I've had GT5 for a few weeks (thank you GameFly), and I was really anticipating getting it for PS3. I'm cheap, so I didn't get it at launch. I love racing games, and the quality of the current generation makes them so much better. It's the PS3 game people were waiting for, and it was the best racing game out there. Until now. /Clarkson

I recently came into possession of an Xbox 360 (thank you Matt!), and after a weekend where we both discovered (or in his case re-discovered) the excellence of Forza 3, I picked up the much anticipated Forza 4. I must say, it is much more enjoyable to play than GT5. Both are racing simulators, however that is where the similarities end. GT5 is the professional's simulator. It more accurately simulates racing, and has a much more comprehensive training system in the license tests. However, it does go a bit overboard. In looking at tips/tricks, the first recommendation upon buying a new car is to change its oil. Wait, what? I need to do 3000 mile maintenance on my BMW M5? Um, no. I shouldn't need to wash my car after a race on a dirt road. Also, the cars can get prohibitively expensive, especially if you aren't either excellent or play it every day.

With Forza 4, the focus is on driving and racing. You get a car at every racer level, and can choose to purchase cars in between. Yes, as you advance, you get more, and with the higher classes come higher prizes, so you can get and upgrade the higher cars without having to change their oil. I like what they did with the Autovista mode, letting you get inside some of the hottest cars, with more on the way via DLC.

As a final note, both GT5 and Forza 4 had sponsorship from Top Gear, with GT5 not only having the track, but also having GT TV show clips from Top Gear. When Turn 10 sent money TG's way, that ended promptly, and they brought more than just the track, bringing Car Soccer, Bowling, and narration by Jeremy Clarkson (selected segments, including the Autovista overviews). Overall, the Top Gear experience is much better in Forza 4 because it's accessible. You can turn the game on, and after the initial race to get you into the game, you can race the Top Gear track, including in the Kia cee'd, the current "Reasonably Priced Car" immediately. To go on the track in GT5, you have to complete a challenge where you come in 1st driving the track in a 65 VW Minibus. It's fairly hard, and makes it inaccessible.

There is a new king of racing, and it is Forza 4. The fact they got out more games, with increasing quality, in the time Polyphony got out GT5 Prologue and GT5 is impressive. Maybe its the Xbox programming environment vs PS3 programming. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that Forza 4 is supremely fun, and that GT5 will be going back to GameFly shortly. And originally, I was thinking of keeping it...

I've had GT5 for a few weeks (thank you GameFly), and I was really anticipating getting it for PS3. I'm cheap, so I didn't get it at launch. I love racing games, and the quality of the current generation makes them so much better. It's the PS3 game people were waiting for, and it was the best racing game out there. Until now. /Clarkson

I recently came into possession of an Xbox 360 (thank you Matt!), and after a weekend where we both discovered (or in his case re-discovered) the excellence of Forza 3, I picked up the much anticipated Forza 4. I must say, it is much more enjoyable to play than GT5. Both are racing simulators, however that is where the similarities end. GT5 is the professional's simulator. It more accurately simulates racing, and has a much more comprehensive training system in the license tests. However, it does go a bit overboard. In looking at tips/tricks, the first recommendation upon buying a new car is to change its oil. Wait, what? I need to do 3000 mile maintenance on my BMW M5? Um, no. I shouldn't need to wash my car after a race on a dirt road. Also, the cars can get prohibitively expensive, especially if you aren't either excellent or play it every day.

With Forza 4, the focus is on driving and racing. You get a car at every racer level, and can choose to purchase cars in between. Yes, as you advance, you get more, and with the higher classes come higher prizes, so you can get and upgrade the higher cars without having to change their oil. I like what they did with the Autovista mode, letting you get inside some of the hottest cars, with more on the way via DLC.

As a final note, both GT5 and Forza 4 had sponsorship from Top Gear, with GT5 not only having the track, but also having GT TV show clips from Top Gear. When Turn 10 sent money TG's way, that ended promptly, and they brought more than just the track, bringing Car Soccer, Bowling, and narration by Jeremy Clarkson (selected segments, including the Autovista overviews). Overall, the Top Gear experience is much better in Forza 4 because it's accessible. You can turn the game on, and after the initial race to get you into the game, you can race the Top Gear track, including in the Kia cee'd, the current "Reasonably Priced Car" immediately. To go on the track in GT5, you have to complete a challenge where you come in 1st driving the track in a 65 VW Minibus. It's fairly hard, and makes it inaccessible.

There is a new king of racing, and it is Forza 4. The fact they got out more games, with increasing quality, in the time Polyphony got out GT5 Prologue and GT5 is impressive. Maybe its the Xbox programming environment vs PS3 programming. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that Forza 4 is supremely fun, and that GT5 will be going back to GameFly shortly. And originally, I was thinking of keeping it...

I really fucking want F4 bad. I bought GT5 at launch at so many small, annoying things built up and just made me hate it. I loved Forza 3, the little I played of it, so even if F4 is like F3 I will be completely fine with that having not really played 3 that much.

I like how your title is completely misleading given the context of your post. Good job.

GT5 is a bad game because Japanese game development is stuck in the past.

@cronosin: Yup. this game is the GT5 to my GT4. First game of this type I've bought since GT4.

Man Forza has been king since 2, GT5 coming out didn't change a thing. That game was a disappointment.

@ShaggyChu said:

I like how your title is completely misleading given the context of your post. Good job.

GT5 is a bad game because Japanese game development is stuck in the past.

Oh that GT5 drifting. Oh

Gran Turismo 5 certainly was a disappointment in regards to content. I'm honestly surprised they kept "B-Spec" and after a year the game has been out, they finally decided to have 2 or 3 tracks as DLC. Wow. Really, just wow. They do have the Seasonal Events which does switch things up a bit but they are mostly time trails. Don't get me wrong, the driving is really good in GT5 and the graphics are awesome, but Forza 4 just provides more content and seems more open to a wider audience.

You can get the track by getting bronze on the first challenge, funnily enough the first challenge is the hardest though, the lotus is a bitch to control on sport softs,

I'd say the "racing" in forza 4 would be better than in GT5 due to the AI, but once you take GT5 online with mates, goddamn is that shit fun,

and when you get up to a level where you can buy any car you want GT5 really comes into it's own, you just have to slog your way there which is a massive shame,

I have bought the Ferrari 2007 F1 car and my god is driving that thing amazing, better than the X2010

i'll have to see. 
 
it seems like everyone here hates gt5. i am enjoying it. i am working on b-spec right now. it is a little boring and frustrating but i get cars out of winning when i do.

I recently downloaded the spec 2.0 patch from Polyphony. When GT5 launched I was extremely disappointed due to all the small decisions that didn't create good gameplay. Cars required for some races could only be purchased from the used car lot, but the lot rotates so you have to get lucky to be able to buy the car to complete the race. The paint customization was (and still is) very limited requiring paint chips to be collected. The rewards, both xp and credits, were very meager requiring me to rerace entire events to move on. The loading times were horrendous as well.

With spec 2.0 a lot has changed. There is now an online used car lot that provides all the hard-to-find cars needed to complete career events. The xp and credits for events have been ramped up considerably. They also started a new Online Seasonal event that pays out a ton of money, so credits are no longer an issue. I am now progressing quickly through the game with the new patch. I've been running B-Spec races and my B Spec level went from 6 to 27 in only 2-3 days of casual racing. The loading times are much better than before because they use progressive loading. The game also fully supports the G27/25 racing wheel now!

Overall, if you were sour to the launch experience of GT5, like me, then give it another shot. The game is much better after the numerous patches.

I own both of these games, and am a long time GT fan. Luckily I don't feel the need to hate Gran Turismo 5, despite it's parts that are a little disappointing, shadows and spray animation the most annoying. But these are both excellent games, Gran Turismo has no equal when it comes to a driving sim, but having said that the sim in Forza kicks butt as well, and the level of detail they give you to modify your cars really hits the spot with me. I am a car enthusiast, and am currently modifying a car IRL as well so being able to go into great detail with upgrading engine internals in Forza 3 and now 4 is really satisfying, and I do like how the AI will actually race you in Forza. Gran Turismo really has a serious competitior now and I hope they notice, because if they do then driving games are really going to get unreal as they both compete for our attention and laptimes.

Imagine, just for a moment, a racing sim where you can drive in the cockpit of every car. Yes this may seem like a minor thing, but it definitely helped sour my overall GT5 experience.

@KamikazeCaterpillar: i think Polyphony patched in basic cockpit views for all standard cars in the 2.0 patch. Either that or its still coming...

Anyway i bought both GT5 and Forza 4 at launch and i played a lot of GT5 since its release. When i first started to play GT5 i really couldn't find any of the brilliance GT fans were always talking about (GT5 being the first GT game i actually own). The flaws at launch were numerous but having said that, Polyphony did do its best to patch a lot of the issues. I haven't tried out the 2.0 patch myself, since i've been to busy playing Forza 4 but its good to see Polyphony keeps updating GT5 even almost a year after launch. And if you take GT5 for what it is; a driving game, thats its strongest point! The driving in GT5 feels great, but the rest of the game surrounding that great aspect, feels really unpolished and not at all thought out (which is unfortunate for a game that was what, 5 years in production?). Playing GT5 online is great although the options were slim in the beginning. And although the patches are great, it makes me kind of angry with the game; why wasn't most of that stuff there at launch? I'm talking about basic menu shortcuts and other funtionality.

Jumping into Forza 4 (only a week ago) felt like a breath of fresh air. Like everything was thought of and was easy to find and use. The graphics are much improved over Forza 3, like almost all aspects of the game. And the driving feel? Something GT5 gets a lot of credit for, feels really good in Forza 4 as well! I can't really say which one is better, i would need to play a lot more Forza 4, but i feel its a lot closer this time around! So if i had to pick one game i would pick Forza 4, its clearly the better game. But GT5 has much improved from the game that was released late last year and if you just look at the driving; both games do a great job at that!

@KamikazeCaterpillar: I usually use the bumper cam, but i do like using the cockpit view, its just that i feel i´m faster using the bumper cam. The lack of cockpit views in GT5 goes back to one of the worst desicions Polyphony made; having both Standard and Premium cars.

No love for Need for Speed Shift?

Gran turismo 5 is not a good driving simulator. Like I said in a previous post, i own a pretty nice mazda rx7. Going around corners in it at 70mph is as smooth as butter. In gt5? It feels like the world is about to end, tires screeching, and traction control going nuts. Don't even get me started on the ae86. Don't personally own one, but have ridden in a few.

I know polphony has ridden in many cars, if not all of them for the game. But someone really doesn't know, the basic fundamentals to driving. You don't drift just by using the e-brake, thats as noobtoobin as it gets. You time it and up/downshift. Something I've yet to see in an gran turismo game. But! I've yet to ever play a forza game. Plan on getting forza 3 soon since its so cheap. As arcadey as project gotham was, it simulated driving WAYYY better than gran turismo ever has.

Both are good games.

I mean, GT5 looks significantly better, and the actual driving feels a lot better too, but I'd probably agree that Forza is the better game overall. Just the terrible UI choices made in GT5 and the heavy grind to get to the fun parts of the game (although I did love the go-karts!) set it below Forza 3. And Forza 4 too I guess. Since they are basically the same game. Also, Forza seems to have significantly more customizability in the multiplayer front (although this could just be again another hinderance of GT5's godawful UI.)

Oh, and all the custom decal stuff is just fantastic, it's something more games should incorporate.

As arcadey as project gotham was, it simulated driving WAYYY better than gran turismo ever has.