I fancy some moderate timewasting. And being able to get the iPlayer on my telly without faffing about too much.

Do I go for the X-Box 360 (slightly cheaper to buy, has Forza, controllers reputed to be much nicer, but got to pay for X-box live), or the PS3 (no standing charge, got a blu ray player too and ITV player).

A large chunk of me is currently swerving towards the PS3, because Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception looks good, and due to the blu-ray / comprehensive iPlayer / everyoneelsePlayer support. And the lack of a standing charge.

But. I can remember playing GT4 on the PS2, and having to do millions of interminable races to get MK1 Golf GTI. Which was then probably slower and less tunable than the Nissan Henry Type 36TZ :(. GT5 is meant to be much the same. Forza looks much, much better, and the cars sound like cars. It even looks like it might even be fun, and that there’s some hope of me driving some decent cars without spending a 1000 hours paying my dues in some dodgy racing series. But I suspect I’m short changing myself on every other aspect of the machine to get my mitts on one game…

Any ideas? Games wise, I’m likely to play a few driving and maybe shooty games, GTA, and also probably point and click adventure / puzzler stuff (ie, Broken Sword style things) and then daft multiplayer stuff like Monkey Ball, Tekken, Streetfighter etc…

Personally i bought a ps3 for gt5 and it has been brilliant. Never played forza to compare though. Really like the ps3 for iplayer/ Netflix etc and glad i don’t have some subscription to pay.

really looking forward to assassins creed 3 and far cry 3 over Christmas 🙂

however are you not looking at this really late in both consoles product cycles? When are the new Playstation and Xbox arriving?

ps there is some ‘earning’ progress on gt5 but it really isn’t that bad

I probably am very late to the party – I think the next gen machines are due in 2014. But to be fair, when these things are new and £400 a pop, I’m not at all interested. £150-£250 with a few games bundled in, and it suddenly seems halfway reasonable.

Xbox for me. Always found Forza a bit more fun than GT.

Yep, I went for X-Box last month with Forza 4. Played GT on my mates PS3 shortly after & found it a lot more arcadey.

Haven’t got Gold membership yet but haven’t felt the over-riding need to yet.

Xbox Live Gold you have to pay for, but IME it’s worth the premium over Sony’s offering. £30 / year.

Also worth pointing out that Netflix, Love Film, iPlayer, Sky player, etc are on the xbox too.

Forza > GT for me too. GT definitely feels more arcadey to me too

GT5 doesn’t involve anywhere near as much battling in crap cars as GT3 did. However, I might miss that. I played it again last night, and I seemed to have more than enough money to buy my way to victory in most races. I did a couple of Expert series in a Lambourghini Gallardo which I had to drive really gently due to ludicrous amounts of power and I still smashed everyone else.

Since my neighbour gave me his old PS3 a couple of weeks back, I”ve had a play with GT5 and I have to say I’m disappointed. I already have an Xbox and played Forza4 quite a bit in the last few months……Forza is the clear winner. It could benefit from a few more tracks and it can get a bit samey, and releasing cars on Live that would end up costing you more money seems a bit cheeky, but its head an shoulders above GT5 in the handling and graphics stakes

GT5 is not without its charms, but it is more arcadey and for some reason, harder to crash

Xbox controllers are much more comfortable and ergonomic for me, had our xbox approx 3 years. Forza Horizon is just out too, an open world game based on a racing/music festival. It’s good, a bit short though, and not got loads of cars. Enjoyed it though, and it does get more difficult as the game goes on.

Forza can’t be more boring that GT5?

The F1 game is pretty good – not sure about these sandbox experience racing games, I like racing games to have an obvious structure to them to keep my attention – I’ve got bored with Dirt3, Need for Speed most wanted (which is like a Chase HQ update) & GT5, but I’ll still go back to F1.

That said at the moment I’m playing Red Dead Redemption until GTA5 comes out next year. All on the PS3 which I mostly use for watching iplayer & love film…

Xbox Live Gold you have to pay for, but IME it’s worth the premium over Sony’s offering. £30 / year.

Why / How?

XBox controllers are waaay better for driving, but the PS3 has better wheels and pedals available. I say buy based on whether you’re planning on having a wheel.

XBox has Forza Horizon too… not played it myself but looks like an interesting spin-off (pardon the pun).

GT5 for me anyday. I’m still playing it and I’ve had it since the day it came out! I’ve just got my 1000th car 😆 GT5 certainly has more realistic handling and physics but only faulters on crash damage. Also so many updates have been made, it is a lot better than when it came out so most of the original criticisms have been sorted. Ps3 controllers are better for driving imo because the xbox ones were always designed for shooters. I find the wonky xbox sticks just annoying really

Also GT5 has new races added every fortnight with online leader boards. they are much harder than the normal a-spec races. they have also made it so that the prize money is altered depending on how your car compares to the opposition to encourage you to match your car evenly

Forza if you have to pick one, there is alot more game for your money and the multiplayer, leaderboards etc will keep you going a lot longer. If you like grinding boring singleplayer races then GT5 may be the one to go for

Surprised to hear GT5 being touted as more arcadey than Forza…!
I thought general view was the other way around. Played on the full physics engine & manual gearbox GT5 can be really demanding- especially with the weather effects on. IMO you can soon get the feel of the car, when you’re on the limit of grip, when the tyres are going to break away etc. Play on a car you’ve owned IRL, golf gti mk 5 for me, and it really shines-for something in your living room to offer even a close comparison is remarkable.

Like others, I bought PS3 for GT5P, and waited for GT5. Haven’t played Forza, but have seen it played. I don’t consider myself a GT5 fan boy though. GT5 was, sadly, disappointing… too much expectation given the development time, but that said, I think the disappointment was more to do with what wasn’t included rather than what was actually in the game. BUT, what GT5 does well, it does very well. Driving fast on the ‘Ring, without AI cars around is a HUGE challenge. AI cars and their physics engine was the biggest disappointment for me. AI should have the same physics constraints as the player car, and I was never convinced that they did 🙁

Have both. PS3 is much better experience.

Are these new 12gb PS3s Ok for GT5 and the like ?

i have never owned a ps3 so cannot comment on gt5.i would definitely recommend a 360 for driving games though (i love the project gotham racing games 3-4 on 360).also the new forza horizon is meant to be very good (haven’t played it myself).forza 4 was a good game though (but the pgr driving games are my favorite 😉

Why / How?

My experience of the PS3 online experience, anecdotally at friends houses, was that it was painfully slow and horribly clunky compared to the Xbox offering. The Microsoft implementation was incredibly slick by comparison.

I love the Xbox ‘store’ where new playable demos are released weekly; I probably spend as much time on those as on full games. A system update on the Xbox takes a couple of minutes; I don’t know if it’s typical, but getting a new PS3 into a usable state with updates took us an afternoon, with updates taking upwards of half an hour to install.

I may be being unfair here, there could be other factors at work (I don’t know what state their internet connection was in compared to mine, for example). And times may have changed, it’s been a while. But my personal experience of the PS3 online made me come away thinking “wow, I’m glad I’ve got an Xbox.”

XBL is available for £30ish for 13 months…If you can afford a current games console, then you can afford £2.32 a month for XBL and the brilliant service that comes with it…

Yup.

I can recommend Electronic First; used them for the last few years and can’t fault the service.

Cant comment on the PS/GT but I have Forza4 on an Xbox.
I got the Xbox a few months ago, primarily as a media extender to watch my pc recorded TV elsewhere in the house. The fact it can play games was an unexpected/unintended consequence. Honestly darling….

Im also tight, so I dont subscribe to Xbox Live Gold, just the free profile.

The free profile allows you to use a certain amount of the added functionality of the box such as iPlayer, 4Od etc. But oddly it doesnt allow you to run Internet Explorer and bing search is limited to media hits! You also cant play against online competitors etc.

Does anyone know how to merge profiles? I have a local profile on which Ive clocked a fair few hours of Forza, but since then have created a Live profile. Now tih two profiles Id like to merge them so that my Forza history can be put onto my Live profile?
If there’s no way of doing it, bear it in mind when you get an Xbox – set up a live profile (free) straight away.

You also cant play against online competitors etc

There are ways around this for tight wads… 😉

*goes off to google “Scottish Xbox Users Forum”*

Are these new 12gb PS3s Ok for GT5 and the like

Only if you intend to replace the hard drive, the game data + updates is more then 12 gb.

GT5 Full install is over 10gb, not including extra DLC. Get yourself a cheapish PS3 with a HD and replace with a SSD, much quicker. 😉

GT5 if you want to learn tracks and learn about car control.
Forza if you want a really good game.

GT5 is not without its charms, but it is more arcadey and for some reason, harder to crash

I bet you had the driving aids turned on – they are on by default. Turn them all off and I can assure you it is very very easy to crash!

As for arcadey – I just spent two evenings practising Monza in a Ferrari F430. No cars, just trying to learn the circuit, the braking points and the racing lines. I need to to win the Ferrari challenge because the other cars are much better than the one I could afford. I wouldn’t call that arcadey!

I don’t know if it’s typical, but getting a new PS3 into a usable state with updates took us an afternoon

Updates can be big but it depends on your internet connection. Installing them doesn’t take long once downloaded. Also, it depends on how long that particular PS3 was in the shop before being bought.

Obviously they both have their plusses. I had both consoles for a while but ended up selling the PS3. I found the Xbox live online experience better than the PS3 and worth the money. The Forza leaderboards are brilliant, okay there’s cheats at the top of some of them but thats pretty much irrelevant for the average gamer anyway. I spent weeks crawling my way up the leaderboard of the Top Gear test track, to the point where I had to master manual gears to gain valuable tenths…

Fair enough Cougar. Just to add to your anecdotal evidence pile, I don’t think you get that update problem with new PS3s anymore – I don’t remember having to wait long when I recently set up a brand new superslim console. I can’t comment on the slow and clunky user experience bit because I don’t know what I’m missing, but I’m certainly not frustrated when I play my PS3 online.

Are these new 12gb PS3s Ok for GT5 and the like

The 12GB PS3 hasn’t got a hard drive – it uses flash. You can get a PS3 HDD mounting bracket (about £10 on amazon) and buy a seperate hard drive, it all fits inside neat and tidy. It works out much cheaper than getting a PS3 with a hard drive from the start.

AI cars and their physics engine was the biggest disappointment for me

They have updated the AI at least twice since it was released and it is much better now. Cars will swerve to avoid you and can make mistakes when they fight between themselves, sometimes crashing without any involvement from the player