Forza Motorsport could well be seen as the Xbox’s swansong. The Xbox 360 has now been officially announced, the release schedule for the original system is chock-full of multi-format ports and yearly updates – and as is always the way when a new system is in the works, the average gamer’s interest is waning as they wait for the release of the new system. Luckily, Forza Motorsport is the perfect way of closing the show.
Forza Motorsport is as much about style as it is about speed. Buy a car, tweak it with numerous upgrades and choose your paint colour for the main body of the car, the hood and the mirrors. Tint the windows, change the rims, apply a million decals to the vehicle and take it to the track. No, you can’t fit neons and no, you can’t change the colour of your exhaust, but you don’t need to. Resizing the decals and vinyls, colouring them, spinning them and moving them to the desired location can result in some incredibly intricate designs – and the chances are that when you take it online, you won’t see a modified car like yours.
But, that doesn’t win races. Upgrading your engine, suspension, turbocharger, intercooler, bodywork and a whole host of other parts is what’s required to do that. Along with a bit of tuning to the camber, tyre pressure, suspension stiffness and more. If you obtain a car that allows it, you can even swap out the entire engine for a better one to improve performance.
The results of these changes can be viewed instantly, using Forza’s “out of ten” system. Your car is given a score for acceleration; cornering, braking, top speed and rarity, with these updating instantly should you choose to buy a new part. Installing more custom parts increases the car’s rarity, which in turn increases its value when you come to sell it back to the CPU, or if you take it online and flog it to another human player. The whole system is incredibly easy to use, and is as in-depth as you wish to make it. Cars don’t have to be tuned, but if you want to squeeze an extra couple of miles an hour out of the engine and a little more grip on the corners from the tyres, then you can tweak all of the settings to get the car feeling just right. Paint and decals don’t have to be applied, but having your own personal car when racing online – and knowing that nobody else has one that looks exactly like it – is a very cool feeling.
The gameplay – thankfully – matches up. The game does move at a solid 30fps – which many have criticised – but you’ll rarely notice it. Had the developers chosen to cram so much graphical flair into a game running at 60fps, we might be mentioning slowdown here, but we aren’t. The game whips along at a stunning rate, and you won’t notice the framerate at all. You’ll be too busy trying to slice an extra split second off your lap time by riding an apex a little more than you should, or blocking off one of the fighting CPU AI drivers to stop them passing you, or brutally knocking you spinning on a corner. Make them mad and they’ll begin nudging, pushing and taking more risks – just like you would. If you’re bored of racing but still want to proceed through the game’s offline structure, train a “Drivatar” and make them race for you – a bit like the B-Spec option of GT4. In this mode, you’re rated on how well you take different types of corners, and this is then applied to your Drivatar. If you drive badly, he’ll drive badly – simple as that.
Playing in the game’s career mode is also as customisable as you want it to be. If you’re having trouble timing your turns, pop the “Suggested Line” option on and watch as it tells you where to brake, where to cruise and where to put your foot down – dynamically – meaning that the line changes to reflect your current speed. This, along with the optional traction control, stability control, damage type and opposition difficulty is all changeable. The penalty for setting these all to the easiest option is that you won’t earn as much money for winning a race, with the opposite happening if you set them to the most difficult levels.
Online, Forza Motorsport uses a modified Chess ranking system to grade players and find the best opposition for your race. The game slides along at breakneck speed and rarely suffers from lag or slowdown. PGR2 has also been unseated here.
I know I’m not doing the game justice here, because there are simply so many things to talk about, that its impossible to get it all in without running over thirty thousand words.
I haven’t touched on many of the game’s features, but they are best left for you to find. All you need to know is that if it was a poker hand, Forza would be a royal flush. If a football score, it would be a 7-0 win. As a game, it is the finest straight-up racing game to grace any home console system and as such, is an absolute must buy. I don’t often say that a game has no flaws, but I certainly can’t see any in Forza Motorsport.
