I bought Forza 3 Platinum just recently and I am impressed. Using just the Xbox controller, I could get a feel for the handling on the cars. I play lots of racing sims on the PC with my Logitech G27 wheel/shifter setup but Forza3 looks very good compared to GTR2, GTR Evo, and Race07.



C&D compared Forza3 to GT5 and said Forza3 was a bit better.

I liked the game until I started driving with the manual transmission.


Now I love it.

meh il still take my GT5

I prefer GT5 as well, I Gamefly'd both, Forza I sent back after 2 days, GT5 I kept.

I wish they'd release Forza for PC...I don't want to drop $300 on a console for just one or two racing games....

Manual transmission is the only mode I use. Is there a way I can remap the buttons in Forza3? I also play MotoGP 09/10 and the up/down shift buttons are totally different, I'd like to keep some uniformity because I switch games often.



I was in the same boat about spending $300 on a Xbox just to get Forza. I bought the Xbox to play a whole bunch of games, and Forza 3 is one of them. I haven't turned on my PC in about 3 months!



 

I noticed some peculiarities with Forza 3:



FIA curbs slow you down, and grass just bogs down your car. I guess they had to figure out a way to penalize you for cutting a bit of the corners, but last I checked rumble strips shouldn't slow you down that much...



They also used different layouts for the different tracks like Catalunya. The full grand prix course felt weird to me. I don't remember Turns 10-11 and Turns 14-15 from GTR2, GTR Evo, and MotoGP... I know they use a slightly different layout depending on the race class but I only saw the "Grand Prix" Catalunya layout for Forza3 being the full course.



Lift-off oversteer is almost non-existent on the lower tier FWD cars, I might just have to experiment a little more?



I noticed they have the Cobalt SS Supercharged but not the Cobalt SS Turbocharged. They have the Solstice, but not the GXP. They have the Saturn Sky Redline which is a C-class car - but it has the same weight as the Solstice and Cobalt SS turbocharged, with the same LNF turbo engine as the GXP and SS/Turbocharged. It would have been nice to see the Cobalt SS/TC in there as a C-class car that cost only $20k USD new. But they managed to plop in the $42k+ Taurus SHO as a D-class car...

Been thinking of picking up a copy as I loved Forza 2.  Wonder if it's worth it?

It's a lot of fun FWIW. Although without a pedal and shifter, you won't get the real "sim" feel, but the Xbox controller is very good and I'd say that Forza 3's physics aren't bad at ALL - it's probably on-par (based on my feel) to GTR2/GTR Evo. I was able to get into the game right from the start, with the difficulty set to expert. The AI is pretty aggressive though.



 

It's a very good game.  

The primary reason I play GT5 on the PS3 instead is that I have a wheel/pedal combo for my PS3.

I have both the Logitech Driving Force GT (designed for PS3, but works on PC) and the Logitech G27 but for the PC. I've driven the snot out of both setups and find that Forza3 on Xbox with the controller is very good. None of the games really simulate the clutch properly, so the pedal is worthless - although it is kind of fun to put the shifter on the left side to simulate a RH-drive car from Japan/England. It's a shame the Xbox won't accept the Logitech USB wheel/pedal systems.



 

this

Forza 3's achievements are pretty straight forward... nothing like Fable 3 with an insane amount of Xbox Live bullshit. The only thing I need Xbox Live for is to sell one of my cars via auction and to sell one of my designs. Everything else is pretty straightforward (just drive). One of them was to snipe an auction, eBay style!