Oh Forza Motorsport 3, my favourite game let me count the ways I hate you...
1. Broken classing system
- What's the point in making a class system to balance out the car's performance if it can be broken with the upgrading system? How is it that you can de-tune a Le Mans prototype from R1 class (fastest race class) down to S class (fastest production car class) simply by swapping in an RX7 motor? Why is it that no R class cars can be tuned to the top of their class? That's stupid, it's a race car class and they're race cars. The class should have been based on them to begin with.
2. AWD Dominance
- Why is it that an AWD swap on a Dodge Viper makes it unbeatable in A class? Aside from the fact that an AWD Viper is impossible in real life... Could it be that you get a bonus to your PI from the swap that can be used to take out the added weight of the drivetrain or to add a bunch of power to negate the weight with acceleration? I think so. Does it suck that this works for any car with an AWD swap? Indeed it does.
3. Shoddy Physics Model
- Dear Turn10; can we please have a big-boy physics model now? You already use the best tire model this side of Live For Speed and don't use the Pacejka magic tire formula [http://www.newtondynamics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5682] like some other games do, but can we get realistic suspension geometries now? Not all cars come with SLA or double wishbone suspensions, why do all the cars in your games? Why is it that all the differentials are full-time? These aren't trucks, they're not 4WD, they're AWD and they all work differently, get on that...
4. Unfair Glitches
- 6th gear is not some magical uber speed gear, it works like all the others though it's normally an overdrive gear. Why do certain cars have a crazy boost in speed when you hit 6th? 300 mph should not be possible on a car with quadruple it's weight in downforce, period.
- Race grade weight reduction is useless and it removes all your grip. A lighter car is a faster car, WTF happened there T10? Why is it faster to build a car with as much weight as you can then add as much power as possible? This doesn't work in real life. There are no race cars running DUB wheels for a reason.
- De-tuning much faster cars to fit in a lower class. You can remove the supercharger from the Corvette ZR-1 to get it into B class (from A), same with pretty much any car that's turbo or supercharged from the factory.
5. Lazy Modeling
- Cars will appear to float over the road or clip just under it's surface on certain tracks.
- Race weight reduction will remove the driver's seat from certain car models. In fact they're the same ones that did it in the last two games!
- Some aftermarket bumpers will clip through the car model underneath, some glitch and have brake lights in the front bumper, others add another set of tail pipes! My BMW 1 series doesn't need 6 exhaust pipes.
- Some interior gauges don't work like the Veyron's horsepower gauge.
- On some cars there is no shift animation.
- There's still nothing going on in the pits. You pull in, hear some impact gun noises, then you pull out with new tires and a full tank of gas. FM1 had more in-depth pits than this.
- Why can this invisible ghost pit-crew swap an engine, transmission, suspension and brakes in the time it takes to change tires and refuel but they can't fix the rear wing some n00b removed from my car on lap 1 turn 1 when he used my Ferrari as his brakes? NASCAR has "200 mph tape" if it's good enough for them, then get my ghostly pit crew on it.
6. The Paint booth is broken
- I can't see the back of the car in the paint section, there's no lighting back there and I can't rotate the source. Why isn't this a diffused light source? I need to see what I'm painting, I couldn't care less how shiny your graphics engine is. It's too fucking dark.
- The colours are different in game than in the paint booth. I shouldn't have to back out to the home menu to see how my car really looks; but I do...
- This was my favourite part of Forza until this game, I rarely paint anymore...
7. Microsoft's shitty proprietary force feedback
- It sucks. I've bever had a Logitech wheel on the regular FF system jerk the wheel all the way to the left or right, nor have I had one randomly press buttons for no reason (it's even turned off my Xbox before, all by itself). And it's not only the crappy MS wheel that's doing this, the $500 Porsche 911 Turbo S wheel from Fanatec does it too.
8. Subjective Leaderboards
- There are LBs for everything from paint to decals, from photos to replays. These are determined by a rating system of 5 (or less) stars. This is abused to no end. Things can be rated without viewing or trying. How can you have subjective leaderboards in the first place? I get lap times, but paint? Photos? Replays? Seriously?
9. Online is borked
- You cannot tune in an online lobby. If you found that your gears are off by a bit or you want to tweak your alignment you have to back out to the home menu and do it there. That or have a whole tuning setup saved for each and every contingency. This could be done in FM2
- No custom public lobbies. You're stuck playing on the same rotation of tracks with randoms. This was possible in FM1 and FM2 what happened here?
- Ranked for not racing. You can gain rank in games of "tag" or "cat and mouse" and not by racing if you choose, except that kind of ruins the True-Skill rating for the people who bought a racing game to, you know, race in. You never know if that Champion [30] got the rank by being fast, or good at finding a hiding spot in "tag"... Then they run you off the road on the first corner. Play Burnout if you want to crash people, that's what it's for, this is for racing.
I could go on, but I'd rather just play it instead.