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.

• 400PP Circuito de Madrid Mini. 5 Laps, Credits 117,500
• 500PP Fuji Speedway F. 5 laps. Credits 200,000.
• 650PP Nurburgring 24H. 2 Laps. Credits 420,000

And in addition there is a new selection of vehicles in the GT5 Online Car Dealership. The list is:

• Toyota CELICA TRD Sports M (ZZT231) ’00 – 22,500 Cr
• Toyota Tacoma X-Runner ’04 – 24,520 Cr
• Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo ’95 – 43,150 Cr
• Nismo 270R ’94 – 45,000 Cr
• TOM’S X540 CHASER ’00 – 50,000 Cr
• Mugen MUGEN S2000 ’00 – 50,000 Cr
• Alfa Romeo Spider 3.0i V6 24V ’01 – 51,190 Cr
• TVR Griffith 500 ’94 – 58,730 Cr
• Opera Performance 350Z ’04 – 75,000 Cr
• Spoon S2000 ’00 – 85,000 Cr
• Nismo Skyline GT-R S-tune (R32) ’00 – 90,000 Cr
• Nismo 400R ’96 – 120,000 Cr
• Nismo Skyline GT-R R-tune (R34) ’99 – 125,000 Cr
• Trial CELICA SS-II (ZZT231) ’03 – 125,000 Cr
• Nismo Fairlady Z Z-tune (Z33) ’03 – 150,000 Cr
• Callaway C12 ’03 – 175,880 Cr
• Nissan OPTION Stream Z ’04 – 200,000 Cr
• Amuse Carbon R (R34) ’04 – 250,000 Cr
• Pagani Zonda LM Race Car – 1,000,000 Cr
• Nissan Fairlady Z Concept LM Race Car – 1,000,000 Cr
• Vauxhall Calibra Super Touring Car ’94 – 1,500,000 Cr
• Gran Turismo Formula Gran Turismo -5,000,000 Cr

Don’t forget, there’s also a maintenance outage on Tuesday, February 7th, followed by an update release for patch 2.04.

There’s no confirmation on exactly what is included in the patch, which should be version 2.04, besides one minor bug with drift trial replays will be solved.

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?

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

Sponsored Post:  Dakar 2012 – The Ultimate Race?

When it comes to challenges, there’s nothing bigger than the world’s biggest rally raid, the Dakar Rally. Running since 1978, the race originally followed a route from Paris to Dakar, but following terrorist attacks in 2008, it has since switched to South America, and this year runs from Mar Del Plata in Argentina to Lima in Peru.

Strangely there haven’t been many videogame versions of the rally, with Paris-Dakar by Activision in 2001 for Xbox, PS2 and PC, and Dakar 2 following up in 2003 for Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox. The main reason is probably the immense scale of the race and the challenge of including all the competing classes, which span motorcycles, quads, cars and trucks.

But if you’re a racing fan, you need to see what the Dark involves and there’s amazing coverage with videos and photos on the Red Bull Dakar 2012 site , in addition to sponsoring a number of competitors.

Their team in 2012 includes Toyota Hilux driver Giniel de Villiers, who became the first ever South African winner of the Dakar in 2009. He’s looking set for a podium position at the moment after a tough battle with the Hummer of American Robby Gordon, which means he can relax a little and admire the scenery!

‘The second part of the stage was super tricky and technical. We had to climb up a big canyon and the four-wheel drive of our Toyota Hilux was a definite help. As we came to the end of the stage, we were found ourselves amongst a million big rocks. On the rare occasion the pressure to avoid all the obstacles was off, we had a look around and I was blown away by my first views of Peru – it was like we were racing on the moon!’

You can read see more about the challenge of competing on four wheels on his Dakar 2012 Diary

But possibly even more insane than driving a truck at high speed through these stages is the idea of tackling it on a bike. And the battle for victory is between two Red Bull riders, the legendary Marc Coma and Cyril Despres. Coma has won the Dakar rally three times, as has Despres, and the pair are still separated by just a matter of seconds going into the final stage.

Both riders are amazingly calm when they pass on their experiences:

The day started with me getting a bath in a stream as I pushed the bike along the track. After that it was another hard day but, apart from a small crash I had at low speed, I’m pleased with how the stage went.

There was a modification to today’s roadbook and that meant one of the tracks wasn’t very visible. I rode 100 metres too far at one point but then I saw that Marc was turning around and coming back. Marc started two minutes ahead of me today so it was good to catch up with him.

It may sound relatively normal, but check out the videos on the Red Bull Dakar site to see exactly what it’s really like!

Sponsored Post

Viral video by ebuzzing

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?

1. Keep trying. Occasionally we’ve found that joining will work on the 3rd, 4th or 5th attempt.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.