Ever heard of the Twisted Metal series?  Ever played or experienced it?  Well, here’s a short summary of all the games: cars strapped with weapons (machine guns, missiles, oil slicks, mines and more) designed to cause as much destruction to other players as possible, in order to be #1 in the competition.  Now, combine that mayhem with a top-down driving style like the original Grand Theft Auto and you have essentially what Scrap Metal is like.  Don’t take that the wrong way, but it’s a good thing.

The game starts you off on choosing between two different control schemes, one which lets you point your left stick in the direction you want to go and the other allows you to steer left or right (relative to the car) and accelerate with the right trigger.  In both cases, the left trigger brakes and in both cases you can wreak large amounts of havoc around the track.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, the theme of the game is cars mixed with carnage, chaos, crashing, wreckage and lots of booms!

The game gives you a junkyard with 4 car slots that you can fill up with various cars.  You acquire cars simply by destroying them, after which the scrap metal is delivered to your junkyard.  You can fix them up, customize them, upgrade them, and of course, race them!

With each different track there are a set of challenges: races, survival or number of destroyed vehicles that you have to complete. Along the way, you might have to race or wreak havoc on mini-bosses, but the final challenge on every track is a large, but not too difficult boss.  Once you learn their behaviour, it’s not hard to destroy them and automatically take 1^st place.

With that said, the vehicle and weapon loadouts that I encountered were numerous.  Every car you wreck will permanently be in your junkyard if you want to resurrect it. Be warned, if you’ve spent money on upgrading a car and you replace it, you won’t get that money back, nor will that car come back to you with all the upgrades again. So choose wisely!

So, if you like carnage with cars, or trucks for that matter, I’d suggest taking a peek at the trial, and strongly consider a purchase. The initial levels are relatively slow, but the game really picks up once you hit the 3^rd and 4^th tracks and wreck some nice cars and trucks. And yes, they do cause more and more pandemonium the further you go.

In mid-January, Turn 10 Studios released it’s 2nd of 3 DLC packs, the 2nd car pack for Forza 3.  The car pack featured 10 different cars, of which some were more desirable than others, but all were more fast toys for the game.  Since we here at 360Sync enjoy the game (and one of us, namely myself, loves the game), we’re up for sharing some of the DLC love with everyone.

So here’s the deal: we all know I’m a big racing fan, and I love my Forza 3.  Race me in a best of 3 series and if you win, you get the car pack. We only have one, so the first person to win 2 of 3 races, takes it.

So how do you enter? Send me an email to DZgrablic [at] 360Sync [dot] com, with your preferred track and layout, as well as your preferred class of car to race with. I’ll send you an email back with the number you are, which will indicate how many people will have their shot at the prize before you, and when your turn is next, I will arrange a time with you. Please try to limit the time per race to a maximum of about 7-8 minutes. Car choice and tune are really up to you, as long as it is within the racing class you chose previously.  (Side note: Drag Races will not be accepted as acceptable races.)

The only real rule to the competition is to race clean and fair. I reserve the right to re-run a race if I feel there was unsportsmanlike behaviour involved.  If you make a mistake, please try to right it within the next few corners of that race, as similarly, if I make a mistake, I will try to right it within next few corners of that race.  Of course, we will always be able to discuss it within the game, and we will act on it then.

Here’s a list of the 10 cars that are included in the AutoWeek DLC pack so you know what you’re competing for:

1. 2009 Audi RS 6
2. 2010 Ford Shelby GT500
3. 2009 Lotus 2-Eleven
4. 2010 Aston Martin One-77
5. 2010 Porsche Boxster S
6. 2009 Audi R8 LMS Show Car
7. 2010 Pagani Zonda R
8. 2010 Saleen S5S Raptor
9. 2010 BMW Motorsport M6 Coupe
10. 2010 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport

And that’s that! If you’re interested, please email me, and we’ll get things underway!

Microsoft Game Studios has just launched its first Facebook game – Match Defense: Toy Soldiers. You get to choose to play as Allied or Central powers in a game that looks similar to Bejeweled and Puzzle Quest.

The cool part about the Facebook game is that it will link up to the Xbox Live Arcade version that is set to be released during the March Block Party. We aren’t sure exactly how this will work, and as of now, it looks like the scoreboards aren’t up yet for the game as well.

Either way, take a look, and let us know what you think of the game.

[More information on the XBLA version]

Ever since Bungie announced that there would be a beta for the upcoming ‘Halo: Reach‘ we’ve sat on the edge of our seats waiting to hear exactly when we can pop those ODST discs back into the 360 to check it out. Well, wait no more because today it was announced that the multiplayer beta for ‘Halo: Reach’ will go live on May 3rd of this year.

As stated you will need the ODST game disc to get into the beta exactly like the ‘Crackdown‘ disc was needed for the ‘Halo 3′ beta. If you don’t have a copy of the game you have plenty of time to find one.

‘Halo: Reach’ will be falling to retail this fall exclusively on the Xbox 360.

As of this morning, the Hot Holidays Car Pack was released on the Xbox Live Games Marketplace.  The pack includes 10 new cars for Forza Motorsport 3, and is priced at a bargain-400 Microsoft Points, putting each car’s price at a mere $0.50 (USD).  The Hot Holidays Car Pack does also have a sample pack, which lets you try out the Audi S4, for free. If you like what you see, we’re sure you’ll enjoy the cars that are in the pack even more.

Likely the most important car of this pack is the 2010 Nissan GT-R SpecV. Why do you ask? Well, there is one main factor here: the in-car dash, navigation and near-theatre software was developed by Polyphony Digital. Does that name sound familiar? Polyphony Digital just happens to also be the developer of Gran Turismo 5, Sony’s rival in the simulation category, exclusively for the PS3. So you can see how they might want to hold up this car from being in the opposing platform’s game right?

Either way, here is the full car list (which we showed you yesterday) along with the in-game credit values for each car (in order to own the cars in your career, you must purchase them using in-game credits):

• 2009 Aston Martin #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola – 1,500,000
• 2009 Audi #2 Audi Sport Team Joest R15 TDI – 1,500,000
• 2010 Audi S4 – 48,000
• 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia – 250,000
• 2010 Ferrari 599xx – 2,500,000
• 2010 Jaguar XFR – 80,000
• 2010 Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SV – 400,000
• 2009 Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss – 1,100,000
• 2010 Nissan GT-R SpecV – 150,000
• 2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo – 130,000

Finally, we couldn’t have a post about new cars without some pictures of said cars right? Enjoy them below!

Add the Hot Holidays Car Pack to your download queue

Add the Hot Holidays Car Sample to your download queue

Earlier today, we ran into some information about Forza Motorsport 3’s latest DLC, the Hot Holidays DLC Car Pack.  Turn 10 Studios has confirmed 8 of these cars, while the last 2 still have not been revealed.  The car pack will include 10 cars, some more impressive than others, for a bargain price of 400 Microsoft Points. (A mere $0.50 per car seems extremely cheap.) So far the list of 8 stands at this:

• 2010 Audi S4
• 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia
• 2010 Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss
• 2010 Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SV (SuperVeloce)
• 2009 Audi #2 Audi Sport R15 TDI
• 2010 Jaguar XFR
• 2009 Aston Martin #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola
• 2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo

The last 2 cars which have not yet been revealed, we’ve managed to find proof of, so we can confirm that these two will be available for download within the pack tomorrow:

• 2010 Nissan GT-R SpecV
• 2010 Ferrari 599XX

Most importantly though, the spearhead car of this pack is the Nissan “Skyline” GT-R R35 SpecV, probably the most often requested car from fans.  Up until now, the car has all 3 “maintstream” Skylines, the R32, R33 and R34 as well as R35 race-spec cars, but was lacking the R35 in street legal form.  Now we’ll finally be able to shred up the track with the newest Skyline.

With the GT-R, the SuperVeloce, the 458 and the 599XX, the purchase of this pack should be a no-brainer.  Best of all? It’s going to be released tomorrow!

…And there are a lot of them.  We have four galleries for you to check out – screenshots, character models, vehicles, and weapons.  Our favorites are the screenshots; they’re just so action-packed. To be honest, these new images aren’t making the waiting any easier.

Remember, if you want to see the pics below a bit bigger, right click on the picture, and click ‘See Full Sized Picture!’.

Characters:

Screenshots:

Vehicles:

Weapons:

Nowadays, if you want to rip it up in a driving/racing simulator on a console, you really only have two different series: Gran Turismo on the PlayStation consoles and Forza Motorsport on the Xbox consoles. While Gran Turismo is about to hit its 5th iteration next year sometime, Forza Motorsport 3 released today in North America to further the Forza Motorsport series. While neither of these racing simulators really ever has a story, Forza Motorsport 3 has tried to put things into context, by arranging things onto a calendar rather than just dropping a whole list of events you have to complete, this makes the player’s goal more attainable and relevant. So how about we break this review up into sections so you can keep pace?

Graphics

First off, let me begin in saying that Forza 3 looks good, real good.

The car models in this game are highly detailed, and unlike Forza 2, you can see the tire and their treads. (In Forza 2 it seemed as if the tires were just a black hole for any and all light.)  The cars are rendered to near perfection with every nuance of the car’s body being reflected in the game.  The reflections in the cars are equally spectacular. Each of the cars also has a rendered interior, which if you like racing in that mode, is great.  Of course hardcore players will use that, but most casual racers usually opt in for the behind-the-car view, rendering this mode nearly irrelevant.

Personally, I would be inclined to say that the car renderings in Forza 3, inside and out, look better than those in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, particularly if you add in the fact that Forza 3 has damage and Prologue does not.  How FM3 will stack up against next year’s Gran Turismo 5 when the full game releases, still remains to be seen.

Even by zooming, the cars still maintain their visual integrity.

Next up are the tracks, or how the game calls them, “environments.”  The game contains over 100 different track configurations, whether those are full circuits, reverse circuits, “old” circuits, point-to-point sections and even several drag strips.  While the tracks are very realistic, lifelike and detailed, they take a long time to load, even if you have the first disc and content from the second disc loaded to your hard drive.  That said, they’re a blast to drive around and you can tell how much work actually went into them. You can even feel minor bumps in the road, and if you’re not careful, they’ll throw off your exit out of a corner. Take a look at the two shots below, and tell me you can’t feel the love from Turn 10.

Fujimi Kaido is probably one of the best looking tracks in Forza Motorsport 3.

The game also really pushes the feeling of speed, but surprisingly without using any motion blur.  Forza 3 behaves so real, it can even make you feel things like the chills or even pain.  Flying down the back straight of the old Circuit de la Sarthe (old Le Mans circuit) at 260 MPH and covering a football field per second, trees disappear in mere instants, all while giving you the chills from going so fast.  There’s also the feeling of pain when you’re on a tight and twisty track like Fujimi Kaido full circuit, and where after a mere lap of the circuit will cause your fingers to hurt from the constant alternation of braking and accelerating.  Forza 3 does make you feel the game.

Overall, the game looks fantastic, with the car models being extremely highly detailed, almost to the point of excessiveness.  The environments you race in are truly believable and will make you feel as if you’re actually at the track.

Gameplay

In all honesty, the formula Turn 10 used in Forza 2 worked, really well.  Now, in Forza 3, they’ve improved on the formula to make things feel even better than before.  The most major additions and changes include the rewind feature, movie creation, the new storefront and accessibility.  I’ll discuss these ones in detail, as detailing the rest would just make this review way too long.

First off is the rewind feature. This isn’t a new concept, games like GRID had it over a year ago, but FM3 has taken a different approach to how this should work. Every 5 seconds in a race, the race “checkpoints” your progress so far, and you can rewind to there.

Pressing the back button will rewind the race by 5 seconds (provided you’ve actually been racing for more than 5 seconds) and then stop the game to give you a chance to choose next. You either have the option of continuing there, rewinding more (if possible) or canceling the rewind.  It really helps when you mess up, or even cause minor damage to your car. For some players, this may be a crucial feature in having them have fun.

Next up is movie creation.  Forza 3 allows players to render movies from replays and upload those renders straight to their My Forza section on ForzaMotorsport.net.  This tool is very useful for allowing players to record clips of their driving.  The tool works at 2 resolutions 360p (SD) and 720p (HD) and lets you to record between 5 and 30 second clips (in 5 second increments).  While I can understand that rendering these videos may require the full power of the 360, the uploading process surely doesn’t harness the 360 to its fully potential and so should not disallow the player from playing the game. It’s a minor annoyance, and while it may be fixed in the future, is only a minor flaw of the whole movie creation feature within Forza 3.

Yes, that is me driving. This “movie” was made up of about 9 clips.

Forza 3, while still only limited to a single file that is only stored for 24 hours on their servers, does it for free, and at awesome quality.

Also, reworked this time round is a player’s Storefront. Players now have the option of selling a design, vinyl or tuning setup via their Storefront, as well as storing up to 18 screenshots and 9 replays, which other players can view or download. Cars as packages are still be sold in the auction house.  This setup is really nice and well fleshed out until you want to look at multiple storefronts or a specific storefront. It’s fairly complicated, not very intuitive and requires a lot of repeating steps.

Also, the web integration with the Storefront is  a little pale.  You can look at a player’s screenshots and download them and look at a player’s favorites.  Sadly this is the extent of everything on ForzaMotorsport.net as it stands now, but the team has promised to add much more integration in the near future. And one last thing that is missing: queuing up and downloading from your browser, directly to your game. I’m keeping my fingers crossed some of this gets addressed.

Last but not least, is Forza 3’s accessibility.  This is the part of the game where I think Turn 10 nailed the game. Making the game more accessible by adding such things as quick racing, and especially features such as auto-braking make the game appeal to a much larger crowd.  I’ve had numerous friends, who aren’t fans of racing games, tell me that they’re actually having fun with Forza 3.  Really and truly, I think that says it all about the accessibility of Forza Motorsport 3: more people like it and a lot more people can fall in love with it.

In summation, Forza 3 feels very similar to Forza 2 in terms of the race dynamics but Turn 10 has done a lot more to make the cars feel realistic, by adding more of a heavy feel to them.  The additional content like movie creation, the new Storefront and accessibility options that Turn 10 Studios have built into the game just make it appeal to a wider audience and allows some of the more hardcore to flaunt what they have.

Audio

There’s not much different to be said about the audio in Forza Motorsport 3, because it’s just quite similar to Forza 2.  And yes, it still sounds great and nails the sounds of the cars.  Ferraris still sound like Ferraris, Lamborghinis still sound like Lamborghinis and the Porsche Carrera GT still sounds almost like a Formula 1 car.  I think I did notice that the team upped the relative volume of some of the sound effects, specifically the turbo’s spooling, the blow-off valve’s hiss and the supercharger’s whine, which was very welcomed.

How do those squealing tires sound?

Other than that, the game still sounds amazing, and does its best to get as close to the real car sounds as possible.

Achievements

The achievements in Forza 3 are fairly bland. Quite a few will be awarded to you as you make your way through season mode, leveling up your driver and progressing through seasons.  The rest of the achievements will come from trying out the various new offerings Forza 3 has, from creating a vinyl a tune setup or selling something from your storefront.  There are really only two somewhat fun achievements, one requiring you to crack the 200mph barrier, and one requiring you to get 100,000 drift points in a single lap.

Probably the most technical achievement in Forza Motorsport 3.

The only real daunting achievement is the one that requires you to get gold (or 1st place) in all the events the game has to offer.  With 220 events in the game and nearly all of them having at least 3 races in them, you’re easily looking at 650 or more races to pick up this achievement.  That said, the achievements in this game are still quite monotonous; they’re not nearly as fun as something like GRID.

Xbox Live Multiplayer

For FM3, it seems like Turn 10 really listened to the community to see what they wanted. In terms of online racing modes, there are various preset ones that weren’t available in Forza 2 like Cat and Mouse, drifting, drag racing and others. The team has also implemented Halo 3 style “hoppers” that they intend to modify every week based on how much they are played and what the community wants to see and play.

Of worthy note is that while online, you can also use “bot” racers, also known as AI or CPU racers. That way, it’s not just you and a friend racing, but rather you, a friend, and up to 6 other AI drivers tearing up the track.

While Turn 10 has upped the multiplayer offerings of Forza 3 compared to its previous iteration, there are still some things that are lacking, mostly asked for by the community.  The multiplayer component of Forza 3 has a ton of robust options and gametypes that’ll keep players going at each other for a long time to come. And then there are always the leaderboards for the various storefront sections for players to vie for.

Conclusion

Forza 3, however similar the underlying concepts may be to Forza 2, is a very different game. From the re-worked graphics of both the cars and the tracks, to the re-worked physics of the racing and to the added options to attract new players, Forza Motorsport 3 firmly establishes itself as a full contender in the racing genre. Then aglain we wouldn’t expect anything less from the studio that brought us two solid previous iterations.  We definitely have to congratulate Turn 10 Studios on such a well-made and feature-packed  game!

If you’re interested, there is a demo of Forza Motorsport 3 available on Xbox Live.

Note: For the sake of readability I cut out some large parts of this review because it would have been way too long. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for a Forza 3 related contest, very soon.

As of Thursday, Forza Motorsport 3 was released in Japan with the European release coming this past Friday and the North American release is coming in less than a day.  This means, that unlike Bungie, who update their site a little before their game launches, Turn 10 updated their site on Thursday to include a new “My Forza” section.  This is where your things will be saved including your screenshots and your video.

The banner for the new section.

For your video, you can only have one up at a time, and it will only be hosted on ForzaMotorsport.net for 24 hours. Again, unlike Bungie whose videos in your Fileshare are just game code and so are relatively small, the video uploaded to ForzaMotorsport.net is a full rendered video in either 360p or 720p for up to 30 seconds of duration. I’m sure you can see how that might add up.  Having several video slots would take a significant amount of server space, so only having one slot is justifiable. Could we see a service similar to Bungie Pro with Forza 3? After a quick chat at this weekend’s Forza Motorsport 3 launch event in Toronto with Korey Krauskopf, Lead Producer of the game, we were told that this one video limit may be increased in the near future.  This was said to be due to Turn 10 not knowing how much the feature would be used, and as such, how much space they would need. So to be on the safe side they went with the conservative allotment.  If the feature isn’t used as much as expected, we can pretty definitively expect more slots!

Specifically with pictures, there seems to be no limit to the amount of pictures you can upload. They are defined by your store front in the game, and they are updated on the website nearly instantly.  If you’re interested in some shots I’ve taken within the Forza Motorsport 3 engine, they’re embedded below.

Finally, the post regarding this area states (in the URL alone) that this is still just a preview.  The image above mentions two things that are not yet even represented: stats and leaderboards.  This will presumably show your online statistics (how many races you’ve started, completed, won, placed 2nd, and placed 3rd) similarly to what was available in-game in Forza 2. The leaderboards will show who’s at the top of each of the storefront areas, as well as likely allow you to check your ranking.

With much more coming to the My Forza section of ForzaMotorsport.net, this is one section you should keep your eyes glued to.  It’s certainly in store for some cool new additions.

We’ve got quite a bit of Forza Motorsport 3 news today, likely put into play to stir up hype for the title since the demo is out today. Also on tap we have news from the Tokyo Game Show, news regarding the Ferrari 458 and some even related to the Avatar Marketplace. Let the news begin!

Demo

Earlier this morning, the hotly anticipated Forza Motorsport 3 demo was released to Xbox Live.  Featuring 5 different cars, each in their own class and one track, it’ll give everyone a chance to see what all the fuss is about. Cars included in the game are:

• 2007 Porsche #80 Flying Lizard 911 GT3 RSR
• 2010 Audi R8 5.2 FSI Quattro
• 2009 Ferrari California
• 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X GSR
• 2009 Mini John Cooper Works

Since the demo is a part of the real game, it still includes some of the big selling points of Forza 3 including the new rewind feature, as well as cockpit view and even the ability to flip your car.  With all that said, Shane (sedington86) captured a video of him racing around the track in the 911 GT3 RSR.  It shows off some nice passes as well as a light nudge to win the race.

I, personally, would highly recommend you download this demo.

Tokyo Game Show

Also, in conjunction with the Tokyo Game Show that is happening as we speak, Turn 10 Studios and Microsoft Game Studios announced that Forza Motorsport 3 will include Fujimi Kaido, a world class drifting and racing track in Japan.  This track will be primarily used for drifting competitions, which allow you to drift to rack up points to win the race overall.  Drifting will also include global leaderboards, so drifters can compete for the best combos and best overall scores on different tracks. With this announcement they also announced some of the new cars that would be coming that are considered to be the best for drifting:

• 2003 Honda S2000
• 1997 Mazda RX-7
• 2004 Mazda RX-8 Mazdaspeed
• 1992 Nissan Silvia CLUB K’s
• 1993 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec
• 1994 Nissan Silvia K’s
• 1995 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec
• 2000 Nissan Silvia Spec-R
• 2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II
• 1985 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT Apex
• 1992 Toyota Supra 2.0 GT Twin Turbo
• 1998 Toyota Supra RZ

This also includes a video of Fujimi Kaido along with these drifting cars tearing up the track.

Ferrari 458 Italia

Announced yesterday, Turn 10 Studios stated that the newest Ferrari to join the Ferrari family, the 458 Italia, will be available as DLC shortly after Forza Motorsport 3 hits store shelves. Why this isn’t being released as part of the game beats me, but I’ll surely be getting it, especially if the car packs are as inexpensive as they were for Forza 2.  It could directly be attributed that, publicly, this car is only two months old, so it is likely that it wasn’t ready in time for when the game went gold. You better cheer yourself up with some pictures and videos of the 458 in action in Forza 3.

And the video of the Italia. Give it a bit, because the first part of the video makes it seem like it’s for all Ferraris, but it’s really for the 458.

Forza 3 Avatar Store

And last but not least, Microsoft opened the floodgates on the Forza Motorsport 3 Avatar Store.  Riddled with goodies like gloves, racing shoes, track-branded t-shirts and even a full on racing suit, we’re sure that many racing fans will buy up some of these items.  Some of the accessories are pretty interesting and may even pique the interests of folks who aren’t really particular about racing games.

And that’s your Forza Motorsport 3 news round-up. Oh and if you haven’t checked out the achievements for Forza 3, you should, because most of them seem relatively straightforward.