Forza MotorSport (Xbox)

In Forza Motorsport you have 3 game modes Arcade Mode where you take on arcade races but they do have a purpose just like the career races. The Career Mode is the core of the game and mush like Gran Turismo Mode on GT4. You will go about entering races for credits in Amateur, proffesional, point-to-point, championship and endurance races. The system is based on credits so the more credits you earn the more you have to spend on upgrading your current crop of cars. The Career Mode is split into various serieses so say your in a Mazda Miata series you have four or so races win them all and you win a car. The car custmisation is great you can fit turbos, rims, reduce the weight of your car even create your own decals and take it to X-Box Live.

The game however does have its flaws the music for a start is rubbish. Thankfully you can rip custom soundtarcks to your hardrive. The lack of tracks is very noticeable you will be racing the same course over and over again. The lack of depth may also dissapoint you.

Graphics 9 Top notch although GT4 looks better and it's got less graphics power.
Sound 4 All the engine sounds are there but the music is awful.
Gameplay 9 Forza excels in this area and is a lot more forgiving than Gran Tursmo which is welcomed.
Lifespan 10 An enourmous Career Mode and X-Box Live enabled this will keep you going for months.

Forza Motorsport is indeed the answer to Gran Turismo. If you want an authentic racing sim on your X-Box look no futher. 9/10. Thanks for reading. John Mitchell.

I had some initial doubts about Forza. The graphics, at first glance, don’t seem as smooth or error-free as other titles. They don’t have the pin-sharp freshness and fast frame smoothness of TOCA 2. Reflections on the paintwork don’t look quite so good as they do on TOCA, either, and the cars are not as handsomely modelled as PGR2. You even get the odd bit of scenery pop-up. Having said that, no racing game has the astonishing attention to detail that this game has, particularly with regard to foliage and road textures and, especially impressive in this game, ambient lighting. You forgive the odd graphical glitch because the Xbox is being forced to move so much stuff around on screen. The graphics have a super-saturated, slightly grainy Technicolor look to them, like a 1970s film, which adds to the atmosphere. Moto GP 3 is faster and smoother, but it looks cold and clinical, with hard-edges all the way up to the horizon. Forza looks natural.

The first few games are a real baptism of fire: you can’t move, or go round even the widest corner, without spinning off the track. But when you STRICTLY adhere to the rule ‘thou shalt brake in a straight line at speeds of more than 50mph’, just like real life, you’ll be fine. Once you’ve got it, the control system is flawless. If you spin off the track, it’s ALWAYS your fault, and when you slide it right, it’s a beautiful feeling. When you go back to other ‘serious’ race games after Forza, you’ll realise how ‘arcadey’ other games feel. Forza feels natural.

One of the main things going for this game is its enormous depth. There are countless ways of tweaking your car’s braking, aerodynamics, suspension, gears, etc., etc. Other games have mod options, but nothing like this. Upgrades are not just ‘plug and play’ bolt-ons that indiscriminately improve everything about the drive (NFSU2 and Moto GP 3 take note). With Forza, it is possible to over-power cars with upgrades, so that they become virtually undriveable until you change the car’s set-up. There are a huge number of sliding controls for tweaking every aspect of car performance you’ve heard of, and no doubt a few things you haven’t. Grease monkeys will have a field day, while casual gamers may be overwhelmed by all the choices. But here’s a thing – you can actually FEEL the differences when you change those settings! In Forza, if it’s in the game, it MEANS something. Nothing is cosmetic. Forza acts natural.

Forza is generous with its cars and tracks, and all are generally gorgeous to look. Tracks cover a range of race types, with point-to-point, GP circuit, and oval tracks. The only disappointment is the cone challenge tracks, which award no style bonuses (as in PGR / PGR2) and play no part in your career ranking. Also, these tracks are very dull to look at, like supermarket car parks. The city tracks, however, (New York and Tokyo) are the best recreations of real places I’ve ever seen in a game. The New York track is a highly recognisable facsimile of Broadway and Times Square, with spot-on lighting, advertising and shop frontages.

What makes this game the current pick of the racing crop is the sheer FUN of playing it. Like PGR2, Forza is fabulously moreish. It never feels like a chore to play, and all the challenges seem ‘do-able’. If you can’t do one race, Forza’s non-linearity means that you won’t be stuck: you’ll be able to win other races, get more money, buy better cars (or upgrades), and THEN win the race you’re stuck on. The AI racers can play dirty, but they crash into one another and come a cropper just as often as you do, unlike the filthy AI cheats in PGR2 and NFSU2. Consequently, you’ll spend less time turning off the console in a huff, and more time chewing your lip and planning your winning strategy.

One very minor gripe is that the cumbersome menu system. It’s not immediately obvious where certain game options have been ‘put’. This will not bother you for long, though, because you’ll play Forza a LOT! The developers have obviously spent so much time working on the gameplay they haven’t over-concerned themselves with presentation.

Forza Motorsport isthe first serious challenger to PGR2. It is currently the best ‘serious’ racing game on the Xbox.