why packaging is important, part 174:
what we have been promised
what we actually got so far
and what we are promised to get (soon-ish)
(maybe… something resembling a shape that may or may not look like that)
we~ellll, guess I’ll wait until the real deal, before i dip into what it’d mean for hydrogen racer(s) to land in a GT3 performance bracket.
re Installation party:
got my hands on a physical copy of FM8, woohoo 
… after ~45 minutes (where i’ve spent ~10 minutes watching games being moved from internal drive to external one, rest was waiting for installation from disc to internal drive) … now waiting for the 91ish GB update
i love how you can fit maybe two of microsoft’s first party 2023 releases onto an xbox series s hard drive
FM8 blog, day #1:
132ish GB Installation & first update were finally done at 8 in the evening, so i did the tutorial races and went to bed, not sure whether i am sold or not.
Using the second of three gfx settings for now, i.e. 60fps with dynamic resolution.
Day #2:
First multiplayer races w/ my brothers and nephew, and now it slowly started to click:
Le Mans at dawn, with fog — that’s almost what a horror-themed Silent Hill Racer would look and feel like. Even with 1000+ laps on the clock, that was almost nerve-wracking horror, and probably my most fav Forza moment since FH4.
Can confirm that there’s no Nordschleife, no Rio, no Swizz Alps, no Fujimi Kaido … even w/ all IMSA tracks (hold on, … not sure about Long Beach tbh ) not sure when the lineup starts to get old. F-tier has been removed, outlandish prices have been consolidated (e.g. Ferraris or SL Benz are not 20.000.000 cr anymore, but rather in the 300k range). Having to grind for a bit until you can slap on some new wheels or a nicer wing/ front aero is getting old already, but luckily the minor QoL-improvements make up for that.
All in all, starting to feel like it was worth it to upgrade.
I think you’ve convinced me here.
Not sure whether normal races will make good use of that feature, but in private Multiplayer session settings screen, you can finetune weather, time of day, time progression (e.g. 4x faster) like the usual fare (class for other cars, ccm limit, driving aids etc.)
What’s new is the option of switching on/off a racing groove and strength of effect (iirc. default setting is at 50, assuming here from 0-100, probably by 10% increments? didn’t fiddle aeound too much there and left it as-is for our first session), that’s part of what i called QoL-improvements.
New open-world driving game Japanese Drift Master demo was released earlier this week, apparently. I haven’t loaded it up myself to check the physics, but the visuals and the environment look nice. The demo’s got a supposedly small portion of the eventual larger map.
Edit: I just booted it up for a while, arcadey feel but fun enough for a controller game. Lots of cool little details in the town area, great map feel so far. Theoretically supports FFB wheels but for whatever reason only the Logitechs and…the Thrustmaster T500(?) with no key-rebinding so even if you’ve got one of those you’re outta luck for non-base connected pedals or shifters.
Comments from the devs say better wheel support and supposedly eventual multiplayer are on the docket.
JDM feels like someone really like Need For Speed Underground 2 and the Initial D arcade games. The roads and towns are all very meticulously detailed. I could probably spend more time with it but my computer really hitches on these Unreal type games, I can feel where it’s loading in chunks of the world. Car physics feel really good. I find the music to be really obnoxious though lmao. I think it’s called Phonk
finally checked out FM8 on my XSX via Game Pass. it’s my first Forza Motorsport (i’ve played Horizon) and so far i think i prefer GT7, but ultimately it’s still pretty fun to play and i’m enjoying myself. even though the music in GT7 is pretty horrible, i do wish i could hear some music when watching replays - it just makes them feel more “official,” if that makes any sense.
so far i feel like the AI cars are not very smart or good and i’ve been finishing races anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes faster than the other cars. not that i don’t enjoy placing first for every race, but it feels like something is off.
Forza’s AI is weirdly DIY, like they want you to tune it out of the box, there isn’t much concept of “get a good competitive race with default settings”
i have had to adjust the ai settings so many times in the last two forzas i dont know if i can even be bothered to download this. especially after fm7 which wasn’t very good
can you tune car AI? i’m playing on “Sports Rules”but didn’t see much else in the way of adjustments
nvm, home now and found it
FM8 impressions:
This runs pretty well on my PC. I didn’t go mess with graphical settings at all though.
Logitech Pro (PC/PS5) wheel recognized and worked out of the box. Wheel feedback settings seem kinda numb but serviceable. Hopefully can be adjusted to feel better down the line.
God damn this game is ugly. I thought the jokes about the models were overblown, but holy shit. Some of these really are FM1/2 levels of detail with a very stark contrast to the environment.
Crash to desktop while the lady was explaining what practice runs were to me. Cool!
The sense of speed in this game is incredible. It does feel really fast.
I like the car progression system so far. I can’t wait to drive a car I actually care about! None of the starter cars were interesting to me. I’d rather start with a Honda Fit or a Mazda Demio.
Cockpit view is pretty good.
i mostly play in cockpit mode (slightly zoomed to the windshield), but yeah, even on XSX the game is glitchy. i had it hang indefinitely last night as i was trying to purchase a car (luckily it didn’t take my credits without giving me the car), and i would say about 50-70% of the time, the game is incapable of using the “Quick Resume” feature on the Series X. it will load for a few seconds and then just crash entirely, forcing me to relaunch the game.
kinda feel like screwing up QR on the XSX is bad practice
Picked up a refurb Series S this week to put my old 1080p display to use in another room and I have Game Pass now so I finished off my in-progress Forza Horizon 4 save today and now I’m starting with Motorsport
Add me on Xbox I guess if you wanna beat my bad times (emiyacooking)
test drove JDM w/ nephews rig, and can confirm the hangout-itude of this demo.
Pad works fine, drifting feels a bit better than Horizon 5, GFX looks nice… howwwwever,
is there literally any novel thrill to be had trying out the mf ghost manga if i already binged initial d over the summer?
Fast & Furious was a documentary
