We take an exclusive look behind the scenes of Forza 3 and talk to Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt…

Some would call us naive to become outraged at product placement during a press conference. Nevertheless, when Dan Greenawalt fawned across Microsoft’s E3 stage with the production line Audi lying thereon, it made him resemble someone’s lovely assistant, circa about 1970, apart from the beard, obviously. By the time he’d shuffled off to party the night away with Yoko, Ringo and Paul (probably), gamers had been left agog thanks to some very appreciable figures and by the fact that a videogames company had proposed a racing title with no unrelated hook. Before descending into darkness at what should be a time of celebration, we’ll put our pedal to the metal and discover exactly what Dan Greenawalt is so confident about.

When it comes to passionate game designers, they don’t come more outspoken and enthusiastic than Turn 10’s Greenawalt. He doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to talking about his main passions, and it’s no surprise to hear that they’re games and cars. “I’ve been the creative director on Forza Motorsport since before its inception in 2002,” he boasts. “The vision that I had then was very clear: I wanted to turn gamers into car lovers and car lovers into gamers. The real goal is to bring people together, to have a larger community and to get people talking about cars; to get people inspired and passionate about cars. It’s about a diversity of passion.” It’s a mission statement that has now been three games in the making and, with Forza 3, is looking likely to cross the finish line.

Where the rubber meets the road
“With Forza 3 we are taking things much, much further,” explains Greenawalt. “We are the definitive racing game of this generation, and I don’t want to mince words here; I really mean what I say. We have a new graphics engine; it still runs at 60fps, which, in our opinion as racing game developers, is the only way to build a racing game experience. Especially when you think of the Mulsanne Straight [on the newly revealed Le Mans track] with all the bumps going down that road. If we were to run that at 30fps, the trees would look like they were on a slide show. Cars this fast you have to run at 60fps. Our cars now have ten times as many polygons as Forza 2, three times the texture resolution. The cars look beautiful.”

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