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Forza 3's Greenawalt: Making Racers Less 'Punishing' Doesn't Ruin The Fun
by Staff [PC, Console/PC]
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September 25, 2009
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As the racing game genre has inched away from arcade territory and ever closer to simulation territory, it's become correlated with punishing difficulty -- but does that really make for more entertaining games?
Not necessarily, says Dan Greenawalt, who as director of Forza Motorsport 3 at Turn 10 Studios, is taking a slightly different tack. "I think the problem with simulation in general is it's gotten this reputation -- a well-deserved reputation, I might add -- for being overly punishing," he says in today's Gamasutra feature.
"And it's something that, frankly a lot of our fans ask for, but I don't think they really frankly want it. The hardcore fans of the racing sim genre, in particular, are constantly calling to be punished more," adds Greenwalt. "It sounds weird. It sounds like we're in some strange sadomasochistic relationship."
Especially when the community receives Forza 3's rewind feature with hostility, fearing it will "ruin the sim."
"I could not disagree more," says Greenwalt. "I am a sim racing gamer as well, and I can't go back to games that don't have it now. When I play other racing games and they don't have this rewind, I just feel like, 'Are you kidding me? I mean, this is kind of old school.'"
Such a feature "doesn't make the challenge less," he says. "It doesn't hurt the tension. The game still has great tension. You still have to earn all of your victories."
Does Greenwalt see more racing games heading this way? "I sure hope so, because I think this is where the industry needs to go," he says. And while part of it is making games more accessible to casual audiences, that's not the entire picture.
"I think part of this is just embracing modern game design and realizing that people are different and what they're looking for is great entertainment, and entertainment does not have to be punishing," he says. "It can be, and it has been, but it doesn't have to be."
You can now read the full feature interview with Greenawalt on Forza 3 and the evolution of the racing genre at Gamasutra (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from other websites).
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Not everyone wants a challenge, you are right, but I want to believe more people don't want to play something that is nerfed and doesn't have anything for you to strive for anymore... rewind does that to gaming. Or I could be in the minority again... wouldn't be the first time.
Sure I can just not use it... but I'm weak. It is one of the reasons I game in the first place, otherwise I wouldn't succumb to the pretty pictures and enjoy the real world instead...
I personally don't think of emulators as PC gaming, but that's just me. :)
+++
Anyways, I think rewind in a racer is quite lame. I can't stand this feature in even an adventure game. It's up there with bullet-time, time-stasis, and all of that cheese.
I'm glad these new-school gimmicks are usually optional, but the problem is, is that the developer had to allocate time and resources to it, instead of improving the core areas of their game that really matter. All they do is allow for someone that's not that determined, quicker gratification, but that always comes at a cost of little to no reward in the end.
I prefer racers like GRID on my PC. Coupled with my G25 -- which they full support -- and just an outstanding attention to detail all around, Codemasters created a truly great arcade/sim racer. I couldn't care less for any racer that adds a gimmick instead of making the racing part better. NFSS as an example -- from the demo I played -- seems like they spent more time on the interior of the car and their corny visual FX-feedback system, instead of proper wheel support, let alone car damage that actually matters -- they managed to push me out of the action and remind me this game is nothing more than an arcade racer.
As I said before, I did see one benefit in rewind.
I've driven a couple of driving simulators and both allow the instructor to rewind, fast forward, and set the sim to any specific time in a scenario. One of these simulators is used to train police and emergency workers and replay common scenarios where many times the user fails on the first attempt. The instructor allows them to replay the scenario unchanged and the user tries a few different solutions. This method of learning seems to work very well.
So I saw the same benefits of allowing a user to replay a particular scenario repeatedly to learn from their mistakes.
In terms of a racing videogame, it will allow users to very quickly become accustomed to a new track. By being able to take a corner over and over, you can learn that corner like the back of your hand to the point where it becomes a function of muscle memory.
I recently played the demo and while playing with a wheel I didn't use the rewind function at all. Afterwards I played with the controller and found it more accessible. There was one overtaking scenario that I replayed multiple times to get just right using the nuances of that corner to help me. With that knowledge if I ever come to that same corner and I see someone following a good line I'll know how to pass them with little issue.
I, and I'm sure many sim fans, use the single player portion of these games as a diversion or training grounds and mainly stick to the multiplayer for the competitive racing experience. AI in most racing sims, if not all, is quite lacking and it doesn't compare to online racing. For this reason I am at peace with the decision to include rewind in single player. Just like "restart" it will be an excellent tool to save time and learn at a faster rate. Once you head online, where there is no rewind or restart, you apply what you've learned from the single player portion of the game.
This past summer I played quite a bit of Gran Turismo: Prologue trying to post top times in the Time Trials. A good approach is to learn the track, get accustomed to the car you plan to use, and race the ghost of the #1 time on the leaderboard. By following the #1 racer I found the best line for that car fairly quickly (as compared to racing the track hundreds of times to figure it out myself). At times though the ghost car would pull ahead and I would not be able to see how they raced on the latter portion of the track. I've played some tracks 30 times over to learn it properly.
In the FM3 demo I was able to do the exact same in terms of racing the ghost, but with rewind I found myself able to correct my mistakes then and there without having to complete a whole lap over (which obviously saves times on tracks that are larger than 10km). This saves time and allows me to learn at a much faster rate.
In this sense I heartily recommend this feature for all racing games.
In the sense of using rewind to advance yourself in a single player Career mode, I still think limitations should be put on it. In a way it takes away from the accomplishment of completing a career mode. I can see why you would want to put rewind in a sim game to cater to casual gamers, but I feel without penalty it is a feature that will be abused rather than be used as a learning tool.
We shall wait and see how things pan out.
You knock Forza 3 for having the rewind feature, and praise Codies for GRID, but Codies implements mid-race rewind in GRID, which actually works quite well. Greenawalt talked about it more in the full feature. And yeah, Codies is pretty great!
I did not know of that feature. Well, I stand corrected. That pretty much changes my whole perspective on this matter along with Amir's comments. :)
Thanks Amir,
You've provided plenty of food for thought.