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Under the hood: Forza Motorsport 2 interview23 May 2006 6:04pmForza 2’s Lead Game Designer takes us into the souped-up racing sim’s garageYou are what you drive. Aside from that making us a Nissan Micra, that was the tagline for the first Forza Motorsport on the original Xbox. The idea was to choose your favourite car, tune it exactly how you like it, stick on upgrades and customisation parts that reflect your personality, and paint it in your colours. Your motor was your unique automotive representation.Microsoft announced Forza Motorsport 2 at E3, and it was instantly clear that you’ll have even more chance to express yourself than ever. The hardcore racing simulation will be more accurate and realistic than before (backed up by Microsoft’s official force feedback steering wheel, due for release at the same time as the game in December), but the real difference is in just how much you’ll be able to express yourself with your Forza cars.How much? We sat down with Forza 2’s Lead Game Designer at Microsoft Game Studios’ Studio RX to talk driving physics, steering wheels, Gran Turismo and pimping your ride. Fasten your seatbelt…The PlayStation has always had Gran Turismo. Where did Forza Motorsport come from?Dan Greenawalt: Personally Gran Tursimo had a big impact on my life. I wasn’t even a big gamer until I played the first Gran Turismo. I bought my first PlayStation because of it. In fact, the whole reason I bought my first real car – a Mitsubishi 3000 GT VR4 – was because I loved that car so much in Gran Turismo! That’s the interesting thing about driving games: They can have an impact socially, not only on people’s buying behaviour but on their social networks and the way they look at cars. I went on forums, met people, learned a lot about tuning, became a garage rat, did a bit of street racing – not smart, but I was young – and it’s all because of Gran Turismo. That’s the kind of passion for cars that birthed Forza Motorsport.What’s your vision for the Forza 2?Dan Greenawalt: My goal going forward with Forza is not to be Gran Turismo’s answer on Xbox. That’s fine, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to make that moment that happened for me all those years ago with Gran Turismo happen for a whole new generation of gamers. I want to instil that car passion and ignite it in other people and new groups, broaden the appeal of hardcore driving games. Younger gamers, older gamers, less dextrous gamers. I want to give them that moment where you see something like a Lamborghini Gallardo and have an emotional response. That’s universal. No matter where you go in the world you can’t avoid the response to the car. That sums up the vision for Forza Motorsport.Most gamers see Forza as a very hardcore experience. How are you going to open it up to new gamers?Dan Greenawalt: I’ve got my work cut out for me. It’s a problem I knew I’d come up against even before I pitched the game, but I never wanted to move away from my vision. The whole team’s passionate about making the game blow up, but we know we have to make it an accurate sim. The great thing about that, however, is that there’s a great path of mastery in Forza. If you become great at Forza you’ve learned something about driving a car. But as long as we keep that sim focus the game’s never going to be easy. That’s why we put the guide line into the first game. Usually when people play a driving game they see cars, they press the accelerator, and they drive into a wall. That guide line taught them that they needed to use brakes. Once you’ve learned that you can start learning more about cars, and that’s where the passion really starts. We’re constantly brainstorming new assists and we’ll be adding lots more to Forza 2. I think we can start picking up the Gotham players and reaching out to new players by doing that. Will we be seeing a lot of new features in Forza 2?Dan Greenawalt: We’ll be introducing a lot of new features into Forza 2, but first and foremost let’s talk about Photo Mode. I know it’s something you already see in Gran Turismo 4 and Project Gotham 3, but it doesn’t suit any game as well as it suits Forza 2. In GT you can take a picture of a Toyota Celica, but in Forza you can take a picture of YOUR Toyota Celica. It’ll have your bodykit, your paintjob. If you’ve got the Mona Lisa on the side, or if you’ve painted it like the rally Celicas from the 80’s, then that’ll show. Put it in the game, get it drifting through a corner, take a photo and that’s your avatar! So while it’s somewhat derivative, Photo Mode is incredibly important to Forza 2 and is really going to help our community.Will you be able to use photos from the Photo Mode as your Gamerpic?Dan Greenawalt: You know, we’ve asked about that and we’re not sure of the certification requirements at the moment. There are a lot of issues with the kind of content that can be created and traded on Marketplace. As the infrastructure comes online, however, I think there’ll be a lot of stuff we can do. But currently we’re just throwing out suggestions and seeing what sticks. I will say that I think that’s a cool idea though…What about numbers of cars and tracks and so on?Dan Greenawalt: We’re also bigger in every way. That’s really hard to do when you make a generational leap. Games like GT and Project Gotham actually lost content when they moved up a generation because you have to res-up everything and that takes a lot of your time. You can’t add content because you’re just trying to catch up! We’ve grown our team incredibly because our goal is to get bigger and make the generational leap. So we’ve gone from 230 cars to 300 cars in Forza 2. We’ve gone from 45 tracks to over 60 tracks in Forza 2, and we’ve added 5 real world tracks. The only one we’re announcing at the moment is Sebring International Raceway in Florida, but there’ll be more announcements soon!What’s so cool about Sebring then?Dan Greenawalt: I’m really excited about that one because we’ve got an incredible simulation engine and Sebring is one of the roughest, craziest, nastiest tracks out there. It’s all old airstrip and nothing really matches up, so cars are always skipping and jumping all over the place. That really lets us show off our physics engine, which is something we’re really excited about.Just how accurate are you getting with your physics and handling?Dan Greenawalt: We took a hit in Forza 1 because some of the hardcore gamers were asking us why it wasn’t 60 frames per second. I tried to explain that there’s a bit of a miseducation going on. I like the look of 60 frames per second, but it doesn’t make it a better sim. The real issue is how frequently you update your physics. If you update your physics at 60 frames per second you actually get bad physics, with objects sliding and skidding like they’re in molasses instead of properly colliding with things. In Forza 1 we updated the physics anywhere between 180 and 360 times a second. That allowed us to have a very quick response and create a lot of torque in the car. Now, if you’re running the graphics at 60 frames per second you’re using up a lot of processing power so you have to put a dampener on those physics, and that’s when things start to feel a little sluggish. We didn’t want that, so we decided to keep the physics running high and pull back on the graphics.What difference has the Xbox 360 made to the physics and graphics?Dan Greenawalt: Now that we’re on Xbox 360 we can do 60 frames per second and keeping the physics at the same speed as the first game. In fact, for some key areas we’re increasing the speed of our physics. That’s where this all ties back into Sebring. It’s not the most visually impressive track – it’s kinda flat – but the track surface has all these little ruts and steps in the concrete that put incredible pressure on the physics engine. As a physics geek that’s what got me excited because I knew we were going to be beating the hell out of the cars and they’d be rocking all over the place. So it was kind of a strategic choice to show off the complexity of our physics, but it’s also great fun to drive!So it’ll be 60fps – what other graphical upgrades are you adding?Dan Greenawalt: Well, it’ll obviously be in full HD. We’ve also added amazing high dynamic range lighting. It’s going to be a beautiful game. PGR3 was a gorgeous game, but it was a launch title. We’re releasing this Christmas, which means we know a lot more about the hardware. I’d expect every game that comes out this Christmas to look a lot better than the launch titles, and we’re definitely shooting for that.Would you say realism is the watchword for Forza 2?Dan Greenawalt: For sure. Simulation is of paramount importance to us. But the truth is there’s only a small percentage of the population who could actually be racing drivers. With my vision of getting new people involved in the game and igniting that car passion in them, we need to help out everyone else. That’s why we had the assists in Forza 1, and we’ll add to them in Forza 2. My dad’s a huge car nut but he’s horrible at every game I’ve ever worked on! I want him to play the game so that’s why we’re putting in more assists to help out people like my dad!
How do you see Gotham in opposition to Forza?Dan Greenawalt: We have a great relationship with the Gotham guys. I actually lived in Liverpool for a while and worked on Gotham 1, and another member of our team worked on Gotham 1 and 2. We’ve shared a lot of technology and we’re very close. But the goal is that we come out separately and keep raising the bar for each other. I’m all about car lust and car passion in the simulation space. Gotham is all about having fun, driving beautiful cars and drifting them everywhere. You can drift in Forza if you want, but to be a drifter in Forza you better know your cars. You’ve got to watch your tyre heat, you’ve got to set up your car right, or it’ll just spin out or understeer. That’s where the difference is.What about online?Dan Greenawalt: That’s where the technology partnership gets really interesting. When Gotham 2 came out it did some amazing stuff with Xbox Live like the leaderboards and the online racing. Then when Forza 1 we took all that stuff and added more, like the seamless integration of our offline and online racing, increasing the number of scoreboards and adding car classifications. Now Project Gotham Racing 3 is here and it’s added even more features like Gotham TV, the new matchmaking system and the structured tournament setup. For Forza 2 we get all that technology! In a lot of ways we beta test their new features and they beta test their new features. We just keep setting new standards. Any specific new features you can discuss?Dan Greenawalt: There are a lot of things we’re not announcing right now, but everything you see in Gotham 3 will be in Forza 2. Gotham TV? We got it. And that works so well in Forza because you won’t just be watching identical cars sliding around corners – everyone will be in unique cars. Even if everyone’s driving a Ferrari Enzo you’ll have a Hello Kitty Enzo, a Gears of War Enzo, a Final Fantasy Enzo. It’ll almost be like a car show. Plus, it’s a real simulation, so it’ll be more like watching live motorsports. There’ll be no bumping and shunting. If you need to get past someone you’ll have to do it with skill. That aside, rest assured that we’re going to innovate in the area of online and do things nobody sees coming…How are you enhancing the customisation aspect of Forza 2?Dan Greenawalt: There are a couple of really cool things we’re doing. Engine swaps was something that was a real sleeper hit in Forza because you could roll up in something that shouldn’t be too hot and then smoke your opponent because you’re putting out power right across the power band. We’re increasing the number of engine swaps and letting more cars have them, so that’s something real techy freaks and hardcore players will love. We’re also adding more layers to the livery editor and making it easier to use. We’re adding more parts and we’re adding more cars including Lamborghinis and the McLaren F1, so there’ll be more ways to express yourself than ever before. We’re basically growing in every way. Everything that we could do more of, we’re doing more of!Forza 2 was used to demonstrate how Live Anywhere could let you play different parts of an Xbox 360 game across PC, mobile phone and Xbox 360 [Peter Moore showed how players could tune their car using their phone, customise its appearance using a PC, and race it on their Xbox 360]. Will this make the final game?Dan Greenawalt: We’re certainly looking at that but we were asked to help with a demo of the sorts of things Live Anywhere will allow and that’s what we did. That was just a demo. It’s not currently working in Forza 2 and I hope people didn’t get the implication that those things will definitely be in there. The goal was just to show the sorts of things we could expect. It’s a huge opportunity but the question is really what makes the most sense. So I won’t make any promises, except that I’m looking at what we could do, I’m excited by what we could do, and we’ll make the right decisions for the game.On the social side, what are you adding to the online game to create more of a community feel?Dan Greenawalt: Again, some of the features we’re adding are still to be announced, but what I can say is that in spite of ourselves we had a huge community in Forza 1. The game got really good ratings and sold a lot in Europe. But for the most part we did everything we could to NOT build a good community! I hate to say it, but we should have done that better. Our website kinda sucked, we didn’t do downloadable content, and we missed out on a lot of the things that build good community. So we’ve hired a new community manager for Forza 2. He’s just launched the new website and he’s already building up the community, so we’re really focussing on it this time. In terms of the things we can talk about right now, I think the Photo Mode is going to be huge for the community because you’ll really be able to put your cars and your personality out there.We’re really excited about the Xbox 360 steering wheel. Is it coming out because of Forza 2?Dan Greenawalt: It’s coming out because of Forza 2 and PGR3, yes! It’ll work with PGR3, and it’ll ship simultaneously with the game later this year. The wheel’s incredible and we’ve got a real partnership with the team working on it. A while back I started hearing questions like, “if we were making a steering wheel, what kind of things would you want?” and I was like, “WHO’S MAKING A WHEEL?” I found out there was a team thinking about it and got in on the initial meetings, and that’s turned into a really valuable partnership. They have lots of really talented and clever guys, but they don’t have someone who knows race car physics like my team does.How does the Xbox 360 wheel differ to other force feedback wheels? Dan Greenawalt: When you look at other force feedback wheels, they base the feedback on friction. In a real car those things are correlated but they’re not equal to each other. Our wheel will actually go limp when you’re understeering and subtly track your tyres back into alignment – although you’ll probably go into snap oversteer straight away. And to stop us needing to use force feedback to represent friction coming through the wheels we’ve got rumble. That way you can get a full 3D feedback system. All your control feedback is coming through the wheel, and any additional feedback – like hitting ruts or getting bumped by another car – comes from the rumble. Other wheels use their force feedback to do both and never give you the accurate feedback you need. Our wheel is going to give people a much more robust driving experience and a much better idea of what it’s like to actually steer these cars.Are you changing the single-player game in any way?Dan Greenawalt: We broke new ground by bringing the single-player and multiplayer game in Forza 1. In Forza 2 we’re really blowing up the multiplayer game and pushing that seamless nature between the online and offline game. So I won’t say we’re adding a totally new single-player game. One thing we are doing is enhancing the regional rarity system from the first game. If we do our job right then on the community side we should have guys that love muscle cars making fun of guys who love import tuners, and they’ll be making fun of guys who love European sports cars. There should be arguments and passion and excitement. The regional rarity system helps that because you have to make a decision about the kinds of cars you like right from the beginning of the game. Then let the arguments begin!We started with Gran Turismo so let’s finish off with it. What did you think of the PS3 version Sony showed at its pre-E3 press conference?Dan Greenawalt: I’m a huge GT fan and I would like them to capitalise on the car passion like they did with GT1 and 2, and I don’t see them doing that. As a Microsoft guy I’d tell you that I don’t want to talk about it, but as a gamer I’d say that I wanted to see something more, something cooler. But it looked like a PC version.Many thanks for your time Dan!
Wouldn\'t be the first thing they\'ve simulated to help drivers. But then again my dad just threw me out on the road with the car and told me to drive home (which was 30 minutes away) and that seemed to work just fine. (Didn\'t stall either!)
It\'s hard to stall in an automatic \'88 Dodge Caravan
