I started playing two of my newer Xbox 360 purchases last weekend, Forza 4 and Rock Band 3 and have put in enough hours that I have some initial thoughts on each of them. And things don't look good...
Forza 4 gets off to a bad start when you can't fully install the game until after you've completed your first "race". This isn't explained anywhere in the game or the impossibly thin manual, and trying to exit from that first race simply restarts the game, driving me crazy for nearly an hour. This was followed by trying to download the free release DLCs (for first-hand buyers) but these failed at around the 9% mark.
When I finally got to actually playing the game, it didn't feel like a huge upgrade over Forza 3. Graphics, car count and detail, track detail - all have been improved, but nothing really stands out. Maybe the interior shading and glare most noticeable during sunrise and sunset races?
The gameplay is predictably well-done simulation racing, with difficulty settings to cater for both my casual racing approach as well as my colleagues' hardcore style. There's quite a few different modes to try, though the game initially steers you to the World Tour mode as the main way to progress. I'm also quite enjoying the Rivals mode which pits you against other drivers that are near you on the global leaderboards. It does sometimes pick players on your friends list as your next rival, which isn't useful when you're not really in the same league as them.
And finally, the much touted Autovista mode for exploring the intricacies of the detailed car models, crashed my Xbox the first time I entered it. I believe it's the first time my Xbox has ever crashed like that.
Rock Band 3 is similarly problematic. It feels a lot like Rock Band 2. Most of the new features like vocal harmonizing, pro drums, pro guitar (requires another expensive controller) and keyboard parts just don't apply to my guitar playing. Still, it's quite hard to innovate in the genre and I didn't hold that against Warriors of Rock in my review. Unfortunately, Rock Band 3 has other problems...
For one, the music selection is piss-poor. I haven't encountered a single song so far that's in my music collection or that I'd want to get for it. And there have been quite a few songs that I was just happy to finish, hoping that I'd never have to play the same song again (some song by INXS springs to mind).
And secondly, the menu navigation is really poor. Every time I've played, I've had to rediscover what's in each of the different menu options, hunting for the game's main career progression mode. It's about 4 levels deep and I think it's called something like Road Trip goals, which shows you multiple goals (similar to achievements) - selecting any of these goals opens up the full list of all the tours you can do. There are other goals you can do to progress your band, but hiding the main part of your game like that is just bad design.
As an aside, I've decided to hold off on buying Skyrim for a while (Bethesda games normally need a few patches and user mods to be playable), but from reports such as this one on RPS, designers really dropped the ball with Skyrim's user interface. I know UI design isn't easy, especially for console, but these kind of mistakes in Rock Band 3 and Skyrim should never make it past QA.
So, while both Forza 4 and Rock Band 3 have some fun in them, I'm currently underwhelmed.
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