing lines and braking points. So how would it be with Forza Motorsport? Dan Greenawalt said that the newest installment will also feature Forza Motorsport TV, built on the same technology that drove Gotham TV. “We have few other big ticket features up our sleeve that aren’t being announced until later. Suffice to say that the MGS racing family and Xbox Live will continue to raise the bar for the online experience.”

When asked about the goodies which one could expect from the marketplace, and whether the game would be released as a “shell”, with content having to be downloaded off Live, he was quick enough to remind us that “[The game] would still have 300+ cars, more than 400 single player races, 70+ ribbons, over 2000 scoreboards, thousands of cosmetic upgrades, nearly 100 performance upgrades per car.”

Finally, when asked if they would be able to accomplish an average of about 60fps while rendering all the Italian hotties, Dan Greenawalt revealed that “[The game] is currently running at 60fps with 12 high-poly cars, far superior shaders and higher texture resolution. Truth be told, creating a beautiful game for the next-gen consoles is less and less about the poly counts. Getting the next-gen look is all about shaders, texture resolution and texture tricks such as normal mapping.”

A lot of stuff from the interview was already known to us; no dash cams, downloadable marketplace goodies, drivatar, and 60 frames of goodness every second! We’re still a bit sad that they couldn’t get in dash cams into the game. Heck PGR3 could do it nicely, so we don’t know why it can’t be accomplished here.

Anyways, we don’t think it will take away that much from the overall experience. To read more about Forza Motorsport 2, here’s a link to all of our previous coverages.

Via IGN

We’ve always been a car-sim nut. Progressed through all of the Gran Turismos on our PS/PS2, and now been playing Forza on our Xbox 360. Truth be told, we’ve fallen in love with Forza; it simply freaking owns most racing-themed games out in the market hands down.

The few things which sucked us into Forza would have to be the awesome graphics, the career mode, and the sheer variety of everything. Oh, and don’t forget Ferraris and Lambos! We’ve been counting down the days to the release of Forza Motorsport 2 mainly due to those beauties!

And what better way to ‘ease’ the wait than an interview with the game’s chief? The guys at IGN though were lucky enough to have a chat with Dan Greenawalt, Forza Motorsport 2’s game director. The interview, though a tiny bit short, answered just about all the questions about the game.

One of the primary reasons for loving Forza was the chance to play using Ferraris and Porsches. Gran Turismo had over 700 cars, but it did miss out on the real cream. Paganis and Saleens were fine for a time, but there’s no icing on the cake like a Ferrari. So what new cars would there be in the latest installment of Forza Motorsport?

Dan Greenawalt was quick to point out that while Gran Turismo 4 was missing all three big names (Ferrari, Lamborghine, Porsche), Forza had roughly 40 Ferrari’s and Porsche’s in the game; the Lamborghini and the McLaren F1 street version were not included. In the words of Dan Greenawalt, “Forza Motorsport 2 features over 50 Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini models plus the McLaren F1 street version. We are adding other brands such as Scion. But honestly, there is no other single brand is as influential as Ferrari, Porsche, or even Lamborghini are individually.”

Plus, there had been talk about a similar service to PGR’s TV mode. Personally, I’ve loved it; I watch real pros go around circuits, just so that I can check out their racing lines and braking points. So how would it be with Forza Motorsport? Dan Greenawalt said that the newest installment will also feature Forza Motorsport TV, built on the same technology that drove Gotham TV. “We have few other big ticket features up our sleeve that aren’t being announced until later. Suffice to say that the MGS racing family and Xbox Live will continue to raise the bar for the online experience.”

When asked about the goodies which one could expect from the marketplace, and whether the game would be released as a “shell”, with content having to be downloaded off Live, he was quick enough to remind us that “[The game] would still have 300+ cars, more than 400 single player races, 70+ ribbons, over 2000 scoreboards, thousands of cosmetic upgrades, nearly 100 performance upgrades per car.”

Finally, when asked if they would be able to accomplish an average of about 60fps while rendering all the Italian hotties, Dan Greenawalt revealed that “[The game] is currently running at 60fps with 12 high-poly cars, far superior shaders and higher texture resolution. Truth be told, creating a beautiful game for the next-gen consoles is less and less about the poly counts. Getting the next-gen look is all about shaders, texture resolution and texture tricks such as normal mapping.”

A lot of stuff from the interview was already known to us; no dash cams, downloadable marketplace goodies, drivatar, and 60 frames of goodness every second! We’re still a bit sad that they couldn’t get in dash cams into the game. Heck PGR3 could do it nicely, so we don’t know why it can’t be accomplished here.

Anyways, we don’t think it will take away that much from the overall experience. To read more about Forza Motorsport 2, here’s a link to all of our previous coverages.

Via IGN