Forza 4 has been great so far. First off, GT is unplayable with a controller. It really is terrible. It would probably be that way if you tried to drive a real car with your thumbs too. I play with a controller because I don't want any bad in game habits translating into muscle memory that will affect me on an actual track. For instance, I would never downshift in the middle of a corner like I do in-game.
That said, I don't see the complaints against the FM4 physics. Forza's driving model is what drew me in from day one when I tried the original demo. A car actually oversteered. This was in stark contrast to GT4 which I was living and breathing at the time. The FM4 physics are excellent. What surfaces are bothering you? They made the grass really forgiving, but I think that's more of a concession than any misunderstanding. The Positano track is still great for reminding the player how much less grip there could be.
The sound team did a ridiculously good job. Not just in sound effects, but the soundtrack is amazing. They found obscure music, some with terrible vocals, and perfected it in their remixes.
FM4 fixes the PI balancing issues that made awd cars so cheap in FM3, which is a huge deal to me as an rwd fan.
Graphically, Forza 4 is great. It's all in the lighting. I wouldn't call GT5 photo realistic. At all. They still have that horrible white fuzz on surfaces being viewed at extreme angles. The Pixar consultation really paid off and they did figure out a much better way to represent several orders of magnitude of light on your tv which effectively can only display one order of magnitude.
At the risk of continuing the GT vs FM conversation, I can't see how GT5 can stand up to Forza 4, let alone Forza 3. GT has terrible anti-aliasing, terrible load times, a terrible selection of cars, and terrible controller inputs. Part of that last problem is the PS controller itself. Let's assume GT5 was superior in every way except load times. I'd pick Forza for that reason alone.
My new conspiracy theory for the limited paint colors in GT5 is that they have to cheat with the color a bit to help out the poor lighting model. I'm referencing the pre-determined paint colors that you have to buy with real money for a one time use.
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