It appears that today will be Brad, Will, Ryan, and Patrick's final attempt to successfully complete the Lantern Run in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. With that in mind, I thought it'd be best to look back at their attempts on the second day and analyze what went right and wrong. If you're interested in day one statistics, check those out here and here.

As a reminder, here is the criteria for success:

• Reach the ninth "arena" in the path. Completion of the ninth arena isn't necessary.
• Earn 1,000,000 points in a single run.

With that established, let's look at day two's basic statistics to start.

Run Tally

Alone, these numbers don't mean that much, and they don't tell us anything beyond what we already knew: Brad and Will are the best performers on the team. It might be worth noting that in many of the runs, Brad's score is well above the rest of the team, which wasn't as evident in day one's scores. Run #13 is the team's best performance on day two, and much like day one's top performance, Will had the best score by a large margin. When he does well, so does the team.

Oh, and here's the updated score graph that shows all 15 runs thus far:

As you can see, there was a lot more floundering and less gradual improvement on day 2. In fact, on average, the team made it through 4.5 arenas on day one, and 3.9 arenas on day two. I'll have some theories with stats and shaky speculation on why this is throughout the rest of the blog.

Division of Score

Here's the division of total score over all of day two's runs:

Unlike last time, the worst run isn't significantly different from this division, but the breakout of the best run proves my point about Will:

Not that Will remembers saying this during day two, but I never said he survived the longest! I just said that when Will kicks ass and survives longer than normal, the team usually experiences its best runs, even more so than when Brad does well.

All That Power

In regards to power-ups, Brad still hogs the power-ups, with Will a distant second. Nothing new there. I did find this difference surprising, though:

Average of total power-ups grabbed per run

• Day 1: 12.63 power-ups per run
• Day 2: 9.14 power-ups per run

This may not be exact, as sometimes I'd record power-ups picked up through weapon swapping or death, but even then it seems clear that the team wasn't grabbing as many power-ups as they were during day one.

"But wait, PsEG," you might say, "they also got further on a lot of their runs on day one, so that makes sense, doesn't it?"

Perhaps a little, but let's examine the average between the two days of power-ups grabbed in total over the number of arenas entered, to give us a power-ups per arena average.

Average of total power-ups grabbed per arena entered

• Day 1: 2.81 power-ups per arena
• Day 2: 2.37 power-ups per arena

Still a notable difference! If you go back and look at day two's video, you'll note that there are several times where the team will leave power-ups behind. That may be a grave mistake.

Speaking of which...

Everybody Dies Eventually

Except for Brad on run 14! That run (34:08 to 42:32 in the video) ended with his lantern being snuffed, but he was technically still alive at the end. Given that was also the team's second best run on day two, maybe there's some merit to Brad staying alive longer at the start being beneficial.

Anyways! Here's some far-more-interesting-than-that-paragraph-above numbers.

Average Deaths Per Run

Yeah, you're reading that right. Despite a crappier performance on day two, everybody died less than day one. Even if I were to make this average deaths per arena entered, it'd be a downward trend.

So what does that mean? It's not just about not dying in the Lantern Run. It's about not dying at the worst possible moments. The first death is always bad, since it almost always guarantees the snuffing of the first lantern, but after that, one player could die in every section, and as long as the rest of the team can keep the remaining lanterns moving, it'll work out.

Speaking of snuffing lanterns, I'd like to bring back my favorite graph for the Lantern Run.

Snuff Times (or When Lanterns Get Snuffed)

I continued to note where every lantern was snuffed, and I have this lovely graph of survival rates for all 60 lanterns snuffed thus far.

And, since that's a little small, here's a table.

This isn't all that different from the first graph I released, so for the most part, lanterns are still getting snuffed in the same areas on average. The most dangerous section, the second tunnel, now claims 38.3% of all lanterns, up from 34.4%.

The first lantern death tended to start a chain reaction of death on day one, usually by Patrick fucking up, but in this day's stats, the fault was spread out far more evenly and was isolated to one death for six out of seven runs (Patrick and Will being the only exception).

Some Final Thoughts

With the stats and my own personal observations, I'd like to make the following suggestions to the team for today's final run:

• Grab power-ups. Leaving power-up opportunities behind decreases your ability to survive.
• Don't worry so much about Brad or Will always getting the power-ups, either. Just make sure everybody has weapons they're comfortable with, and let people get health when they need it most.
• Will and Brad (assuming Will joins the final attempt) need to bicker less. The early runs on day two suffered from their needless angst, and results improved once they calmed down and started working together.
• Also: Brad, do better at the beginning. Will, do better at the end. Your runs will benefit.
• The whole team needs to move faster. Surviving is key, yes, but once the first lantern's gone, there's often going to be an open claw-arm waiting to grab a lantern should one of you perish. Don't fuck up a run through unnecessary hesitation, needless carrying-the-lantern-in-front-of-you trickery, or having someone lag behind for lantern-catching safety's sake, causing the tentacle monster to move insurmountably close to your position.
• Bullshit is going to happen to you tonight. It's how you overcome the bullshit tunnels in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet that will determine your final outcome.
• Go right. Don't die. You'll win.
• ...hopefully.

Thanks for reading, and best of luck to Brad and crew on tonight's run.

I think about strange, middling things, perhaps at too much length. For the heck of it, I figured I'd describe my recent thought process for one such thing here. At the very least, that should help establish a permanent record of my thoughts in the event I forget about this whole ordeal a few months down the road.

Trials Evolution is coming out this Wednesday. I played it at PAX East alongside other Giant Bomb mods and users, and it's a lot of fun. Trials can be frustrating as hell alone, but the four-lane supercross multiplayer, which puts more emphasis on racing and basic technique, eschews most of the frustration for hectic speed. I entertained the idea of hosting site-wide online tournaments here on Giant Bomb, and the second I did, my mind began racing over how brackets would work.

Most tournament brackets are focused on head-to-head matchups, be it team versus team or player versus player. The methods for handling these are numerous and well-established, both for single elimination and double elimination. Four competitors at once, however, is a trickier format, and while you can simplify it somewhat, that can be to the detriment of the ongoing competition.

Let me explain by highlighting the various formats and quirks I've been thinking about in regards to a Giant Bomb Trials Evolution supercross tournament. I'll use my own naming conventions, since I haven't found much in the way of information elsewhere.

Half In/Transfer

This is a more basic, straightforward format, and I'd expect most people would use this when faced with a similar style of tournament. It's much like you might see in a snowboard cross tournament at the Olympics or the X-Games: There's a set amount of transfer spots in each round, and a competitor either finishes well enough to transfer or is eliminated. Typically, you'd transfer the top two finishers in a four-person heat, which is pretty standard. This was also the format of tournaments in Forza Motorsport 2, except those matches had eight racers and transferred the top four to the next round.

It's an easy format to follow, both in the layout of the brackets and knowing how you have to perform in each match. It's also really simple for drawing up brackets as an organizer, which is helpful when you have an odd amount of entrants and need to figure out where your play-in matches or preliminaries need to go. However, it doesn't provide any extra incentive to be first until the very final round, since you're only looking to transfer as one of the top two. There's also no chance to recover from a single bad performance, so slipping up and finishing third means elimination at any point, even if it's after a string of firsts.

The other quirk here that can be dealt with involves seeding as rounds progress. In most formal tournaments, the transferring competitors move along the brackets much as if the tournament was geared for head-to-head matches. This means that if the same pair of competitors keep finishing in the transfer spots in each round, they could conceivably be facing off against each other for the entirety of the tournament.

This is where a little mixing or re-seeding can help out a less formal tournament. Perhaps I instead move all the second place finishers into another bracket to face another set of first place finishers. This hampers some of the ease of following the brackets, but it allows players to face a wider variety of opponents over their time in the tournament. Plus, having a more predictable movement along the brackets could be an incentive for finishing in first, I suppose.

This mixed "half in" format will probably be what I use for any Trials Evolution tournaments on Giant Bomb. What if I wanted to allow competitors more chances to recover and redeem themselves, though, sort of in the vein of double elimination (but not quite)? There's a complicated format for that, too.

Last Chance Qualifiers

In motocross and a lot of short track dirt racing, every heat sends a set amount of people to the main race, or at least to the next round. At least a portion of the entrants that didn't transfer then fight for a smaller handful of remaining spots in the main race, in what's called a "Last Chance Qualifier" heat. It's essentially your last chance of the night to get into the big money race, and while the chances are slim, it's at least a chance, which can be handy if you experienced misfortune in your earlier heat race.

This could be implemented into bracketed tournaments, as well, and it's actually beneficial on a few fronts. It allows for multiple chances to move forward in a tournament, while providing more incentive to finish in better positions to avoid having to compete in additional matches. It also provides a lot more matches for competitors to participate in, and generally provides a better sense of overall ranking against everyone else at the end of a tournament.

Of course, the problem is that it's difficult to organize, difficult to follow, and the method of providing multiple chances to move on, since it's not exactly double elimination style or otherwise strictly defined, can appear arbitrary in its implementation.

This LCQ format I've thought up also takes a lot more matches in general. For sixteen entrants, I could put together a tournament in the LCQ format that takes twelve to fifteen matches to run, whereas a typical transfer/half in system could handle double that, with thirty-two entrants in fifteen matches. It's not efficient, but that's not really the point -- it's meant to be exciting for someone watching the tournament unfold. Then again, that implies somebody other than the entrants will be watching a tournament like this unfold, and is that really going to happen for something this minor? Probably not.

Anyways, that's just a little bit of the thought process going through my head for potential Trials Evolution tournaments. I kind of wish there were more resources out there for tournaments that involve matches more complex than head-to-head, so that this sort of shindig would be easier to plan and implement.

Welcome to the Community Gaming Outlook! As in previous weeks, if you have any comments, suggestions, or criticisms regarding the format, just let me know with a reply to this thread. I think this idea's just about ready for prime time, but I'd like to create a few header images to split up this wall of text first. I'll have those images ready for next week's outlook, hopefully!

ARMA II's a new addition this week, with ARMA II Free replacing Battlefield 3 in the PC Gaming Hub's Friday timeslot. Team Fortress 2 is also in the rotation this weekend, as Counter-Strike: Source takes its week off in this TF2/CS:S bi-weekly schedule swap. I make mention of it in the schedule, but tf2.giantbomb.com is working again, so you should really help make that wonderful TF2 server popular. Thank LtSquigs while you're at it. He fixes stuff for justice and all that is good. Finally, Thule's looking to host a StarCraft II tournament in February, so be ready to sign up for that in the near future. I'll copy any necessary details when they come about.

Reality provided a bit too much distraction for me this week, so if you started a new game night or multiplayer get-together and I don't have it listed here, let me know! I don't want to leave your awesome events in the dark, lonely and unattended. That's just cruel.

Also remember, if you take part in any of these community gaming events, I'd like to see your pictures of the action! If your screenshots are shared on something like Steam or My Forza, just post a link to your gallery in the replies and I'll have a look at them. Otherwise, feel free to post the images directly into the replies. Let me see how awesome you lot are being in the multiplayer worlds! Please?

Friday, January 20th

ARMA II Free2Play Game Night

ARMA II Free (PC), 12:30 PM PST

Details here – The Giant Bomb PC Gaming Hub community found ARMA II to be rather enjoyable, and there's a free version available on Steam. If you're looking for a highly realistic and (more importantly) insane diversion from Battlefield 3, you should join these duders.

Saturday, January 21st

Team Fortress 2 Game Night

Team Fortress 2 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – This event alternates with the Counter-Strike: Source game night on a weekly basis. Given that Tested mod LtSquigs did a tremendous job fixing the official Giant Bomb/Tested server, I must imagine that tf2.giantbomb.com will be the server of choice for these festivities. Also, TF2's hella fun, yo.

Sunday, January 22nd

Battlefield 3 Community War

Battlefield 3 (PC), 3:30 PM PST

Details here –This currently alternates between Saturdays and Sundays each week, and given that it was on Saturday last week, I'm assuming it's a Sunday shindig this week, even if I don't see it on a schedule. Here's where the European and North American Battlefield enthusiasts meet to clash heads against one another.

Monday, January 23rd

SSFIV: AE Game Night

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – I'm still unsure how well this fight night is performing, but for the time being, I'm assuming it's still alive. If you want it to stay that way, then you should probably bring your skills (or lack thereof) to this fracas.

Tuesday, January 24th

Battlefield 3 Bombing Runs

Battlefield 3 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – With ARMA II taking over the PC Gaming Hub's Friday schedule, this is the only weekday remaining to get your Battlefield fix on. Battlefix? Of course, you could also participate in the weekend community wars, if that sort of mayhem suits you.

Wednesday, January 25th

Trackmania 2 Race Night

Trackmania 2: Canyon (PC), 6:00 PM PST

Details here, server details here – I didn't see Dolemite during last week's TNT, but otherwise this Trackmania server appears to be alive and kicking on any day of the week. Do try to check in on Wednesdays, though!

Thursday, January 26th

Red Orchestra 2 Game Night

Red Orchestra 2 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – This event currently isn't listed in the PC Gaming Hub's Steam schedule, but I'm assuming it's alive for now. They've had reasonable turnouts in the past, so I'll inquire and see if that's still the case.

Thursday Night Throwdown

??? (???), 4:00 PM PST

Live on Giant Bomb – I really wish I could tell you, but I don't see any clues as to the identity of the next TNT game. Just keep an eye on I Love Mondays and staff Twitter accounts, in case you need to bum rush the GBTNT accounts with friend requests.

Giant Bomb Forza Race Night

Forza Motorsport 4 (360), 7:30 PM PST

Details here – We experienced a slight downturn in attendance last week, although ten people is still pretty good given the limitations we had in Forza 3. Just remember – there's always room for more. Always.

Clubs, Groups & Guilds

These aren't quite gaming events, but they're groups of Giant Bomb users organized in games to be awesome together at any given time. If I overlook a group near and dear to your heart, just post a reply letting me know about it, and I'll list it next week. Please note that I'm trying to avoid simple gamertag exchange threads, so it's unlikely you'll see any of those listed here.

Also, since Star Trek Online's now free to play, if anyone has any information on a Space Neon Lobsters revival, I'd love to add details for that in here.

• Battlefield 3: Join the Battlefield 3 Steam group to keep up to date with the community!
• EVE Online: Sounds like they're up to something in the community hub over here!
• Forza Motorsport 4: The Giant Bomb Car Club is accepting requests to join! Warning: You will be spammed with lobby invites every Thursday night.
• Minecraft: Read the rules if you want to join the Giant Bomb server's whitelist.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Kessler Run (Imperial) and Good Luck Have Bothans (Republic) both welcome newcomers on the Mind Trick server.
• Super Monday Night Combat: It might be an invitational at the moment, but the GB SMNC Steam group welcomes all Giant Bomb fans with SMNC access for outings.
• Uncharted 3: The Uncharted 3 Hub's gathering people for game nights on a pretty frequent basis.

Did I miss any community events or groups in these listings? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the Community Gaming Outlook! This week's entry is being posted to the forums in the hopes it will elicit additional feedback and suggestions. If you have and comments or criticism, most especially on the formatting, please don't hesitate to let me know!

There aren't any new events that I can find this week, but the PC Gaming Hub's efforts continue to pay off with plenty of offerings for game nights. If you're a PC gamer and you love first-person shooters, quite a few of their multiplayer gatherings should make you very happy. Also, we're adding a section for clubs, guilds, and groups this week! Read more about that below the weekly schedule.

Finally, these outlooks (for lack of a zazz-ier term) are kind of dull with only text, aren't they? If you take part in any of these community gaming events, I'd like to see your screenshots of the action! If your images are shared automatically through services like Steam or My Forza, just post a link to your gallery in the replies and I'll have a look at them. Otherwise, feel free to post the images directly into the replies. Thanks!

Friday, January 13th

Battlefield 3 Bombing Runs

Battlefield 3 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – The European server drew a good amount of people last week, and the North American server hit its 64-player cap not long after its start time. Some of that popularity might be from last week's TNT, but I have a sneaking suspicion Battlefield 3 is just that good. Seriously, if you have the game, you need to try and join your fellow Giant Bomb mates. It looks like loads of fun.

Saturday, January 14th

Battlefield 3 Community War

Battlefield 3 (PC), 3:30 PM PST

Details here – If Tuesdays and Fridays weren't enough for your Battlefield fix, the North American and European communities collide for yet another battle on the weekend! This currently alternates between Saturdays and Sundays each week.

Sunday, January 15th

Counter-Strike: Source Game Night

Counter-Strike: Source (PC), 2:00 PM PST

Details here – From the sounds of last week's event, wild and crazy times were had by a bunch of Giant Bombers. If you enjoy a little Counter-Strike in your life, then surely such claims are appealing to you! This event's a part of the PC Gaming Hub, and will be running on a bi-weekly basis, alternating with a Team Fortress 2 game night.

Monday, January 16th

SSFIV: AE Game Night

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – Apparently, there was a small turnout for this last week, so there's talk about moving this to another day and time. Be aware of potential schedule changes in your fighting game glory, but please join these dudes. There has to be more than a couple interested SSFIV PC fans.

Tuesday, January 17th

Battlefield 3 Bombing Runs

Battlefield 3 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – Another night dedicated to the Battlefield 3 excitement. This appears to be decidedly smaller than the Friday Battlefield event, so if you're looking for a smaller, more personal bout of military warfare, check it out.

Wednesday, January 18th

Trackmania 2 Race Night

Trackmania 2: Canyon (PC), 6:00 PM PST

Details here, server details here – Dubstep, duders, and Dolemite. That's pretty much a given any night of the week in Trackmania 2, but Wednesday nights are the scheduled night for Giant Bomb to show up in force. You'll usually find a decent gathering during prime time hours on any night, though.

Thursday, January 19th

Red Orchestra 2 Game Night

Red Orchestra 2 (PC), 8:00 PM GMT for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – Another scheduled event from the PC Gaming Hub initiative. I hear nine Giant Bombers joined at the European time to wreak havoc against randoms last week, so here's yet another decently-populated PC gaming night for you to join and enjoy.

Thursday Night Throwdown

??? (???), 4:00 PM PST

Live on Giant Bomb – Who knows? Ryan tweeted a picture of a card game, so next week's TNT may not have any community involvement. That shouldn't stop you from watching, of course. Also, pay attention to Ryan's Twitter account in case plans change and there's a game you can participate in, as friends lists can fill up fast. Turf toe.

Giant Bomb Forza Race Night

Forza Motorsport 4 (360), 7:30 PM PST

Details here – Race Night's numbers continue to thrive, and there are always a couple of spots open for people who want to enjoy our crazy brand of racing action. We're experiencing a few loading issues that limiting our ability to start specific races, but don't let that stop you from joining.

Clubs, Groups & Guilds

This section's brand new this week! While community gaming events are nice and dandy, some games also have community groups, either in-game or on Steam, that users can join to gather up for gaming fun times, any times. Every week, I'll list as many of these groups as I can find that are currently trying to gather users. As you might imagine, I'm going to miss quite a few of these at first, so if I overlook a group near and dear to your heart, just post a reply letting me know about it, and I'll list it next week. Please note that I'm trying to avoid simple gamertag exchange threads here, since most of those threads end up becoming overwhelming or outdated lists of users that aren't nearly as beneficial or manageable as a dedicated in-game group.

I should also note that while the Uncharted 3 group sort of falls astray of what I just said I'm trying to avoid, I'm listing them here in the hopes they'll get a recurring community event up and running. Seriously, people: pelvic thrusts and transforming into spiders. How can you say no to that?

• Battlefield 3: Join the Battlefield 3 Steam group to keep up to date with the community!
• EVE Online: Sounds like they're up to something in the community hub over here!
• Forza Motorsport 4: The Giant Bomb Car Club is accepting requests to join! Warning: You will be spammed with lobby invites every Thursday night.
• Minecraft: Read the rules if you want to join the Giant Bomb server's whitelist.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Kessler Run (Imperial) and Good Luck Have Bothans (Republic), both on the Mind Trick server.
• Super Monday Night Combat: It might be an invitational at the moment, but the GB SMNC Steam group welcomes all Giant Bomb fans with SMNC access for outings.
• Uncharted 3: The Uncharted 3 Hub's looking to gather people for game nights. If you're game, post your name in the player list and X19 will add you to the matchmaking PM.

Did I miss any community events or groups in these listings? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

The following is a very rough draft of a recurring write-up I'm hoping to develop over the next few weeks. Giant Bomb has a lot of recurring game nights that could use a continuous amount of exposure to thrive. There's also a bunch of game night forum threads that aren't active anymore, which makes it confusing to figure out if the events are still alive and kicking, especially to users that don't often dig deep into our forum content. I've wanted to highlight our community's gaming get-togethers for a few months now, and with a recent uptick in events, I think now's the best time to start pulling the trigger.

The schedule below is not an exhaustive list of all the recurring community game events on Giant Bomb. Rather, it is presented mainly so that the format can be criticized and improved. My plan is to begin communicating with the users that run these game nights and community events, so I can learn if they're still happening, how the turnout is, and if there's anything cool going on that might entice newcomers. Obviously, it'll take a little time to get that ball rolling.

Additional sections planned but not shown here include an introduction discussing new events for the week, a featured event write-up by a fellow mod, and a clubs/guilds/groups thread listing at the end of each outlook. Most descriptions in the outlook will likely be rewritten each week, based on what I've learned about the ongoing statuses and happenings of all this wonderful noise.

Feedback, as you might imagine, is welcome and encouraged.

Friday

Battlefield 3 Bombing Runs

Battlefield 3 (PC), 12:00 PM PST for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – The Battlefield community on Giant Bomb's pretty massive right now on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. I have no current knowledge on their turnout, but given how the community's doing, I'm leaning towards "quite good." You should join them and shoot things. I imagine it's quite good fun.

Saturday

Team Fortress 2 Game Night

Team Fortress 2 (PC), 12:00 PM PST for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – NEW EVENT! This is part of AhmadMetallic's PC Gaming Hub Initiative. If the Tested/Giant Bomb TF2 server isn't available, it sounds like they'll be using their Steam group to find and broadcast a suitable server to jump into for fun times, so if you want to take part, grab your hat and pay attention to the various Steam communities.

Counter-Strike: Source Game Night

Counter-Strike: Source (PC), 2:00 PM PST

Details here – NEW EVENT! Another PC Gaming Hub initiative newbie, the CS:S fans of the community say they'll gather to find a good server for letting loose with their AWP jollies, or whatever the Counter-Strike fans do these days. I'd pay close attention to Steam for this event; while the PC Hub's calendar says this takes place Saturday, the Giant Bomb thread claims it's a Sunday gathering, so be aware of that potential scheduling mishap.

Monday

SSFIV: AE Game Night

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PC), 12:00 PM PST for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – NEW EVENT! This appears to be yet another new event from the PC Gaming Hub initiative. I assume it'll be a bunch of fights organized through Games For Windows Live invites and the such, but I'm not sure how the organizers are planning to work this out. The crowd for this appears to be rather small starting off, so it'd be a good idea to jump in as soon as possible and make yourself known if you want a fight night for the PC SSFIV.

Tuesday

Battlefield 3 Bombing Runs

Battlefield 3 (PC), 12:00 PM PST for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – Much like the Friday Bombing Run, except more Tuesday-ier. I'm not aware if these are more or less popular than their Friday counterparts, or if the players are any different.

Wednesday

Trackmania 2 Race Night

Trackmania 2: Canyon (PC), 6:00 PM PST

Details here, server details here – With the holiday game rush dying down, the Giant Bomb Trackmania 2 server continues to thrive. Even if you don't join the loose race night festivities, there's a good chance at least ten to twenty random players will be on this server during prime time and late night hours.

Thursday

Red Orchestra 2 Game Night

Red Orchestra 2 (PC), 12:00 PM PST for Europe, 6:30 PM PST for North America

Details here – Another scheduled event from the PC Gaming Hub initiative. Unsure of its status or how it performed last week.

Thursday Night Throwdown

NFL Blitz (360/PS3?), 4:00 PM PST

Live on Giant Bomb – Undoubtedly, this will involve Jeff wrecking fools. You would be wise to check yourself before this most wriggety event occurs.

Giant Bomb Forza Race Night

Forza Motorsport 4 (360), 7:30 PM PST

Details here – Race Night continues to run at just over half capacity, which is basically unchanged from our Forza 3 days, save for the fact there's plenty of room in the lobby now. We're trying to put more time into non-racing activities like tag and car soccer, so we'd really like more of you to join us. These modes are so much more fun with sixteen people, rather than ten.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of racing games.

I know, I'm often typecast into this role of being the car guy or the hardcore racing weirdo, but it's not without merit. Give me a racing game with decent car physics and a reasonable amount of variety and I will play it in its entirety, usually for dozens of hours. In the last few years, I've spent at least one thousand hours playing various driving games, if not much more. Five percent of my life since October 11th, 2011 has been devoted to driving in Forza Motorsport 4.

I'm serious about that last part. It actually frightened me a little when I calculated it out.

When I hear Whiskey Media staff refer to my Race Night crew as frighteningly hardcore, it's a little hurtful and inaccurate. We just enjoy driving a lot, and anyone who enjoys playing these games would find hanging with us to be quite fun, even if they're not the most skilled or competitive. However, when Jeff stated during the Forza 4 quick look that he didn't think games like Forza could improve much beyond adding new cars and tracks, I could only hope that developers like Turn 10 were laughing in disagreement.

Jeff's wrong. At least, he needs to be if the sim racing genre's going to thrive.

Over a series of blog entries here on Giant Bomb, I'm hoping to not only dissect many of the weaknesses in a game like Forza 4, but ways in which sim racers in general could improve and better entertain gamers. Failing that, hopefully you'll come to agree with me that there's a lot more to do before games like Forza 4 can simply fall back on yearly car and track updates.

Let's start with something simple like the act of winning, and how it can over-complicate and dull a game.

Fixing the Race: When Winning is Too Much

1,103 races. 38 passing challenges. 28 autocross trials. Ten bowling events.

Finishing Forza 4's singleplayer mode to 100% involves winning everything mentioned above. Turn 10 even attached an achievement to this task, which means they fully expect a number of players to take on this challenge.

Granted, there are ways for players to ease through this challenge. Car restrictions can be turned off, the AI difficulty can be toned down, and a hired driver can be selected in the event a person doesn't feel like completing every lap on their own.

That's still 1,179 events to win, though. Isn't that a bit much?

Take this into consideration. Michael Schumacher, during his overly dominant Formula 1 career, racked up 91 wins. Richard Petty's 200 NASCAR wins are a well-known and unattainable record. Even when you get down to the short dirt tracks of the World of Outlaws, the legendary Steve Kinser only has about 570 wins in the main feature races of that series.

In this day and age, if you dominated any form of racing with over a thousand wins…well, you would either be considered an inhuman racing deity, or your competitors would stab you to death before reaching the record. Even for a video game, it's an unrealistic number, regardless of the length of the races (which I'll cover another time).

Yet, it's understandable why Forza has so many events. With hundreds of cars to choose from, every car needs to have an event where it can partake; otherwise, it's hard to justify adding it into the game.

Still, no matter how you tackle 1,179 events, it's time-consuming. It's even harder to defend as fun, especially when any result less than a win does nothing to help a player closer to their goal of completion. That leads to gamers turning down the difficulty to easy levels, rewinding after every single mistake, and in the end, you typically end up with a race in which the player blasts away from the AI pack in the first turn and races alone for the duration of the race, because that's what they need to do to win and ensure their time isn't wasted. Funny or ironically enough, the steps taken to avoid losing and wasted time only end up wasting time in a different manner. Leaving AI competition in the dust turns these so-called races into time trials, and I doubt that's the intent when Turn 10 decided to reward completionists.

There has to be a better way to encourage gamers to fully complete a singleplayer mode, while allowing a variety of cars to be used and keeping a decent sense of accomplishment. I have a few ideas in this regard.

First, though, let's briefly consider why racing is different than most sports.

The Art of Losing

Most sports, at their most basic level, have one winner and one loser, be it a person or a full team of players. Sure, you'll have close games or lopsided defeats, but there's two sides, and barring the occasional draw, one side will walk away victorious and the other side will taste defeat.

Most forms of racing aren't anything like this. Instead, you'll have many people or teams on the track at once competing for the win. That's not to say there aren't other similar sports: much like auto racing is a sport where drivers attempt to conquer the track and each other, golf is a bunch of players competing against the course and fellow players, poker tournaments are centered around surviving and taking out other players, and fishing is…well, getting better fish from a lake than your competitors.

Let's not bring judged sports like ice skating into this. That only further complicates what I'm trying to get at here.

My point is this: In racing, unlike most sports, there's at least one winner, and many more losers. Talk to second or third place, though, and they might not act like they lost. In a NASCAR or Formula 1 race, a financially-strapped team that can't typically compete with the top tier of competition might consider finishing in the top ten a great success. On the other hand, Hendrick Motorsports or Ferrari would consider such a finish rather ordinary, as they expect wins much more readily.

In the grand scheme of things, yes, not winning the race means you lost. That much is obvious. In racing, though, you cannot expect to win every time. There's too many factors that could alter a driver's fate, and too many other teams working hard for that victory. You have to find some degree of success in lesser finishes.

Plus, if you won every time, like I said earlier, I think you'd get shanked. Seriously. Sportsmanship only goes so far.

Sure, you'll find these varying conditions of success in leagues or tournaments for other sports. In auto racing, this happens in every single race.

So how can losing become acceptable to a gamer? Admittedly, this isn't so easy.

Lowering Expectations

I have a few basic ideas for improving the singleplayer aspect of sim racers, and unsurprisingly, my first suggestion is one of the reasons real drivers can easily find a degree of success when they don't win.

• Combine single races into championship series scored by points, and consider finishing first in the points a victory, rather than winning every race.

This isn't anything new to racing games, as anyone who's played an F-Zero game would tell you. Heck, Forza 2 had a couple of series just like this. I think Gran Turismo still uses this to some extent, as well! However, this shouldn't just be used for the sake of connecting races together or making a game drag on longer. Rather, it should give the player the impression that it's OK to lose a race every now and then. As long as the player finishes well, they'll earn enough points and win the series championship. That's a far more realistic and satisfying goal, especially if it allows the player to increase the difficulty to a more satisfactory level. If this helps bundle what would otherwise be a thousand races into a handful of series, all the better!

…of course, if the player can be allowed to slip up every now and then, the AI can't be allowed to take over the "win every race" mantle.

• Make AI more dynamic so that they can't be expected to finish in the same order every time.

Far too often, the only discernible difference between AI drivers in Forza is how aggressive they are when attempting to pass. They need to have different driving styles, tracks they specialize in, and tracks they're not so good at. That way, if I lose a race, the same AI driver won't be guaranteed to beat me, making this whole point of allowable loss moot as I compete with the AI for most victories instead. Codemasters seems to do a pretty good job with this in a lot of their games, from my experience. At the very least, they make their AI look like it's racing each other pretty hard, even if the finishing order doesn't always reflect that.

There's a lot more I could discuss about AI, but I feel that's best saved for another time, as...well, there's a lot wrong with sim racing AI on a couple of fronts. While making a series championship more important than individual race wins would help make losing acceptable, there's a much more obvious answer that I've been dodging.

• Don't put any bloody emphasis on winning every race in your achievements or goals! Instead, focus on completion and success through other means.

If Forza 4 didn't have an achievement for winning every race, I'd be writing about other issues here. It simply does not have to be encouraged in such a manner.

Take, for example, money. You gain a lot more money for winning, and this is increased further by removing assists and increasing AI difficulty. If you implement achievements either for earning set amounts of money or buying a certain group of cars, you put more emphasis on difficulty level and ease the absolute necessity of winning. Sure, winning is still ideal, but finishing in a lesser position isn't a complete waste of time like it would be for a "win everything" achievement.

In fact, Forza 4 has an achievement that fits this situation perfectly called Ferrari Collector, awarded for buying a specific group of 22 costly Ferraris. For the average gamer, this could take quite some time, but for those willing to bump up the difficulty that drive well, this achievement's less painful.

I wouldn't lean too heavily on achievements based on purchasing cars – Forza Motorsport 2 made quite the nightmare out of that by encouraging the purchase of almost every car – but it's a start in the right direction. If Turn 10 is dead-set on having gamers experience every race they created, then why not instead make an achievement for completing every race in the game, rather than winning? That way, no time is wasted in regards to this accomplishment, and the player can decide how much they want to be challenged when racing.

That's the key in all of this: Don't waste the player's time by disregarding anything less than a win. Reward them for participation, but reward them more for performing well without making it seem like a requirement.

After all, 1,179 events is a lot if you're expecting perfection.

What about World Tour?

In the midst of discussing this winning-only achievement for singleplayer racing, you might have noticed I didn't actually mention anything about World Tour, Forza Motorsport 4's true career mode. Although it does a lot right, it has its share of flaws, and I'll discuss that the next time I pick this topic up.

You may recall that I posted a few statistics last week on how Brad, Will, Patrick, and Ryan performed during their attempt to earn two achievements in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet's Lantern Run mode. Here's the link to that blog, if you're curious.

I received a few requests for additional stats (and a venn diagram, which you can see above), and I was curious about a few things myself. With that said, let's roll a bit further in depth, shall we?

First: A Recap

Here's the main stats from last blog. Just for reference.

Just so you can easily look at all these fancy numbers for the stats below.

The Distribution of Power(-Ups)

Sparklykiss was curious as to whether certain players were hogging power-ups more than others. I watched the video over again, counting every time a message popped up for a power-up pickup. Here's the data table:

That pretty much tells us that Brad took the most power-ups, with Will in second. Given they're the most adept players, that makes sense!

Take a look at this, though:

I'm sure someone with color blindness is going to have issues with this graph, and I'm sorry for that. Never mind that, though! Remember that run #7 was the team's best run, and notice how, despite being much longer than any of the other runs, the distribution of power-ups appears far more equal.

Curious, that. Perhaps that FAQ-suggested strategy of letting one person have everything isn't always the best plan.

The Game of Death

I was personally curious if the number of deaths of each team member influenced the success or failure of each run. Here's the data table for that.

...in short, there's too few deaths overall for us to learn much here. They're pretty evenly split, too! Well, except for Brad. He does a better job of staying alive. Imagine that. Imagine that.

Anyways, I began to consider why the team fails, and for the most part, death isn't the end of the run. Save for the very first death, which will almost always cost the team a lantern, any subsequent death can be recovered from, provided another teammate can take a lantern and continue flying right.

That leads to this question: Where do the lanterns die, and what causes them to be snuffed the most often? This lead to yet more data.

To Kill a Lantern

I noted where every lantern was snuffed in every run, and put together this chart illustrating the percentage of total lanterns that survive to each point in the run.

...that might be a bit small. Here's where a table might just come in handy.

One interesting tidbit to pull out of this data: 34.4% of all lanterns are snuffed in the second tunnel, more than twice than of any other area (tunnel 3 snuffs out 15.6% of lanterns). That's relatively early to lose lanterns, all things considered.

What also doesn't help is when a team member dies first, losing that first lantern and starting a downward spiral towards the end. Who fucks up first the most? The answer to this is a little more complicated. You see, in five out of eight runs, multiple lanterns/teammates die at once. Patrick leads off (or causes) most of these multi-lantern deaths, including his error of dropping a lantern in the way of the whole team during the first run, which lead to the death of two lanterns.

When it comes to solo first deaths/fuckups, though, Brad is always the first to die. He died in the first tunnel, arena 2, and the third tunnel in the runs where he made the first mistake alone. The first two of those deaths are a bit early. The third was during the team's best run.

Conclusion

Here's what I'm gleaning from this blog's data:

• Power-ups are best shared amongst the team, with preference given to Brad and Will when there is no dire need of shields or health.
• The team, if they attempt more runs, would be wise to try and memorize some of the earlier possible tunnels, so as to keep all the lanterns alive until the more difficult/bullshit areas. This should help in regards to score, at the very least.
• The first lantern death is certainly not the end of the world, but Patrick's early deaths seem to either come at moments where the whole team fucks up. Whether this is a coincidence or otherwise, I'm not sure.
• Brad needs to show a little more caution early on in the lantern runs. The longer he survives, the better everyone does.
• ...well, unless something kills Patrick and starts a chain reaction.

I don't know if anyone finds this interesting or useful, nor do I have any clue if the staff will even attempt another lantern run on camera. If they do, you can bet I'll post more stats regarding their successes and failures. Until then, thanks for reading!

As many of you are aware, on Friday, Brad attempted to complete a successful lantern run in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet with Patrick, Will, and Ryan. I thought I'd share some stats I quickly threw together from their eight attempts on that day.

Just so we're all clear here (because I've never played ITSP, and I wasn't!), here's the terms for success:

• Reach the ninth "arena" in the path. Completion of the ninth arena isn't necessary.
• Earn 1,000,000 points in a single run.

With that, here's your table of stats per run:

In graph form, that looks a little like...this:

All a bit short of the goal, but definitely growing promise over most of the run.

Here's how everyone performed during all of the runs combined:

Pretty even, but Brad and Will hold slight contribution advantages over the rookies.

Here's how it split during the best run of the night:

Will pretty much killed it here. As he told me on Twitter, "I lucked out and got a couple of sections I'm familiar with when people had died." No kidding, and it paid off. His score for what I assume is enemies destroyed was 109,125, the only time anyone earned that much for an individual category the whole night. It looks like Ryan got a little more credit for (what I assume is) carrying the lantern than Will in this run, though.

How about the two worst runs of the night? How does the score divvy up if we only take those into account?

As you can see, when Patrick's rockin', that tentacle monster will come a-knockin'. Either that, or when Brad, Will, and Ryan falter early on, the run's fucked.

Anyways, just some quick stats I threw together. While I ran out of time for any further analysis tonight, I'd be happy to take suggestions for more stats/metrics to measure and investigate on these lantern runs.

PsEG's Forza Motorsport 4 Preparation Guide

Forza Motorsport 4 is going to be a monumental racing game. At the very least, it's going to be a sequel to Forza Motorsport 3. While there's no harm in jumping straight into Forza's newest edition when it releases in October, there's a few actions you can take beforehand so that you're fully prepared and ready to unlock the full potential of Forza Motorsport 4 right out of the gate/store/whatever.

Do note that if you're paying close attention to every piece of news on Forza 4, then you're probably already aware of most of these suggestions. Consider this a refresher, in that case. Also note that many of these suggestions require you have an Xbox LIVE Gold Membership, since the game uses online functionality to send out gift cars and all that fancy jazz.

Again, remember: These are suggestions. Nothing here is required to enjoy Forza Motorsport 4, so feel free to skip around this list for advice.

1. Send your pre-order receipt to Turn 10.

If you're over 18, and you've pre-ordered Forza 4, you should find your receipt (print it out if it's an online order), and follow the directions on this page to join the Pre-Order Incentives Program.

In short, the Pre-Order Incentives Program requires you do the following:

1. Write your gamertag on your receipt.
2. Take a photograph of your receipt, making sure that the date and gamertag are legible (along with the actual pre-order of Forza 4!).
3. Save said scan/photo in a .jpg format.
4. Send the receipt .jpg as an attachment to forza_preorder@microsoft.com with your gamertag (and ONLY your gamertag) in the subject line.

If you did all of that correctly, you'll receive a message from Turn 10 in Forza 3 with the following text:

"Thank you for submitting your receipt and Gamertag for the Forza Motorsport 4 Pre-Order Incentive Program! This message is to confirm that we've received your email. Stay tuned for more information on the incentive program gifts and thank you for pre-ordering Forza 4!"

You'll also receive the only gift confirmed at this time: A Forza 4-branded 2002 Mazda RX-7 Spirit R Type-A. This is one of Forza 3's three unicorn cars, and as we'll discuss later, it will transfer to Forza 4.

Even if you don't pre-order, consider buying a new copy of Forza 4. The first wave of copies will come with five extra cars (including the lovely Tesla Roadster), and all new copies will come with two extra tracks: The Top Gear Soccer Field and Benchmark Ring. If you like tag or other silly non-racing modes, Benchmark Ring's the best track for such shenanigans.

2. Get to Level 50 in Forza Motorsport 3.

If you haven't gotten to driver level 50 yet in Forza 3, now would be a great time to work towards the level cap. After the first introductory race in Forza Motorsport 4, you'll be given the option to import your Forza 3 profile, which will unlock the Forza Faithful achievement. Based on the driver level you ended up with, you'll also be gifted the following cars:

• Level 1: 2010 FIAT Abarth 500 esseesse
• Level 5: 2009 Ford Focus RS
• Level 10: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS
• Level 15: 2010 Audi R8 5.2 FSI Quattro
• Level 20: 2009 Bugatti Veyron 16.4
• Level 30: 2009 BMW #92 Rahal Letterman Racing M3 GT2
• Level 40: 2006 Aston Martin #007 Aston Martin Racing DBR9
• Level 50: 2009 Peugeot #9 Peugeot Sport Total 908

A bundle of eight cars for being level 50 is a great way to start your Forza 4 career. Even if you don't or can't make it to the level cap, surpassing a few of these milestones could still give you a bit of a head-start as you begin the Forza World Tour. For example, the Bugatti Veyron's a whopping 1.4 million credits in Forza 3, and it comes in handy for plenty of hijinx like car soccer. Trust me, it'll be just as worthwhile (and expensive) in Forza 4, so reaching at least level 20 is in your best interest.

3. Buy a few more cars in Forza 3, if they're available.

There's a few other cars that will be gifted through profile import if they're in your Forza 3 garage. However, all of these cars are in DLC packs, so there's a chance they might not be available in your game. I'll leave it for you to decide whether using Microsoft Points to purchase DLC for a soon-to-be-outdated game is worthwhile (personally, I'd save my money).

If you have VIP status in Forza 3 and a spare 565,000 credits, the following cars will import into Forza 4:

• 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 (100,000cr)
• 2007 Ferrari 430 Scuderia (270,000cr)
• 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera (195,000cr)

If you purchased the Hot Holidays car pack, the 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia (250,000cr) will also transfer.

Finally, if you bought the Ultimate edition of Forza 3 or otherwise found a copy of the Stig's Garage DLC, the 2010 Lexus LF-A (360,000cr) transfers to Forza 4.

That's 1,175,000 credits worth of cars that you could potentially start off with in Forza 4. Worth it? Absolutely, if you already have the necessary DLC.

4. Look into some unicorn cars, if possible.

Forza 3 has three "unicorn cars," which are incredibly rare and difficult cars to earn under normal circumstances. They are as follows:

• 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS Coupe
• 2002 Mazda RX-7 Spirit R Type-A
• 2006 Subaru Impreza S204

That RX-7 looks familiar, doesn't it? Yep, it's the gift car you'll receive by following the instructions in step 1. You might also have the Impreza S204 as a gift for Turn 10 getting 10,000 followers on Twitter. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then chances are you missed out on that little bonus.

If you don't already have these cars, there's a remote chance they might randomly appear in the Auction House. However, it's very likely that they'd go for several million credits at a minimum. I'll let you decide if that's worth your time or not.

5. Get your fancy decals in order.

If you mucked with car design in Forza 3, chances are you might have a few custom vinyl groups in your library. Thankfully, these import in Forza 4!

Unfortunately, vinyl group import is an all-or-nothing deal, so when you choose to import, your entire Forza 3 library will be thrown into Forza 4. I'd recommend going through your library and removing all the useless tidbits you don't need anymore, to lower the amount of junk you'll have to deal with once you start designing in Forza 4.

6. Decide on your new starter car.

At this point, you've done pretty much everything you'll need to in Forza Motorsport 3 to be ready for Forza Motorsport 4. It's time to get prepared for the new content Forza World Tour will throw at you.

Much like Forza 3, you'll go through an introductory race with a high-powered car (the Ferrari 458 Italia, in this case), and then after dealing with the profile import and settings (or maybe before!), the game will offer you a free starter car. It will include six of these:

• 2011 Ford Ka
• 2011 Chevrolet Spark
• 2011 Citroen C1
• 2011 Nissan Micra
• 2011 Peugeot 107
• 2011 Toyota Aygo
• 2011 Vauxhall Agila
• 2011 Volkswagen Fox

Which six? I'm not sure. However, I'd look over all of those cars and see what trips your fancy. Not only will the first segment of World Tour lean towards the use of these starting vehicles, but there will be a special Rivals event in Forza 4's first month that challenges you to upgrade one of these cars to F200 and take on your friends.

I know they're your friends and all, but I recommend crushing them in that Rivals stuff as soundly as possible. Break their spirit early on before they get any ideas.

7. Maybe get a Kinect?

There's one achievement in Forza 4, Look Ma, No Controller!, that requires the use of a Kinect device. If you're a completionist when it comes to achievements, you might consider purchasing or borrowing a Kinect if you don't already have one. Otherwise, it's a judgement call, and whether you feel a Kinect has enough value to warrant a purchase.

8. Enjoy a few cars and tracks that won't make it to Forza 4.

At this point, if you've followed all of this advice, you're almost over-prepared for Forza Motorsport 4. Congratulations! I think.

While waiting for October to arrive, you might consider enjoying some of the cars and tracks that won't be making the trip to 4. These include:

• All of the Porsches. You probably already know about EA getting stingy with its exclusive Porsche license. No matter your opinion on this whole ordeal, Porsche's a pretty relevant and memorable brand, and it's a shame they're going away. My favorites are the Cayman S, the 550 Spyder, and the 911 GT2 (997). I'd give all of those a try if you have the time.
• Le Mans Bugatti Circuit. The full Le Mans de la Sarthe will still be in the game, but the smaller permanent circuit is taking a vacation. It's not exactly a great track, but enjoy those hairpins while they're still around, I guess.
• New York. The track best known for destroying cars in Forza Race Night is also departing. I'd suggest giving either version of this circuit a few laps with damage on simulation and racing line off, just so you can learn to hate this track.
• Rally di Positano. This is the biggest shame. Amalfi Coast's bigger brother won't be joining the Forza 4 fold. I recommend taking one of your favorite cars (one that handles well and has some power to it) and try the reverse version of this circuit. It has plenty of great jumps at the beginning. You'll miss it afterwards. Trust me.
• Sidewinder. If you played through most or all of Forza 2, you probably won't miss this track. It's not quite Complex String levels of annoying, but it's a bit bland overall.

Questions You Might Ask

Will the cars that import/transfer into Forza 4 have my upgrades or designs?

Almost certainly not. The cars you'll receive for Forza 4 will most likely be stock vehicles.

Are there going to be any other cars that will transfer?

Turn 10 says there's one more car that will transfer from Forza 3 to Forza 4, but they haven't revealed its identity. This could be because it hasn't been officially announced for 4, or simply that they want the userbase to be surprised.

Can I import locked vinyl groups that I purchased on storefronts?

Again, probably not. Denying users the chance to re-sell their creations seems somewhat counter-intuitive.

So what's Giant Bomb/Whiskey Media doing for a car club?

No clue at this time. It depends on the maximum size of a club. If at least 50 people can join a car club, expect me to create a club for the site on launch day (provided Jeff or someone else on the staff doesn't make one earlier). We'll work on posting the details when that day arrives and we have more info.

Finally...

If you have any further questions or suggestions, don't hesitate to ask. I'll update this thread whenever it's merited, or when new opportunities to gain advantages in Forza 4 arise.

Looking for Episode 12? You can grab it here, though subscribing to the RSS or iTunes would also work!

We Are Race Night

Episode 13: Looking for 7

We Are Race Night presents a poorly recorded hotel room recording discussing our time at PAX Prime 2011! Prepare for plenty of off-topic discussion as we banter about our Forza 4 disappointment, various other games at PAX, and even a special celebrity encounter.

Featuring:

• Trace (Podcast editor, Giant Bomb GT season two champion)
• Keval (Genesis owner, Race Night regular)
• Ed (Race Night original)

Time: 1:12:59Size: 50.1 MB

Recorded: August 28th, 2011

Download We Are Race Night Episode 13 HERE! [MP3]

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Subscribe to us on iTunes HERE! [iTunes]

Have questions or comments for our show? Fire them off to emails@weareracenight.com and we’ll probably answer them next episode.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy!