Hungry for more news about Forza Motorsport 3? Here you go, then. Developer Turn 10 recently let loose some details on what gamers can expect from the third iteration in the popular racing series.

Racing fans everywhere (and Forza Motorsport 2 fans in particular) will certainly enjoy this latest bit of news we've uncovered.

Turn 10 has announced the final date of its Holiday downloadables for Forza MotorSport 2, dropping some hints as well about the track and cars that'll be included in the game. More on the DLC after the jump!

Guys who own a copy of Forza Motorsport 2 for the Xbox 360 may want to keep their eyes peeled for a game update coming in this Monday. As Community Manager Che Chou explained over at the Forza 2 official site, this Monday patch will be part one of two updates Turn 10 plans to implement for Forza 2 on Xbox Live. Here's a brief summary of the tweaks to expect when update #1 lands:

• Deny gifting and reselling of cars with locked paint jobs.
• A temporary ban on the Lotus Elan use on scoreboards and in multiplayer.
• Allow cars to be fully rotated while being viewed in the Auction House. Why? Because so many of you asked for the camera to be unlocked in Auction House so you can look at the paintjob on the roof of the car we thought we should do good by the community.
• A number of scoreboard problems have been fixed.
• Removed host's ability to boot players during a race.
• Miscellaneous fixes aplenty.
  

Further along the road, Chou tells us that the devs plan to implement more fixes, like resolving the recently spotted problem of inappropriate pain jobs. And in case you're looking for new cars and tracks, Chou says to expect downloadable content come this August. That's the short rundown on the updates - readers can view Chou's full explanations over at the read link below.

 

In a weekly Pitpass community update made back in Monday, Turn 10 has confirmed that Microsoft's Forza Motorsport 2 does not cause the Xbox 360 faults directly. But because there are still claims that could cause alarm to existing Xbox 360 owners, Turn 10 has reiterated that they do not have a solution for the issue.

"We've gone and tested Forza 2 extensively against the hardware and have confirmed that the game itself does not brick Xbox 360 consoles," said Community Manager Che Chou. He assures people that although the instance reports may seem numerous, they note that it's a small percentage of users that have reported the issue.

That said, however, Che Chou did comment, "We acknowledge that it's very frustrating. ... There isn't really a software solution here." He pointed out that Microsoft's warranty and unit replacement service was still active, stating that the company would "ensure that newer units -- or at least the ones they return to you -- will have the red rings of death issue resolved."

You should be glad to know that Turn 10 is "on schedule" in getting Forza Motorsport 2 in your hands by May 2007. Well, in their IGN Blog they say that they got a couple of weeks left before they toss their work over to Microsoft's certification team. (And the May 2007 thing is a date set by marketing, they say, not the devs - but they are on schedule, no worry there).

Their latest blog is dedicated to talking about Che Chou's progress in Career mode and the details of Customization. You can always head over to the Read link for more info, but as always, we'll stick to the highlights.

If they say that the Godhand of customization is in the details, Team 10 means it. Senior game designer Bill Giese says the paint shop has been tweaked to paint different parts of the chassis in different colors (so if you want a clown car...). Vinyls also receive the same obsessive amount of detail. The car's divided into parts for individualized vinyl work, each capable of sporting its own blanket of vinyl layers:

• Front Bumper -500 layers
• Left Side – 1000 layers
• Hood/Top/Trunk – 1000 layers
• Right Side – 1000 layers
• Rear Bumper – 500 layers
• Wing – 100 layers

 

And it doesn't end there. Many options are available to help the virtual ride-modders out there craft a 200mph masterpiece. Again, Read link if you want to learn more.

And in Career mode, well Che Chou admits: he's no Takumi.

Patience has its rewards, and the same tenet goes for the world of gamers. Forza Motorsport 2 fans will be happy to know that their patience may very well pay off in the form of a more involving racing experience.

As you might well know, Forza 2's going to be delayed for a spring release. Virtual adrenaline junkies favoring Microsoft's console were understandably displeased at this bit of news.

On the bright side, Che Chou, one of the community managers of the game, has spread the word of the 60fps achievement. That is, the programmers were able to push the game to run at 60 frames per second. "Because Forza 2 is pushing so many polygons and next-gen effects," Chou explains, "the team has had a heck of a time pushing the engine to run the game at a locked, butter-smooth, 60 fps. Although games at a consistent v-sync'ed 30 fps look and play great, doubling the framerate makes all the difference in the world."

Whether they can sustain it without sacrificing a little bit of quality has yet to be determined, but they're hoping the extra time they're putting into it will let them keep increased frames and impressive graphics when it hits retail. All we can say is, it better be butter-smooth, or Forza fans may just start walking.

Before you say that we're just adding volatile accelerants to the flame-bait, we're just doing our job here, which is to report things like this to you guys. Now on to the details.

The nice folks over at Xboxic have managed to find Che Chou's post at NeoGAF. By the way, Che Chou is an ex-1UP staffer and developer at Microsoft’s Forza 2 team.

This is what he claims to be the real deal:

It’s simply a rumor that Konami higher-ups are pressuring Kojima Productions to consider making MGS4 a multiplatform game because production costs on the game are unsurprisingly high and only getting higher. With PS3 install base numbers not looking all that rosy due to console cost and manufacturing problems, Konami is scared they can’t recoup their investment on only 1 platform alone.

It’s also a nice way to maybe blackmail Sony into giving Konami an incentive to keeping the game a PS3 exclusive, imo.

Whatever the case, I highly doubt it’s going to happen so quit building yourself a disappointing kiloton bomb.

Well that should ease things a bit right? We guess we'll just have to wait for more news to break. For now all you MGS4-Sony zealots can relax and put down your pitchforks. Also, all you Xbox zealots will have have to curb anticipation, Snake's move to the "white-lime-green" (as opposed to "dark") side is even less certain now than when the rumor first broke.

Let's face it, the first thing that grip our senses when playing a videogame for the first time are stunning graphics. Games that have accurately reproduced visuals from real-life are always on top of our list. While we are too caught up with the visuals, one aspect of the game that gets less attention is the audio. Though it plays second fiddle to graphics, it still adds to the digitized reality that gamers are clamoring for. For games like Forza Motorsports 2, audio plays a crucial part in the simulation equation. And to the folks at Turn 10, the only way to accurately reproduce sights and sounds is to capture real-life data that would serve as a very useful resource to develop the game. Che Chou of Team Forza lets us in on the exhaustive process of recording and sampling audio from real-life cars on dynamometers around the country.

In a series of features under Turn 10 Dyno Spotlight, the team will share some insight into how certain aspects of game development works. First in the itinerary is a visit to dynamometer authority FAME Automotive to witness audio capturing from Eric Brannors' race-spec 1988 BMW M6.

The first thing that comes to my mind is why go through all the process when they can easily record the car sounds in some other secluded place that won't bother people while you rev up the engine in neutral. Audio content coordinator Mark Price explains:

As you know, a car sounds much different when it is under a load as opposed to just being revved up in neutral. For this reason we put the car under a load on a dyno, which gives a controlled environment that we can operate the engine under. We make our recordings at a steady rpm and holding that rpm for 10 seconds at full throttle under a full load. The end result is a captured sound file that's consistent enough for our devs here to manipulate in-game.

Click on the Read link to get more of the action.