Turn 10 Studios | "DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!"

Amusingly enough, although this is a dig at some famous track-bound racing game franchises, I’d actually PLAY a good slot car racing game if some smart developer and publisher teamed up to make one on nearly any home or portable platform. Anyway, while this commercial for <strong>Forza Horizon 2 is magnificent and funny, I have to question WHY it’s partially shot in live action with real cars (with a good deal of expensive CG enhancing) when the actual game looks so gorgeous:

Then again, I don’t work at Microsoft and heck, they know their own games better than anyone, right? Anyway, I’m still an Xbox One holdout, but if I were to grab one of those, this would be one of the games I’d grab with that system. If this is as open world and free range pure driving as it looks, it’ll be something I get lost in for hours and that’s just driving around all by myself checking out all the hard work that went into making the game engine sing so darn well. I’d be the one pulling over every few miles to check out the scenery, even in the middle of a race, so I can’t imagine being the poor AI driver behind me trying to pass as I slide to the left or right and perhaps dent up my ride because I’m trying to ogle a pretty sky or sunset. Anyway, September 30, 2014 is the due date for this baby which is predicted to do VERY well on the console…

That said, I like that he’s so enthusiastic when he plays games even when he’s awful at them. Still, he did whip Microsoft’s Phil Spencer at the new Killer Instinct (it sounded like a flock of woodpeckers over on Jimmy’s arcade stick) before zipping over to Forza Motorsport 5 for some slow-ish racing action. No, the game wasn’t slow at all, kids. Fallon just drove that fake ride like I’d drive a real car on a real road (and I can’t drive – although I’ve actually driven a few times). As for how the games looked, well see for yourself, but DO play the video in HD. It’s hard to tell on a standard def TV or much on a HD set, as you kind of need to be in the same room to get the full effect of “next-gen” visuals. Still, Spencer was light on the details (well, five minutes is not a lot of time to do a segment on two games) and may have made a slip of the tongue (or not) by stating “The Xbox One has THREE times the power of the Xbox 360!” to Jimmy as he was tolling around and smashing the front of his expensive looking digital car. The problem with that three tmes thing… well, it’s TEN times the power elsewhere (Oops).

Well, the article says ten time the “computational power”, but still… it’s an awful mistake if it was one and given Microsoft’s PR stumbles these last few weeks, it’s another of the last things the company needs when it comes to damage controlling a sticky situation. Oh well… at least Spencer got the $499 price right on the nose. Fallon’s earlier spot on bad games was pretty funny as well. Hmmm… I think I need to send him a list of stuff one of these days (and maybe loan out stuff he can’t find), as I have 2000+ games here and probably more than a few stinkers in my kusoge pile…