Forza Motorsport for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

Once upon a time, racing simulation was an evil word. Gamers who ground their teeth on Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, and Pole Position were convinced that nothing could really beat flexible, forgiving AI, instant gratification and quarter-slot gameplay. In 1998, Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo series changed everything. Kazunori Yamauchi and company created a true car-lovers' game built on the idea of collecting an unprecedented amount of officially licensed cars, delivering real-world physics, training players to improve and upgrade their vehicles with dozens of parts, and backing it all up with shockingly good graphics for the 32-bit PlayStation.

Since its debut, nothing has come close to matching Gran Turismo. Sure, Codemasters' Pro Race Driver (otherwise known as TOCA) and Colin McRae Rally are stellar in their own ways, but nothing matches the depth, beauty, precision, or sheer size of GT. With Forza Motorsport, however, Microsoft is taking a swing at GT and the results are the most impressive of any challenger yet.

Inspired by Polyphony's masterpiece, Forza Motorsport steps up to the bat and connects like a major leaguer, in some ways advancing past the somewhat stagnant GT series, and in some ways falling short. Microsoft Game Studios' Forza is impressive in nearly every way, and is easily qualified as the most authentic and best racing simulation on Xbox to date.

The Big Picture

First things first, Forza Motorsport lays down a massive amount of cars, features, and modes. It divvies up a 70-plus hour racing experience when all is said and done. Forza features a whopping 233 cars and 31 tracks, enabling players to unlock and drive cars from the US, Europe, and Asia in 480p backed by lovely Dolby 5.1 surround sound. You can play the entire career mode offline like traditional racing games, or in an innovative twist, you can race the career mode online, against similar class competitors. Having an online connection, however, isn't crucial to collecting every last car -- you can buy, win, or in some way get every last one of them without being online.

Players have access to Arcade, Career, Multiplayer, Time Trials, and Free Run modes. Arcade mode, however, doesn't mean the game is all-of-a-sudden less realistic. Instead, it's a linear, race-by-race experience that opens up cars and tracks as rewards. You can switch to four different camera angles and use two different steering wheels to enhance the experience, thanks to Madcatz and Fanatec, which should ship their wheels to retail soon after Forza's release. (Check our impressions of the Fanatec wheel.)

If you are online, you'll compete with as many as seven other players simultaneously (eight total), and you'll be able to post to a record-breaking 1,400 leader boards. The online gameplay runs at a solid 30 FPS, and the online multiplayer mode is easily one of the most instantly satisfying aspects of Forza. It's sophisticated, smooth, and technically savvy in addition to presenting all your options clearly. You can buy and sell cars online, upload ghosts, join car clubs, and socialize online in ways you always wish you could. MGS's rating system tips players about their rivals, and real-world damage affects car performance, but neither necessarily prevents slamming, tipping, and racing like a bastard. That's just part of the online experience.

This list of features goes on. There is an innovative Drivatar function, enabling racers to train their AI and race it for a small fee if they don't feel like entering a particular series. The Drivatar is a neat idea that requires time and constant work to make it function efficiently. It's not an instantly gratifying experience, and the game actually charges you units for using your Drivatar in races (as an encouragement to race them yourself). I trained for an hour or so, sent my car to a race, got fourth place, and got charged for it. And I'm a very good driver. That's when I realized how much work the Drivatar requires. Don't get me wrong, it's functional, smart, and neat, but it's a long-term commitment that I didn't have, so I was a bit disappointed. However, it was very useful when I needed it -- competing in endurance races, which I hate.

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The progressive level-up system in Career mode is incredibly rewarding. Players level up like in an RPG, earning points for high placement, and earning cars, opening up relationships, and getting discounts with manufacturers as they progress. You start at level 0 and ascend to level 50 and higher. The interesting regional scheme that organizes the world of Forza into territories enables players to start in a region (US, Europe, or Asia), and focus their progression on earning the majority of cars from that area. Digging deeper into the game, you open up relationships with manufacturers from other regions, granting access to new foreign cars and parts. This scheme works beautifully, often rewarding players with free exotic cars, which are always welcome.

The point system breaks down into classes (D, C, B, A, R, and S), further organizing your cars' worth. Classes are determined by power, weight, and tire grip. You'll constantly want to upgrade your car, but learning how to maximize each one without going over the limit is a major key to enjoying Forza. For instance, you might want to max out your 1970 GT Challenger, a monster of an American car offering insanely high acceleration and top speeds, but terrible handling and brakes. Without ascending into another class, you can still drastically improve its handling and brakes, giving you an edge going into a class-specific race. This whole game within a game is incredibly rewarding, and makes each and every decision far more valuable and weightier than in other titles.

The career mode comprises "Go Race," "The Garage," "Buy Cars," "Train Avatar," and "Set Difficulty." Go Race opens up the core experience of races. In it, you'll encounter a huge assortment of race types ranging from online career mode, point-to-point races, and amateur, professional, championship, and endurance races. Each sub-mode offers a series of races, in which you can earn bronze, silver or gold medals. In Arcade mode you can simply earn a top three spot to open up new races, but in Career mode, you must gain gold to get the goods.

Each race is based on a class (such as the Class A Championship), car type (such as the Miata Sport Cup, the Lotus Exige Cup, or the Rotary Engine Challenge), or race type (such as American Muscle Challenge or the Rallisport Face Off, mixing uphill and downhill races -- there is no rally racing in Forza). There are literally hundreds of races, meaning hours of unending sim racing. The Garage is where you can check, tune, or customize your vehicle, buy upgrades, or train your avatar.

Players can modify the exteriors of their cars with dozens of layers of decals, paint, or alter the look with after-market car parts, and they can tune, upgrade, and tweak the interior of their vehicles for enhanced performance. The depth of the exterior modding shines brightest in the sheer amount of layers you can add to any car. You can stretch, spin, expand, or shrink each shape, and you can add dozens of real world car company logos, too. The list of colors is not all that as gratifying, however (there simply aren't enough colors), and the conservative approach to the accessible portions of the car is a little annoying.

Furthermore, while it's excellent that you can indeed modify the exterior of your vehicle with spoilers, fenders, hoods, tires, and rims, Forza is by no means as deep or as satisfying as Midnight Club 3, SRS, or Need for Speed Underground 2 in terms of pure mod-able depth. After playing those racers, Forza feels a little shallow in that regard. It's obvious that the Forza team spent more important time on physics, online play, and AI balance than these features.

The vehicle tuning and interior upgrades, however, are excellent. You'll always know when a potential enhancement sends you into a different class so you can make an intelligent decision, and you can also always sell that part afterward, too if you change your mind. The list of parts, engine enhancements, and tuning abilities (gear ratios, spoiler angles, shocks, etc.) are also excellent, adding to the huge amount of overall customization Forza offers.

Adding to the cool list of options, for instance, is the ability to shortcut from menu to menu while in Career mode. At the start of any new race requiring a specific car class, you can switch to another car in your garage without having to back out. When you're playing a 70-hour game, this means a lot, and it's something the competition needs to work on. Similarly, at the beginning of any race, you have the choice of loading a Drivatar or a specific car setup, tuned specifically for that track. It's these little things that make Forza so efficient and engaging.

On Xbox, there is no racing game that comes close to delivering this volume of cars, this quantity of real-world and fictitious tracks, this hearty of a physics system, or the hefty career mode option of playing online. Of course, compared to GT4 on PS2, Forza is short on cars (700-plus) and tracks (53), but we're happy to know that many of the cars in GT4 aren't all worth driving, and this is MGS's first crack at a racing sim, so maybe they'll have more next time around.

Core Qualities

Everyone wants a fast racing game, and Forza does a pretty good job of nailing a memorable sense of speed. It's not the best, but it's solid. The game locks at 30 fps, offline and online, and generally, depending on the car, you'll experience good sensations of velocity. Switching to the two first-person perspectives enhances this, especially the bumper view. Unlocking the formula and concept cars creates a more spectacular sense of speed too. Locking Forza at 60 FPS might have been a difficult measure, but it probably would have helped make the game feel faster.

Although there shouldn't be too many complaints about speed, Forza's artificial intelligence may very well start up a fighting frenzy. MGS' sophisticated single-player AI is crafty and impressive, and can be overly aggressive and sometimes downright nasty in some cases. The AI generally follows its own line, staying relatively steady, despite a push a two from yours truly. In amateur races, you'll occasionally get nudged, resulting in spin outs or getting knocked off track.

In Professional races, the AI grows fiercer, holding its line more firmly, often nudging you, and more often knocking you off track. I don't have an issue with hard or challenging AI. My thinking is that if it's hard, I need to get better. I love a challenge, as long as the challenge is attainable. And I've studied this AI for some time. If you get knocked out of your position early on, you can still win. It's not impossible. Forza does reward skilled driving. I've come back from third, fourth, even sixth place in tough races and won because I took turns correctly, timed my braking, and carved out my lines perfectly. I've also seen the AI do cool things, like swerving to avoid being hit, carve out beautifully perfect lines, crash into one another, aggressively attempt to pass me, and even accelerate on dirt and grass to get ahead of me. In that last respect, the AI won't let you cheat it.

But when you race, say, Laguna Seca five or six times in a row because in the first 15 seconds you're getting knocked into a spin, you really do have to wonder. Is that programmed into the game to challenge me for upcoming online challenges? Is that realistic? Is it me getting in the way of the other cars? I know for a fact that I can drive a straight line out of the starting gate and still get bumped into a full spin, essentially ruining my run. I also know that in super sharp hairpin turns you will undoubtedly experience full-on multi-car collisions. I have also seen AI come from behind to knock me off my line and pass me up in the last lap.

My conclusion on the AI? It's not as gentle or as soft as in GT4. It will hit you, mistakenly or not. It occasionally does a little rubber band catch-up, and it's certainly smart and interesting. It's definitively aggressive and sometimes it's just plain brutal -- for better or for worse. I personally liked the challenge of a fierce and unpredictable AI -- it makes the single-player game that much more realistic. But my warning is this: Be prepared for a challenge and frustration.

Every good simulation offers a different take on physics and handling. With a game that's as voluminous as Forza, you can bet your bottom dollar the range of cars offers a wide spectrum of cars that handle differently. What I can say about the physics is that they're consistently very good. The cars don't have the full level of tilt and sway you see in GT4, but the cars react very well. The simulation aspect of Forza might have been full tilt six months ago, but the final product feels far more playable, more balanced between realism and playability than in preview builds. The cars won't flip; it's part of the official license agreement MGS has with all car manufacturers, but they will get close.

Similarly, car damage plays a huge part in Forza's depth and likeability. In options, you can adjust the level of difficulty to your liking (three settings), and the damage affects your performance. It also affects the competition's performance. There are hundreds of examples, but the main thing to know is that if you slam into other cars to take inside turns, you'll take damage and suffer the consequences. The level of damage isn't all that much; the most extreme of it includes severely crushed exterior panels, broken windows, scrunched fenders and scraped walls, and finally, lost fenders. You will not lose wheels, axels, or burst into flames. You will not be able to fully destroy your car or blow out your engine. But you can lose tire traction from too much sliding (the white button pulls up a meter that indicates how hot they get), lose acceleration and top speeds, and take damage that forces your vehicle to lurch to one side.

Graphics

Forza is a good but not a great-looking game. Overall, Forza feels very polished in the courses, the menus, and in the overall production. The slick white menus are fast and the load times are generally pretty quick. The game is well organized, so using the interface is fun, not laborious. The intro movie is sweet looking, though it's not indicative of the in-game graphics.

The in-game graphics are also good, but not great. Compared to a number of racers, specifically GT4, Forza holds up pretty well, but direct comparisons to that lowly PS2 game (how dare I!) prove a little disappointing. First, the car models aren't as good. They're just not. The car models are again of high quality, but they're not terribly refined, they're often blocky and lack detail, and in some cases, they just don't bring out the beauty of that particular model (whether it's an RX7 or a GT Challenger). Again, they're respectable, just not brilliant.

You'll see real-time reflections in windows and in the shine of a car, but they look a little delayed, a little slow even, not entirely moving in real-time. You'll see decent particles, too, though nothing surprising.

The car textures fit in line with the models -- good but not great. The art style of the backgrounds and environments isn't very photorealistic or inspired either. There are some nice trees, some interesting forested areas, a bunch of static 2D sprite people -- and the streets of NY are easily the best looking parts of the game -- but besides that, none of there areas pop out and grab you. Nothing is gorgeous or stunning. It's all just good. The game runs in 480p.

Sound

When it comes to soundtracks for car games, I have just about given up. Midnight Club 3 stands out way ahead of the pack, but that doesn't mean there is anything good to say about Junkie XL's select set of songs on Forza. To be fair, this music is the kind to slit your throat to -- it's lowest common denominator FM junk.

But perhaps somebody knew this at MGS, and they have given us all a huge reward for putting up with such ear-trash. Supporting Dolby 5.1 surround sound, MGS enables soundtrack ripping, and what's more, you can set your songs to play all the time -- in the menus, start-ups, and during races. The coolest thing is that the music never stops. The music plays while flipping through menus, while loading up cars, and while loading a level. Yes, the music volume dips down for about 10 seconds, but it never stops, giving players a remarkable sense of continuity and ear happiness. Yes, I said ear happiness. Thanks for the new feature Microsoft (just never give us this generic FM poop again).

The sound effects are solid and respectable. The engines all sound realistic, though the actual event of cars crashing doesn't sound as brutal or as loud as in real life. Also, Forza doesn't quite have the music down in the reward system. When you win a car, the music or effects should be rewarding, exciting, or at least unique. In Forza you hear a generic car engine. Big whoop. One of the things I remember most about GT is the sense of feeling rewarded, for earning something big -- beating a race, earning a gold trophy, whatever. In Forza, I feel like a got a penny for my troubles. Not quite the sense of reward I was hoping for. Sure, the car itself is the thing, but we all love to feel rewarded, and here, MGS seems a rather stern parent.

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