BAFTA 2007 Awards

[Mr. Analog]

Have you seen it?  I'd say its a bigger technical achievement to create the best looking game out still on new and untested hardware versus building on what others have done over 7 years to get what you got now.  If anything I think the technical achievement shouldn't be just limited to games it should be more technology focused an in that regard I would put Unreal 3 Engine as the winner.

Oh please, I've seen it and it's a very nice game (not doubting that), but it's not like the developers had to figure out how to load and process all that video through severely limited hardware, that's a technical achievement.

[Shayne]

I disagree.

[Mr. Analog]

I agree to disagree.

Agreed.

[Thorin]

...thats a very large stretch seeing as Boxing, Golf, Tennis are all horribly done "simulation wise" bowling is slightly better.  Great fun in a party environment but Simulator?!?  Seriously.

Well, lets compare it to the other simulations in the category: Forza Motorsports 2 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms, and World In Conflict are all strategy games, right?).
Forza Motorsports 2: You're steering a car with a joystick controlled with your thumb.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas: You're making a guy with a gun walk around with a joystick controlled with your thumb.  You're making him shoot by pushing your other thumb on the X button.
Wii Sports: You're picking up a bowling ball by holding a trigger with your finger, then making the ball roll down a bowling lane by moving your arm in a manner similar to how you would throw a bowling ball and releasing the trigger at the right time.

Wii Sports gets closer to simulating a real-world scenario than the other two when looking at the actions required of the player.  In that sense it is a better simulator.  Level of graphical detail?  Length of play to get through the story?  I'm sure Forza and Rainbow Six beat Wii Sports in both of those categories hands down.  But "simulation" has nothing to do with graphical detail or plot, IMHO.

Again, I don't think that the Strategy and Simulation categories should have been mushed together.

[Shayne]

Forza 2 is a lot more then steering a car on a track with your thumb.

Vegas I will give you that, its hardly a simulator of any sort of stretch of the imagination.  By their definition Doom would be a simulator

Flicking my wrist at the ceiling and letting go of a button is close to swinging a golf club?  When was the last time you golfed?

[Mr. Analog]

...thats a very large stretch seeing as Boxing, Golf, Tennis are all horribly done "simulation wise" bowling is slightly better.  Great fun in a party environment but Simulator?!?  Seriously.

Well, lets compare it to the other simulations in the category: Forza Motorsports 2 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms, and World In Conflict are all strategy games, right?).
Forza Motorsports 2: You're steering a car with a joystick controlled with your thumb.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas: You're making a guy with a gun walk around with a joystick controlled with your thumb.  You're making him shoot by pushing your other thumb on the X button.
Wii Sports: You're picking up a bowling ball by holding a trigger with your finger, then making the ball roll down a bowling lane by moving your arm in a manner similar to how you would throw a bowling ball and releasing the trigger at the right time.

Wii Sports gets closer to simulating a real-world scenario than the other two when looking at the actions required of the player.  In that sense it is a better simulator.  Level of graphical detail?  Length of play to get through the story?  I'm sure Forza and Rainbow Six beat Wii Sports in both of those categories hands down.  But "simulation" has nothing to do with graphical detail or plot, IMHO.

Again, I don't think that the Strategy and Simulation categories should have been mushed together.

The Rainbow Six, as far as I can tell simulates tactical situations to the point where planning is a necessary and vital element to the game. Simulation goes beyond just mimicking the thing being done but must try, as realistically as possible, to emulate reality. Racing games can compete equally with city building strategy games or combat flight sims if they ground themselves in reality.

[Shayne]

MrA, the only iteration of Rainbox6 that I recall tactical planning and execution being important is the first one.  R6V was basically a first person shooter.  Their was no planning before missions or anything of the sort.  Still one of the better games I played this year, but by no means a simulator anymore.  They went FPS first.

[Mr. Analog]

MrA, the only iteration of Rainbox6 that I recall tactical planning and execution being important is the first one.  R6V was basically a first person shooter.  Their was no planning before missions or anything of the sort.  Still one of the better games I played this year, but by no means a simulator anymore.  They went FPS first.

I stand corrected I've not followed the series since the first one. I was just reading about Vegas, one of the new elements was you regenerate health. Ok, well now it's just pure fantasy right there.

Agreed 100%

[Thorin]

Well, see, I play Wii Golf the way the developers intended, rather than planting my butt on the couch and playing it the lazy way.  Even if that makes it more difficult to be good at.  Nevertheless, my example was Wii Bowling, not Wii Golf.

How does Forza 2 simulate motorsports?  Do you crank wrenches?  Does your driver die when he crashes?  Do you have to balance the books to try and make it to every race?  Do your tires wear down unevenly?  Do you have a stash of spare motors and transmissions and axles and body parts to ensure that you can keep racing?  Or do you just restart from your save point when you crash?

In real motorsports, one of the biggest problems is balancing pushing the car so far that you win with pushing the car too far and crashing.  Rich teams can push their cars more because they can afford to fix them more often.  Poor teams can't.  Non-sponsored racers frequently don't place in the top 30% to 50% of the pack because they're simply unwilling to risk their ride home at the track.  Does Forza 2 simulate all that, or does it really just simulate the driving aspect and relegate the parts-and-accessories portion to unlocking level-ups?  I haven't played Forza 2 so I can't say, but I'm guessing that you do get money to buy parts with but the parts are not available until you do something in-game to unlock them, and I'm guessing that you can save your game so that if a race is going badly you can undo the race and not have it affect you for the rest of your racer's career.

[Thorin]

It all comes back to what our definition of "simulation" is.  And it's entirely possible the Brits have defined it differently than we have.

[Thorin]

Perhaps playing Forza 2 with the Xbox Wireless Racing Wheel would have qualified it as the winner of the simulation category.  If they came with pedals, I'd say it'd be at least on par with how Wii Bowling simulates real-life actions by the player.

[Melbosa]

Rainbow 6 Vegas really does require tactical implementation when playing through on Co-op mode.  Trying to move throughout the levels Rambo style will get you and your squad killed very quickly.  You have to work together, and diversifying your equipment loadout and working together for best tactful advantage is by far a requirement to move through out the game.  4 player co-op through the story is not only a lot different than your standard FPS run and shoot, it is downright satisfying when your squad works together to complete the goals laid out in every mission versus just kill everyone you see.  You have to check the doors before opening them, you have to be wary of the sounds you make (including reloading clips, leaning on thin walls, walking through water), and also have to utilize strategic opportunities to meet mission objectives (utilizing your equipment for best advantage - flash bangs/smoke/tear gas, flanking or covering squad movement, positioning sniper cover while advancing your medium range squad members, or setting your short-range high damage squad member - read: shotguns - on point when in close quarters, cover and droplines for tactiful advantages, etc.  Up until Vegas I absolutely hated Tom Clancy games, none impressed me, but after frag, then a recent lan party I attended, this is by far one of the best AI put against a group of 4 co-op players, and one of the most challenging even with a well developed squad deployment.

Forza is being used now by professional racers as a simulator for actual driving skill improvements or even track to tweaking of cars.  It is probably one of the most realistic driving games ever developed.  Just as Microsoft Flight Simulator is used by Avionics techs to try out modifications to avionics (I have two clients in Edmonton that are avionic engineers, and they utilize MFS to test out their stuff to save their client's the cost of a million dollar modification that fails on an actual test before actually doing a live test run).

[Mr. Analog]

It all comes back to what our definition of "simulation" is.  And it's entirely possible the Brits have defined it differently than we have.

simulate

  ? verb imitate or reproduce the appearance, character, or conditions of.

Forza Motorsport 2 faithfully reproduces the topography of the following real world tracks:
Tracks

There are 13 tracks which total 47 different configurations:

Real-world tracks

    * Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
    * Mugello Autodromo Internazionale
    * N?rburgring Nordschleife
    * Road Atlanta
    * Sebring International Raceway
    * Silverstone Circuit
    * Suzuka Circuit
    * Tsukuba Circuit
    * Twin Ring Motegi

The racing characteristics of the following real world cars:
Production Cars

    * Class D: Standard production cars including the Ford Focus SVT and the Volkswagen Golf GTI
    * Class C: Sport production cars including the Audi S4 and the Nissan Fairlady Z
    * Class B: Performance production cars including the Porsche Cayman S and the Aston Martin V12 Vanquish
    * Class A: High-performance production cars including the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and the TVR Tuscan R
    * Class S: Ultrahigh-performance production cars like the SLR McLaren and the Porsche Carrera GT
    * Class U: Unlimited-class cars including the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve concept car and the TVR Cerbera Speed 12

Race Cars

    * Class R4: Heavily modified production cars and purpose-built race cars including the Subaru GT300 Impreza and the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup
    * Class R3: High-end purpose-built race cars including the Dodge Viper GTS-R and Nissan GT500 Skyline
    * Class R2: Ultrahigh-end purpose-built race cars including the McLaren F1 GTR and the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R
    * Class R1: Prototype race cars including the Peugeot 905C and the Audi R8

The game itself also interfaces with a driving wheel, and simulates the effects of car damage. If you asked me which game was a more accurate simulation of real life, I would have to go with Forza.

[Melbosa]

I stand corrected I've not followed the series since the first one. I was just reading about Vegas, one of the new elements was you regenerate health. Ok, well now it's just pure fantasy right there.

How does Forza 2 simulate motorsports?  Do you crank wrenches?  Does your driver die when he crashes?  Do you have to balance the books to try and make it to every race?  Do your tires wear down unevenly?  Do you have a stash of spare motors and transmissions and axles and body parts to ensure that you can keep racing?  Or do you just restart from your save point when you crash?

Guys it still has to be a bit of a game to make it fun.  If you died and had to start from the beginning of the whole game would you continue to play it?  Is that realism worth the purchase?  Or is it just frustrating.  Vegas is so easy to die, it can almost become too frustraiting.  Yes you regen, but the chances of you surviving more than one hit to the chest is so tiny; a hit to the head and your dead for sure.

In real motorsports, one of the biggest problems is balancing pushing the car so far that you win with pushing the car too far and crashing.  Rich teams can push their cars more because they can afford to fix them more often.  Poor teams can't.  Non-sponsored racers frequently don't place in the top 30% to 50% of the pack because they're simply unwilling to risk their ride home at the track.  Does Forza 2 simulate all that, or does it really just simulate the driving aspect and relegate the parts-and-accessories portion to unlocking level-ups?  I haven't played Forza 2 so I can't say, but I'm guessing that you do get money to buy parts with but the parts are not available until you do something in-game to unlock them, and I'm guessing that you can save your game so that if a race is going badly you can undo the race and not have it affect you for the rest of your racer's career.

It has the ability for you to modify everything you can think of on the car specs.  Tweak air pressure, shock response, break designs, etc.  It tracks cintrifical {sp?} forces on the tires during turns.  It is quite the game for how detailed you can be, never mind the 1000+ layers of paint designs you can put on the cars.  In fact it is so realistic that I hate playing it, but I know Cova loves it.  I need a bit of arcadiness in my racing to enjoy the game (burnout for instance).

[Shayne]

How does Forza 2 simulate motorsports?  Do you crank wrenches?  Does your driver die when he crashes?  Do you have to balance the books to try and make it to every race?  Do your tires wear down unevenly?  Do you have a stash of spare motors and transmissions and axles and body parts to ensure that you can keep racing?  Or do you just restart from your save point when you crash?

Wrenches, yes.
Dies, No.
Balance Books, yes.
Tire Wear Unevenly, yes.
Different Parts, yes.
Restart From Save, yes.