It’s summertime, and the shows and events are calling. Get out there while you can, because before you are ready for it, the temperatures will get cooler and the weather will take a turn for the nastier. Remember being snowed in over the winter? What did you do during that time? I know what I did…killed time being useless (and sick, if I’m honest) playing video games when I wasn’t working or sleeping. Video games allow us to explore some of the cars we will never get to touch, do the things that would get us locked up for life, cost us thousands of dollars, and could very well injure ourselves or others without any of the real-life repercussions. Ask any Grand Theft Auto player. Two new titles were announced at the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) convention in Los Angeles that should make gearheads perk up and take notice:
1. Forza Motorsport 6
We learned about this game during the unveiling of the 2016 Ford GT, and we’ve been eagerly awaiting it. It follows upon the hyper-racing simulator formula that Forza and Gran Turismo have ran with since their beginnings, and with Forza Motorsports 6, all of that detail will come in at a full 1080p display, which will be great for showing off the new additions to the gameplay that mean something to gearheads: nighttime racing and wet-weather racing. The people behind Forza have been collecting technical data, CAD designs, laser scans, photos, videos, exhaust notes from cars on a dyno, and even more data that would boggle the mind to accurately figure out how the cars would react. Want to jam an LS into a Volvo 242? The engineers have looked at how the weight of the V8 will play with the Volvo’s handling dynamics. Running a wet race and see puddles everywhere? Expect to hydroplane based on the length and depth of the puddle versus the weight and contact patch of the tire. And as for details…well, you can see in the video just how detailed it will be.
2. Need For Speed
Before you take one look at the proto-ricer Subaru BRZ and write it off as everything wrong with the Fast and Furious crowd, take a moment and think about what made the past Need For Speed games so popular in the first place: cop chases. Unless you are a Grand Theft Auto junkie who loves to rile up the cops on a whim, this is the game for using a car to piss off and run from the local constabulary. The visual mods are up to you, and there are plenty of car choices (the official EA trailer shows the Rocket Bunny-modified BRZ running around the streets with a new RTR Mustang, a 1970s Skyline, a drift-style Nissan Silvia, and a RUF-style Porsche.) We don’t know much about the vehicle listing, but the selection will be diverse, at least, ranging from the more likely muscle cars both old and new to the latest hypercars. It’s arcade-fun if you can tolerate some of the more grating cutscenes…
Hopefully Forza 6 will be better than 5 was. I played a little bit of 5 and then went back to playing 4, because 5 was so half-baked. They sacrificed gameplay quality and content just to make the game look nice. Cutting out tracks that were standard in just about every game and then making you download them later on was just dumb.
As for Need For Speed, the last game they made that I played and actually enjoyed was Pro Street, waaaaaaaaaaaay back. I haven’t paid attention to much since.