Out Today: Forza Motorsport 4 (USA)

So my little mini-review:  I decide to pre-order and also get the Limited Edition.  The Limited Edition cames with the tin case and a small booklet put together by Top Gear.  The booklet has all the cars that are in the Autovista mode… Its kinda like a coffee table book about cars.  Has a mix of real pictures and in game pictures.  At first glance the casual eye would not notice.  Anyway!   So, I get the game home and after all the updates to xbox live the game starts with a intro movie narrated by Jeremy Clarkson.  Totally impressed!  I have read that if you have a F3 account it will import stuff from that account… I must have lost mine because it didn’t do that.  So instead of searching the few memory stick for my account I just let the game take me for the ride… Like F3 you do a intro race. And if you played the demo your have already turned some laps and will be familiar with the car and the track.  The first major thing I noticed where the graphic and then the wall I hit because I wasn’t driving… I was kinda staring at the scenery. DOH!  Next you’ll probably notice that the driving model is different.  I can’t comment on how realist it or isn’t due to the fact that I drive a truck and a minivan.  After the first race, I decided that I had to try the head tracking…  Let me just first say that IF it is setup properly then it is just absolutely awesome!  But I think the ‘IF’ is a BIG ‘IF’.  First of you have to turn the Head Tracking ON.  Then you’ll need to do a little fine tuning… nothing major… for me it was moving closer…  I didn’t mind due to the fact that I usually move closer when I play Forza anyway… the Head Tracking just had me move even closer.  The options allow you to adjust you Head Lean,  Head Turn, the effect fo Both and remove some of the background to isolate your head.  I started with the defaults and got as tried at my normal play distance.  Started a race an the first thing it told me was that I needed to center my head… during the entire race and the tracking wasn’t working.  So back to the tuning screen.  I noticed that it wanted me closer to the screen… So I moved closer.  New race and this time the Head Tracking was more ON then it was OFF.  You get a big message telling you to center your head when it loses it.  So back to the tuning menu… closer still and a little background tweaking,  New race and this time the tuning was good.  Now here is the deal…  I have a 46″ flat screen and I was about 6 feet away.  After tuning the Head Tracking the slight movement I made to look at the edge of the screen was enough to move the camera view.  The key to the whole system came when I tried a race at Infinion with a R3 class racer and no driving aids…  Seat of my pants the entire race… I was so involved with the driving that I totally forgot about the Head Tracking… that was unitl I was chasing down a car through the S’s and realized that the camera was moving so I could see into the corners better… just ever so slight and it was being done with my natural head motion…  I would say that I felt totaly immersed in to driving that car on that track car.  So now I sit hear pondering this… will this truely give me an advantage over some without a Kinect…  Time will tell.