Well, Best Buy's site doesn't show the Forza bundle, and like I said, the bundles are back to $500 on their site. HOWEVER, Wal-Mart's site lists the Forza bundle on their site, and at $450. You might call a local one of those and check.
thanks, no way was i paying $100 for kinect and the lesser HP console, but $50 off and a $50 game (a game i want, no interest COD with mechs with 1/4 the people matches, these are opinions) Forza and a $400 bone.. now I'm interested, be hitting BB tonight.
Gamespot said:Despite its history and status as one of the most famous racing destinations in the world, the Nürburgring was a no-show when Forza 5 launched this past November. It was a conspicuous absence when you consider that the German raceway has been present in Forza Motorsport in one form or another since the series debuted in 2005.
So why did the Nürburgring miss the initial launch of Forza 5? And why is it being released now--as a free download, no less--nearly seven months later? To understand that, you need to understand the new technology that inspired Turn 10 to rebuild all of its tracks from scratch, and why the lingering effects of that decision have led the studio to give back to its fans in a way it never has before.
Those dots on Trevor Johnson's screen may look like a bit of Seurat-esque pointillism, but they're actually called point cloud data. This information is the product of the new laser-scanning system that Turn 10 began using for all of Forza 5's real-world tracks. Imagine a giant contraption that sends a laser blast out in every direction, returning detailed information on surrounding surfaces in terms of both physical space and RGB color values. Spend enough time lugging that thing around a track, and what you get is a comprehensive 3D model of an entire circuit, one that consists of a seemingly infinite number of tiny dots that tell you everything from the severity of a pothole to the darkened coloring of a freshly patched stretch of asphalt.
"It wasn't until recently that the level of fidelity we needed has come to be with this technology," says content director John Wendl. "Laser scanning has been around for a while, but it just lacked the quality we needed to get usable information. Now with point cloud data, we get geometry information, but we also get texture and lighting information as well."
It's a far cry from the method that Turn 10 employed on previous games, which involved studying satellite imagery to get a feel for a track's layout. Because that top-down approach naturally misses many of a track's subtle topographical shifts--the slope of a hill, the bank of a curve--the artists would then have to rely on track photography and manual measurements to determine those surface details. It was an approach that required a great deal of visual interpretation, something that never quite sat right at a development studio so obsessed with realism.
"Before Forza 5, we used to use a military-grade GPS system," explains Wendl. "And those systems, while they're very accurate on the horizontal scale, they're fairly bad on the vertical scale."
"So we had to use photos and measurements to gauge vertical variety," says Wendl. "And on a track like this with all kinds of dips and undulations, this thing is just ancient. All that comes through on our new system with millimeter accuracy."
"The time we put into Nürburgring is worth probably four or five regular tracks," says Wendl. "From a sheer production perspective, it takes forever. We had over 30 artists working on it for 13,000 man-hours. It's just an incredible effort to build this thing."
Gamespot said:But the changes are more than cosmetic. For the first time in the series, Turn 10 has been able to combine the Nordschleife and the GP circuit into one continuous 16-mile configuration to make an already intimidating track that much more daunting--something it could never quite pull off on the Xbox 360.
"With our streaming system on the Xbox 360, we tried. It broke our system," explains Wendl. "We could have stripped a lot of things out to make the whole ribbon fit, but not to the level of detail that we wanted to do it."
I don't know about that... But the car interior details, the grass and trees, the signage on the track, the graffiti (on both the track and the guard rails), etc.Well sure it looks better but also F4 looks like it is about to rain while F5 is sunny, that will make a huge looking difference
How Turn 10 Rebuilt the World's Most Daunting Race Track
The amount of detail put into all of these tracks really is mind-blowing... Can't wait to play this when I get home!
How is Forza 5 treating everyone? I loved Forza 2 & 3 but was put off by 4 because it was very hevily DLC centric and was afraid that 5 will be the same way... is it?
My complaint about the DLC is that they force Achievements onto the game. I wish they made the DLC install the Achievements or something. I'm somewhat a completionist, so when my game shows 50% completed and the 50% incomplete is $50+ in DLC I didn't want, it annoys me a bit.
My complaint about the DLC is that they force Achievements onto the game. I wish they made the DLC install the Achievements or something. I'm somewhat a completionist, so when my game shows 50% completed and the 50% incomplete is $50+ in DLC I didn't want, it annoys me a bit.
You're annoyed because you can't get points on an imaginary leaderboard nobody but you gives a crap about because DLC adds more points? That makes you 1 of 1. Grab a Dr. Pepper!
Btw, I have never seen a game where the DLC is included in the initial 1000 points.
You're annoyed because you can't get points on an imaginary leaderboard nobody but you gives a crap about because DLC adds more points? That makes you 1 of 1. Grab a Dr. Pepper!
Btw, I have never seen a game where the DLC is included in the initial 1000 points.
If you poke at fun at people that like imaginary things, why are you discussing things in a video game forum?
I guess you haven't seen those "I'm 1 of 1" Dr. Pepper commercials. =(1. I don't like Dr. Pepper.
2. Yes, I care about things that affect me personally, sorry. It's not a leaderboard to me. It's similar to beating a campaign on a high difficulty--if I CAN do it, I want to do it. There's no leaderboard for campaign difficulty, but I always try to beat them on the highest difficulty allowed.
It's not that the DLC is part of the initial 1000, though. It's that when the DLC releases, they add it to the account--no game update to do it or anything, it's just in there.
If you poke at fun at people that like imaginary things, why are you discussing things in a video game forum?
I guess you haven't seen those "I'm 1 of 1" Dr. Pepper commercials. =(
I am not trying to say your argument doesn't mean anything to you, just that is incredibly in the minority.
The merits of DLC have long been discussed and more achievements points available, but only if you pay for it, doesn't get brought up by anyone except Lil Frier. =)
Ugh Dr. Pepper, years ago when I went to Tokyo and the hotel I stayed in only had Dr. Pepper in the soda machine (with the funny anime pictures all over the cans). I got so sick of that stuff after a week.