FM4: New rivals mode events and King of the Track Challenge
Along with the ALMS Car Pack, February also brings new Rivals Mode events, and a new King of the Track challenge which allows you to potentially win a Forza Motorsport 4 Unicorn Car. The new Rivals Mode events are launched on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012, to coincide with the new car pack, and as always some of the events will be particular suited to the new vehicles available.
February Rivals Mode Preview:
Turn 10 has given details of four of the new rivals mode events, so you can prepare your cars and liveries to get started as soon as they go live. They are:
- 28 Days of Sebring: In celebration of the 60th Annual 12 Hours of Sebring, this Track Day event will put you in the 2011 Audi #2 Audi Sport North America R18 TDI with the challenge of passing GT3 cars.
- Compact Combo: Drag Racing at Infineon with 300HP front-wheel drive cars. Tuning setups are allowed within restrictions.
- Snow Drift: Drift race your way around the Bernese Alps in a high-powered production car, with tuning setups allowed within restrictions.
- Union Jack Time Attack: Silverstone is the venue for an A-Class Time Attack featuring the best of British time attack cars. Tuning setups allowed within restrictions.
February King of the Track Rivals Mode:
It’s the second chance to take on a celebrity Forza Driver, with all participants receiving an in-game car for participating, and if you can beat the celebrity driver you’ll win a rare unicorn car.
But either way, it’s a worthy challenge to take on, as you’ll need to beat mixed martial artist, former UFC champion and film star Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. In addition to beating the heck out of people in the rin, Rampage is a fan of both Forza and collecting cars, hence why the February Car Pack features a replice of his own 2011 Dodge Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Challenger SRT8 with a black and red paintscheme and awesome rims.
Everyone taking part will receive a 2011 #2 Audi Sport North America R18 TDI (Which required the Le Man pack to redeem it), and if you beat his posted time, you’ll walk away with a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS Coupe unicron car with Rampage-themed livery.
The best time posted when the competition end at midnight on February 29, 2012 will also win a pair of official UFC fight gloves signed by Rampage himself (This prize is only available to U.S residents).
Tips for a good time:
To take part you’ll be racing a standard Dodge Challenger SRT8 around the full Laguna Seca track in Monterey, California. It’s the home of the infamous Corkscrew corner, but unlike real racers, you won’t have to battle the huge G forces pounding your body as you barrel through it.
The track suits muscle cars, and it’s all about being smooth, and getting good entries and exits from each corner to let you really get the power down. But there are 3 key places to make sure you get right.
The first is Turn 4. Although the first corner, the Andretti Hairpin can seem tricky, a slightly late apex and patience before nailing the throttle should sort it – but Turn 4 not only gives you a lot of speed advantage before the uphill lefthand Turn 5, it also sets you up for a good run all the way up the hill.
The second actually follows the Corkscrew. Turn 9, Rainey Curve, named after bike champ Wayne Rainey, is easy to get wrong, particularly if you’re relaxing after the Corkscrew. You need to get back over to the right-hand side of the track asap at the bottom of the hill to nail the apex, and to avoid sliding off into the gravel due to the camber of the track lifting you up and over the Tarmac. Get it right and it can make a huge improvement to your time for such a short corner and straight combo.
And finally, the all important Turn 11. This is what sets you up for the run over the Start/Finish straight, and can deliver you a huge advantage when you get it right. It’s all abut braking early for the extremely slow speed lefthander, and getting on the power early and smoothly to really pull the most out of the gears. Get it wrong, and you’re helpless as ghost cars (or other drivers in a race) simply power right by.
Forza Motorsport 4 – February American Le Mans Pack DLC details
The Forza Motorsport 4 monthly car pack releases continue with the ‘February American Le Mans Series Pack’ arriving on Tuesday, February 7th via Xbox Live, and it’ll be the usual 560 MS Points or included free for those signed up to the FM4 Season Pass. And despite the name, there are definitely some cars included which could be of interest for non-ALMS fans.
FM4 February American Le Man Series Pack Car List:
- 1991 Mazda #55 Team Mazdaspeed 787B
- 2011 #2 Audi Sport North America R18 TDI
- 2011 Bentley Platinum Motorsports Continental GT
- 2010 Dodge Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Challenger SRT8
- 1986 #2 Audi Sport quattro S1
- 2011 Panoz #050 Panoz Racing Abruzzi
- 1992 Alfa Romeo 155 Q4
- 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra R
- 2011 Holden HSV GTS
- 2011 Volkswagen Polo GTI
Our most anticipated car has to be the Audi Quattro, based on our love of classic rallying and rallycross. It looks suitable mean and aggressive, and has meant I’m now waiting until the pack is available before trying to make a replica of the awesome black Audi raced by Dimi Mavropoulos in British Rallycross when I was a child (It’s not quite the same as his, but might be a better match than upgrading the standard quattro). The reason being races like this one at Lydden Hill, which formed a huge part of my childhood days out with my parents.
The 1991 Le Man winning Mazdaspeed 787B is going to be an awesome experience simply due to the sound of the 690hp Wankel rotary which could hit 215mph plus on the Mulsanne Straight and led to the introduction of chicanes to slow cars. Besides the Audi and Mazda, the other notables are the “Rampage” Jackson Challenger SRT8 which ties into a new King of the Track challenge featuring the UFC fighter, the customer widebody Continental GT which was built by Platinum Motorsports and won the ‘Car of the Show’ at the mini car show organised by Turn 10 at the 2011 E3, and the dark horse of the 1992 Alfra Romeo 155 Q4 which features AWD as standard, plus a 2.0 litre turbocharged motor with 187 horsepower. Depending on the car class, that could give a fair bit of potential in B and A class racing.
The question marks are whether we need yet another Mustang – even if this one is a particularly special example of which only 250 real cars were ever built, and whether the new Holden is a bit more usable than the current in-game examples.
Here’s the official trailer for the Forza Motorsport 4 February American Le Mans Pack.
So what do you think about the latest car pack and all the additional cars released so far? What’s been the best car pack so far?
Forza Motorsport 4 Launch Bonus Pack now available for everyone
If you’re a completist when it comes to your Forza garage and you missed out on any of the special launch pre-order cars and Ship Bonus car pack, there’s some good and bad news for you. The good news is that the Launch Bonus Pack is now available to download, featuring the ten previously exclusive cars. The bad news for many of us is that the pack isn’t included in the Forza Motorsport 4 Season Pass subscription, so will cost you an additional 560 Microsoft Points.
For reference the Pre-Order cars included are:
- 2011 MINI John Cooper Works Clubman
- 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietti QUadrifoglio Verde
- 2011 Honda CR-z EX
- 2011 Subaru WRX STI
- 2011 BMW 1 Series M Coupe
And the Ship Bonus Cars are:
- 1965 Ford Mustang GT Coupe
- 1997 Lexus SC300
- 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport
- 2011 RUF RGT-8
- 2011 Koenigsegg Agera
Forza Motorsport 4: Fixing connection and disconnection issues
There’s no doubt Forza Motorsport 4 is a great game, and the best yet in the series. But any online game which gets extremely popular is likely to encounter some networking issues due to the huge variety of internet service providers, broadband speeds, routers and other factors they have to accomodate. Forza is no exception, and in fact has seemed to have slightly more problems than the average game over the most recent two releases.
Firstly there’s an issue affecting players trying to join private race lobbies in which they’re unable to connect, with those already in the lobby seeing their name appearing and disapearing. Secondly there’s a more frustrating issue in which you can be dropped mid-race from a game seemingly at random.
While we can’t promise to solve every disconnection problem, we can at least work together to try and provide the most useful solutions which we know have worked in at least some cases, if not all of them:
Connection problems with Forza Motorsport 4 Lobbies:
The seemingly most common problem we witness on a regular basis is the problem of joining a private online lobby – you may get as far as hearing lobby chat and seeing the symbols of those already present, but you’ll receive a network error message and end up back on your own eventually.
So what ways have we found to try and fix that problem?
- Keep trying. Occasionally we’ve found that joining will work on the 3rd, 4th or 5th attempt.
- You can try and join by joining other players in the same lobby. If you’ve selected to join, or been invited by, Player A, and had problems connecting, try joining Player B, then C etc. There’s no real reason why this should make a difference, so it may just be a variation on method 1, but it’s worth trying.
- Test your Xbox Live connection. This often helps in many games, including Forza and CoD. Simply hit the guide button, go to your network settings and test your connection. Often this will improve things, particularly if the problem is with a Strict or Moderate NAT.
- Reboot everything: The equivalent of nuking from orbit, this means turning off the Xbox, rebooting your router, and firing everything up again.
This will fix problems most of the time, although occasionally router conflicts seem to make the situation unfixable. Just don’t forget to drop a message to the players in the lobby so you don’t finally join to find them halfway through a 20 lap Nordschliefe race.
The other major problem is a public lobby attempting to start a race, and then every player except one returning to the lobby screen. That player, likely the host, will then either quit out and a new game can be started, or they’ll race around like an idiot, not noticing that they’re the only person there. It’s a Turn 10 problem which is being investigated on this particular thread on Forza Motorsport.net.
Disconnecting from races in Forza Motorsport 4:
This is a bigger issue, and one which is most likely to cause controllers to be thrown across the room or steering wheels to get damaged. You’re leading a race by a mile, cruising to your first victory of the night, when you find yourself suddenly racing alone, before ending up with an error message and back at the main menu, often disconnected from Xbox Live as well as the race and lobby you were in.
- Firstly it’s worth checking the settings on your router, and trying to minimise potential problems in your home by using a wired connection, possibly removing cordless phones and baby monitors etc. Xbox Live Support has some suggestions. Also make sure your firmware is the latest version on your router.
- You can also try experimenting with router settings. Most routers now feature UPnP built in to allow games consoles to run easily, and this should be the starting point. If that isn’t available or working, it can be worth experimenting with Port Forwarding.
- It’s been suggested that clearing the cache can help. While it may possibly alleviate the situation for a bit, it didn’t show any signs of fixing it for me.
- And finally, there’s the prospect of buying a new router…
In my case, this was the eventual solution which has worked perfectly in terms of disconnections. I’d been using a Belkin Wireless G Plus Mimo Router for probably 2 years and having started to have problems with Forza, it also started to occasionally drop my internet connection when surfing the web generally. So I used that as an additional reason to make the change, beyond the fact I was obsessed with finally getting back into racing.
Having asked around, the majority of positive responses were for Netgear, and a couple of people had apparently had similar problems which had disapeared with their new router. I went for a Netgear DGND330 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless N DSL Gateway. And since installing the new router, I have had NO disconnections from within races, and only very occasionaly problems joining lobbies, which have all been sorted following the steps above. Obviously newer Belkin hardware may be different, and I’m not suggesting the Netgear is guaranteed to solve all your problems, but it does seem that it is likely a router change can be the best choice – if you can, it’s worth borrowing a router from a friend, or seeing if you can return a router if it doesn’t make a difference.
Leaderboards/Forza Community/Forza Servers unavailable:
If you’re getting this message when attempting to access the online parts of the game it’s likely to be a problem with the Forza servers, not your router or Xbox. So don’t panic, and give it a little bit of time and then try again. Sometimes Turn 10 may be doing maintenance and upgrades, or it might just be a momentary glitch.
You may also find that sometimes the leaderboards or rivals mode options take a while to load – again, there’s nothing we can do about it as gamers except go back to the main menu and retry the service which can often work.
Want to help solve the problems?
Obviously Turn 10 are investigating the multiplayer lobby problems, and the right place to record dropping from public lobbies would be in their forum thread.
However, I’d be really keen to hear from more people who have problems with disconnecting, or have solved their problems with disconnecting, and particularly which router you are using. Commenting below is probably easiest.
Hyundai Veloster Bonus Pack Trailer
ORD Near Miss at the Nurburgring
Forza Motorsport 4: Jalopnik Car Pack arrives in January
The next downloadable car pack for Forza Motorsport 4 will arrive in January, and the cars included in the ‘January Jalopnik Car Pack’ have been revealed with a typically wide range of eras and manufacturers. As with previous packs, it will cost 560 Microsoft Points, but will be free if you’ve already invested in the Season Pass.
It’s an interesting line-up, although it’s lacking a little in vintage European cars, and adds again to the U.S muscle selection.It’s good to see another Fiat joining the game as a brand which has been a bit weak so far, and we’re looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the Huayra.
January Jalopnik Car Pack:
- 1970 Alfa Romeo Montreal
- 2011 Audi RS5
- 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS
- 1986 Dodge Shelby Omni GLHS
- 2000 Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo
- 1973 Ford Pinto
- 2011 Honda #33 Level 5 Motorsports Lola
- 2012 Honda Civic Si Coupe
- 2011 Lamborghini #08 West Yokohama Gallardo LP560-4
- 2012 Pagani Huayra
So we get the V8-powered classic Alfa, which was a 2+2 Coupe produced from 1970-1977. We get the seventh-generation Chevy Impala with a 5.7 litre small block V8 in a four-door sedan body. The controversial safety record of the 2-door 2 litre Ford Pinto means the game is as close as we’d probably like to get to racing it in real life, despite later research suggesting it wasn’t actually as lethal as was made out at the time. And the ’86 Dodge Shelby GLHS is an interesting and extremely limited-edition 2.2 litre four door hatchback which performed well, particularly racing on shorter tracks. But out of all of them, the most interesting is likely to be the two-door Fiat Coupe, which is a 2 litre, front-wheel drive machine, with an engine based on the twin-cam of the Lancia Delta Integrale. It’s something a bit different, and is the most likely to have actually been experienced by European drivers in real life.
Obviously the £850,000 Pagani Huayra is likely to grab most people straight away – a 700hp 6 litre V12 from Mercedes combined with Pagani styling is definitely going to make an impact, but most interesting is that it’s appearing, given that the rights for it to appear in video games was licensed to EA for the Need for Speed games. Given the loss of Porsche from Forza due to EA not sharing the licensed cars, it’s nice to see that it doesn’t necessarily apply to every manufacturer they secured.
Previous Forza Car Packs were the Speed Pack and IGN Car Pack. We’ve listed every single car in the game in the complete list of official Forza Motorsport 4 cars.
New monthly rivals events live for Forza Motorsport 4
In addition to a title update and December’s new car pack, there are also new monthly Rival events now available in Forza Motorsport 4. The first, Climbing Kaido, highlights the 2011 Monster Sport Suzuki SX4 which is included in the IGN Car Pack, so you’ll need to download it to be able to compete, but it does come with the incentive that 100 people each week will receive a unicorn car for taking part – in this case, the 2002 BMW M3 GTR. Personally, we can’t wait to try the 50′s Track Day event and the 80′s Hot Lap to see how we rank up.
The Monster Sport Suzuki takes on Fujimi Kaido
‘Climbing Kaido’
- Car/Class: 2011 Monster Sport Suzuki SX4
- Track: Fujimi Kaido New Hill Climb
The ultimate hill climb car meets the ultimate hill in Forza 4, as you tackle Fujimi Kaido in the 2011 Monster Sport Suzuki SX4. Will you be able to overcome both the track and your rival? Each week, 100 randomly chosen players from this leaderboard will receive a 2002 BMW M3-GTR, a “unicorn car” only available from Turn 10. The December IGN Pack is required to participate in this event.
The Lone Driver
- Car/Class C-Class Autocross
- Track: Sunset Peninsula
Anyone can have a great car but, in Autocross, you also need to have the driving skill to match. Weave your way through the cones with a mixture of raw aggression and careful precision to prove that you have the skills to take down your rival.
The Shortest Mile
- Car/Class: R3 Supercars
- Track: Top Gear Mile Drag
Why live your life a quarter mile at a time when a mile is longer? Take to the famed British airfield in your favorite tuned supercar to defeat your rival in this drag racing challenge.
One Lap Thriller
- Car/Class: 80s Production, PI Max of 275
- Track: Sebring Club
It’s the 1980s all over again, as you hit the track in ‘80s production cars for your one-lap chance to take down your rival. Tuning setups are allowed within restrictions.
‘50s Roadster Champion
- Car/Class: 1958 or older Euro Roadster, PI Max of 500
- Track: Infineon NASCAR
In their day, these legendary cars were the kings of motorsports. Here’s your chance to recreate that feeling as you navigate through heavy traffic featuring other iconic ‘50s roadsters. Tuning setups are allowed within restrictions.
Compete with the support of the ODRC
Incidentally, if you want to take on these challenges and many more as part of a growing Forza club, then why not join the ORDC on Forza 4. Just drop us a comment or message with your gamertag and we’ll send an invite. Not only will you be able to race with likeminded people, but there’s a growing number of tuned and optimised rides available in the Club Garage.
Forza Motorsport 4 – second title updates fixes wheel issues and demotes cars
The second title update has been released for Forza Motorsport 4 with the biggest changes including fixes to bugs affecting certain types of steering wheel, and several cars no longer able to post times to leaderboards while their performance index is tweaked. That means times posted on some leaderboards using those cars are also being removed.
Wheel fixes:
Some problems were discovered with gamers using 900-degree wheels such as the Fanatec Forza Motorsport 4 CSR Wheel, such as the ‘Zero Credit’ bug. One of the anti-cheating measures in Forza penalised players if they didn’t record a more than six-degree turn in a single frame during a race – but the combination of top quality wheels and good driving meant that often the best drivers were getting penalised for smooth driving. The update also fixed a bug in mapping 900-degree wheels with regards to countersteering, which had unfortunately meant the wheels were mapped as a 270 degree wheel – essentially a 3:1 ratio.
Leaderboard Car Changes:
Certain cars are being investigated and refined for their Performance Index, and during this period the following cars will be unable to post times to the Forza Motorsport 4 Leaderboards, and any times posted with those cars in certain classes will be removed.
- 1968 Dode Dart HEMI Super Stock
- 1970 Dodge Coronet Super Bee
- 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA Stradale
- 1967 Dodge Coronet W023
- 1964 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt
- 1971 AMC Javelin-AMX
- 1992 Lancia Delta Integrale EVO
- 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
A bit of a shame for all the classic fans who have been using these cars – we’ve been particularly keen on the Fairlane on shorter tracks – but getting the right balance across 60 years of automobiles was always going to be tricky, and it’s always nice to see more than one car in the top 100 for any track and class. Especially if you don’t want everyone to be sporting the same car in every single race in an online lobby. Anyone remember the days of the CRX?
The other changes are to try to stablise the Forza 4 economy and minise the effect of players glitching credits by introducing a maximum cap for auction sales (even if your car is sold for more than the cap), and some server-side tools for better regulation of the auction house and economy in Forza.
New cars for Forza Motorsport 4 – The IGN Car Pack now available
The second downloadable car pack for Forza Motorsport 4 is now available, with the IGN Car Pack featuring 10 new vehicles to purchase in-game and get racing. If you’ve already invested in a Season Pass, the pack is included in your six month subscription, but if not, it costs 560 Microsoft Points.
The cars themselves are a reasonable mixture to appeal to every type of racer and car fan, and there are a few which we think could be made pretty competitive in their respective classes.It leans more towards the classic fan, with a mix of European and American classics, and we’re always happy to relive legendary cars.
Forza Motorsport 4 IGN Car Pack List:
The cars including in the IGN Car Pack are:
2011 Suzuki #1 Monster Sport SX4
Perfect for hillclimbs and Fujimi Kaido in particular, the Suzuki packs a whopping 897 horsepower from a 3.1 litre twin-turbocharged V6.
2011 Mazda RX-8 R3
The last production model for the RX-8 gives you a 1.3 litre, 232 horsepower engine with 0-60 around seven seconds before you start tuning and tweaking your car. Plus the sound of the unique Mazda Wankel rotary engine.
2011 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor
The oddest choice for the car pack is the massive and intimidating Ford pick-up. Having said that, the Top Gear Test Track is strangely suited to 4×4 and pickup racing, and we can imagine some battles between Ford and Dodge fans becoming quite entertaining.
1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS-396
Now we’re talking. One of the big selling points of this special edition Chevelle is the four-speed gearbox as many of the 3 speed muscle cars end up bouncing off the rev limiter without a Sport or Race Transmission being added, and therefore end up pretty limited in terms of tuning and other upgrade. But the four speed should help make the most of the 375 horsepower V8 and make it a popular choice in a number of classic series and tournaments which are currently running.
1977 Ford Escort RS1800
It’s great to see another muscle car balanced by a classic ‘car of the people’ for European drivers. OK, so there are other Escort models which enthusiasts might have preferred, and we’d still like to see a Mk1 appear (alongside a real Mini Cooper for recreating classic racing in all it’s glory). But the RS1800 is still a legendary rally car with a Cosworth 1.8 litre BDA motor, and you can still see cars of this era competing in classic and national rallying.
1981 Volkswagen Scirocco S
The Scirocco is another car which will please European fans, with the first generation Sciroco using the Golf/Jetta platform as a base.
1986 Alfa Romeo Spider Quadrifoglio Verde
Top Gear have famously always said that you need to own an Alfa Romeo to call yourself a real car enthusiast, and given the rarity of classic Alfas, this is your best chance of experiencing this particular model, with a 115hp, 2.0 litre engine.
1988 Pontiac Fiero GT
The last and probably best Fiero. The GT model began in 1985, with upgraded suspension tuning, wider tires, and importantly a V6 engine for more horsepower, and in 1986 the final, sleeker styling was introduced. Add the 1988 changes which capitalised on a mid-engine layout with new suspension and parts of the space frame, better brakes and some improvements to the engine, and you’ve got the final Fiero GT.
2010 Maserati GranTurismo MC GT4
If you were disapointed that there weren’t more pure race cars in the updates so far, the MC GT4 should cheer you up. It’s got 433hp, and having been built for the 2010 European FIA GT4 class, it also has the handling to match. The 4.7 litre V8 doesn’t have much weight to haul with the carbon-fibre bodywork, and there’s also a high-flow exhaust. All-in-all the Maserati weighs less than 1400kg, and in the real world would have cost 135,000 Euros plus tax, so you’re saving a fair bit by trying it in Forza!
1957 Maserati 300 S
We could debate the other car choices all day, but the Maserati is not only too gorgeous to leave out, and rare (Only 28 were produced), but being raced by the likes of Fangio, Shelby and Moss seal the deal. Along with a 3.0 litre, 245bhp engine, a trellis structure with an aluminium body on top. After being introduced in 1955 it had benefitted from a number of improvements mechanically and aerodynamically, and claimed wins in 1956, with Maserati finishing second to the Ferrari team. And it was the last of the great Maserati sports car racers of the era, as the follow-up 450S was made obselete by changes to the rules to limit displacement to three litres, which caused the manufacturer to withdraw from racing.
