Tht GT series has been consistent in terms of game play and car physics emulation. It's always been ahead of its competitors in terms of car models and their likeness to the real thing. It is then within reason to ask for a real time photo mode. Of course taking a picture on stage is cool but if you compare this to Project Gotham Racing where at any point in time, while racing, it doesn't compare. You can engage photo mode and walk all around the track, you can even lap the whole circuit on foot and take a picture where ever you want right in the middle of a race in PGR. I feel that all the effort thy put in modeling these cars to the smallest of all details is not utilized and I can't help but noticing how wasteful it is to all the modelers' effort.
They may have it in the final version but I really think they should invest more in showing the cars' details. Most players I know don't even use the rear view, they usually stick to the full frontal view with only the track in sight. Which brings me to another question. Why bother making all those models high res if a good portion of players is sticking to the frontal view? Photo mode is one way of taking advantage of the high res models, being able to make a movie, which Forza lets you do, is another way of utilizing the assets in a constructive way. So shouldn't the GT series start investing more in these features?
Ok so I've been going silent on this for a while but now it's about time someone said something about the game screenshots that Gamespot posts.
What I'm referring to is the inaccuracy and the erroneous representation of the game with "fake" screenshots. Take for example Ninja Gaiden II (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/ninjagaidenii/images.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabs&tag=tabs%3Bimages&page=1). these screenshots are clearly pre-rendered and are NOT in game. There is no way the anti aliasing samples can reach this quality on the 360.
And what disturbs me the most are screenshots from different systems. I mean if Gamespot doesn't want to bother and take screenshots for all systems and decide to only review one port of the game and ignore the rest, then it's fine by me, as long as they put a watermark or a comment saying what system the screenshot is taken from, if any. And if it's just a render, then they should mention that too. When I see screens which display PS3 controls on screeshots supposedly taken from the 360 version like it's shown here (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/driving/racedriverone/images.html?sid=6183729&om_act=convert&om_clk=gumballs&tag=gumballs;img;1) it makes it very difficult to compare the game and eventually decide what system I should buy it for. If this is a dedicated hardcore site, then they should start by presenting accurate information.
Cheers,
