Generally, writing a review for a game that you are totally loving is pretty easy. But for whatever reason, approaching the review for Forza Motorsport by Microsoft Game Studios is proving to be quite a challenge. I can’t figure out whether I really do have writers block, or if I simply cannot pull myself away from the game long enough to write. "Maybe I haven’t played the game quite enough yet. Maybe I should play more online matches, yeah..." I mean, I knew it would be good. I watched the split-screen videos on the internet of real life vs. Forza; I played the demo time and time again; I’ve seen tons of pictures and read lots of developer interviews and previews. And lately I’ve been spoiled with PC sim greatness in games like GTR, Richard Burns Rally and the rFactor Demo.
But hot damn, I am completely blown away by Forza.
Forza is a sim racer. But don’t let that scare you. I know you have been tortured with repetitive license tests in driving schools that don’t teach you anything. I know you have had to suffer the pain of racing the same dull, slow races over and over, selling prize cars to earn pocket money. I know you have been teased with words like "telemetry" and "handling" and "accurate". I feel your pain. And I’m here to help. To be honest, I felt a little cheated after spending $150 on a PS2, $50 on GT4 and another $150 on the Logitech Wheel (which deserves a much better game I might add). And I started to wonder: Do console racing developers really know what ’sim’ means in terms of racing games? Is hoping for a PC caliber sim-racer only a pipe dream? Do they really think we won’t know the difference?
Fear not. The sim racing gods have not forgotten the console realm after all. After this past week, I am a new man. For console racers that want a shot at the real sim deal, look no further. I have already had the most amazing races playing Forza, being able to enter into such a "zone", taking every corner at just the right speed; locking up the brakes early and gently easing off of them; turning through slow in 2nd or 3rd on the knife edge of traction and racing back out with patient pedal pressure and carefully calculated corrections; perfect racing lines on every lap, thanks to the game’s wonderful physics, suspension and controls. My god, it is a beautiful thing.
Backing up a moment, I recall one of the first things I did when I bought GT4 was go and buy the best Nissan Silvia I could find for some hot force-feedback drifting action. Imagine my surprise when I tuned the car well over 300 horsepower and still could not light up the back tires. So naturally when I first turned on Forza I went straight to Japan (one of three home locals to choose from; North America and Europe the other two) and bought the same Nissan Silvia and headed to the track. And lo and behold, I’m able to light up the tires with a bone stock engine. Immediately a smile came to my face. A smile that has lasted all week and turned into an obsession with Forza so strong that I can’t stop thinking about it.
It’s immediately obvious when you begin playing the game that the developers intended to pick up the pace of the console sim racer and let players get straight to the good stuff (How long have we been complaining about this?). You begin the game with 30,000 credits and a handful of pretty decent vehicles to choose from, the most expensive of which still leaving you with enough money for a quick exhaust or suspension upgrade. After that it’s off to the races. Forza offers a familiar looking selection of divisions to enter. You have your FF (front engine, front wheel drive), FR (front and rear, respectively), MR, AWD, and so on and so forth. Additionally there are ’vs’ matches between popular rivals such as Impreza vs. WRX and RX-7 vs Supra. And don’t worry if you didn’t bring the right car to the track select screen – you can quickly return to choose another car right then and there. The tracks themselves vary from traditional closed-circuit racing on a variety of real-world tracks, and a handful of Forza originals, all of which kick some serious track design butt. Additionally the developers have added ’Point-to-Point’ tracks, which are esentially long stretches of twisty highway and city streets, perfectly suitable for high-octane street racing. Locales for these include some hillclimb and downhill challenges ala Rallisport 2 on a drifter’s paradise of a mountain called ’Fijimi Kaido’, sure to please any fan of Initial D or Ridge Racer. Some sections of track even seem almost intentionally stolen from Gran Turismo, such as the tunnel in another Point-to-Point race, ’Pacific Shipyards’. I would also like to add that Forza contains the best version of Nurburgring you will race on any console in any game. Winning races yields more winnings than you might expect, so you can concentrate more on building your car and buying new ones for other races, and less on saving money itself.
However don’t get too far ahead of yourself with the mods – super building your car will not mean you are suddenly flying by the competition. A great new twist is the way your car’s class changes depending on the upgrades you install, and as you get faster, your opposition gets faster as well. If you’re not too careful you can tune your starter car all the way into the lanes with Ferraris and the like. It’s a fantastic idea, and an intelligent means to keep the game competitive from start to finish. Another great Forza-vation are the driving assists. No, Forza is not the first racing game to feature driving assists. It is, however, the first game to offer incentive in return for not using them. Want to try driving without traction control? Turn it off in return for a 10-15% boost in potential winnings. Want to ditch stability management and anti-lock brakes? Add another 25% to the pile. And so on and so forth, right down to on-the-fly opponent AI adjustments in return for larger and larger wads of cash, cash that will yield you increasing rank and discounts with parts manufacturers when you reach certain dollar thresholds, as well as unlocking more challenges. Learning to race without assists turned on is very challenging, and like driving a real race car, very rewarding to master. When you do, the higher output cars become very exciting to drive and exhibit an excellent sense of speed.
Did I mention opponent AI? It’s worth noting that Forza has some of the best out there. Your opponents will brake late, clip walls, battle amongst each other, spin out ahead of you and then come flying by out of nowhere on the straights, almost creating the illusion of racing online. No more pressing start on the final lap and restarting if you’re behind the pack – you never know what’s around the corner. The difficulty on the lower settings is reasonably competitive, with the higher levels offering some serious white knuckle thrills. In fact the AI in this game is so advanced, you can even train an AI car to drive like you, called a Drivatar (much like the VIP Profiles in the recent ESPN 2K5 sports games), which you can load and use to race for you in return for a large percentage of your winnings while you sit back and watch, replay style. It might sound like a useless feature, but it’s incredibly handy to use when you get stuck on that one race that for whatever reason you just can’t seem to conquer (Damn you turn 7!!), or for when you’re too tired at 3am to play and need another few thousand credits in order to buy that fancy turbo you’ve been saving for so you can finally go to sleep. Yeah, I guess I’m a little crazy about my driving games. Through a series of races, the game will analyze how you enter and exit various types of turns and build a custom AI that is eerily close to the real thing. For example, when I first trained my drivatar I was still learning the courses, so naturally I would race into some turns a little too fast. When I was done with the training, I ran a quick race and loaded my drivatar and was shocked to see the AI I had just trained racing a little too fast into some of the turns, and using similar techniques to mine in order to correct. Pretty trippy stuff.
The number of available cars in the game is admirable, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 from over 30 manufacturers, and features all of the greats you are hoping to find and a couple you might not expect, plus a variety of grocery getters, wagons and 2-seater sports coupes. And while the number of cars itself is not even 1/3 the size of the competition, you will be hard pressed to not find what you’re looking for, and relieved to know there are no mini-vans or museum pieces that nobody wants to drive in the first place. Each and every car can be tuned to death with some of the most in-depth tuning options ever seen in a racing game, and some great in-game feedback will help you dial in that perfect ride. Remember that word "telemetry" thrown around in interviews? During replays you can toggle on and off visual representations of telemetry calculations – various colorful meters and graphs – all displaying your vehicles physics and handling characteristics such as traction, spring/shock compression and g-forces, on-screen and in real time. It’s stunning to see, and it really puts into perspective just how many simultaneous computations the good ol’ Xbox is chewing through for each and every car on the track.
Hear this: Your mods will actually feel how they are supposed to feel. Turbos will spool, shocks will bottom out and tall wings will keep your ass firmly attached to the pavement. That is if somebody doesn’t rear end you sending said wing soaring high through the air and into the gravel. That’s right – vehicle damage is not only a visual effect, it also affects aerodynamics and handling, so you’d better think twice about trying to use your opponent’s car as a cushion (plus the fact that the damage you cause will be coming out of your winnings – ouch!). Tuning itself can be accomplished either via the game’s front-end menu interface or even the pause menu while you’re on the test track, which is invaluable for dialing in that perfect setup in a hurry. And you will notice a realistic difference in your vehicles handling as soon as you unpause the game. It’s all so accurate, you feel as if you can learn how to work on cars just by toying around inside of the game’s test track environment. My only real complaint is the somewhat lacking selection of rims – 40 in all – which might not sound low, but many are similar looking, and there isn’t a single red or blue aluminum wheel to be found. Would have gone so well on my dark grey Silvia too... And no, you can’t adjust wheel sizes. But you can adjust ride height, and I’m happy to say, yes you will visually see these changes also. It’s also possible to do entire engine swaps later in the game.
But all of that pales in comparison to Forza’s greatest customization controls of all: The custom vinyl shop. In this you are given the chance to add layer upon layer of custom colored "vinyl" to your paint - up to 100 layers per side, plus front and rear bumpers. You can choose from a basic variety of geometric shapes and squiggles, and a wide variety of pre-made emblems from some of racing’s top manufacturers. Any shape can be moved, scaled, rotated and skewed along both the X and Y axis in any number of configurations, enabling you near limitless design possibilities. Base coat color can be changed as well, and no, none of this costs you anything - that would be ridiculous. Custom designs can be saved and copied onto other cars (of the same type), and you can even take your hot wheels online to show off your skills.
As you would expect from an Xbox racing game, the online component has been flawlessly integrated into the Forza experience. Sure, the game’s lobbies might not sport some of the features of games like PGR2 (Why can I not see my opponent’s color selection?) but it is very functional, including a press anytime friends list button that will keep you in touch with your friends and car club members. Car club? Think of it as a clan in a first person shooter, only this time you can truly dress alike. You can even trade custom decals, paint and entire cars online! You also have your standard optimatch and quickmatch options for all of the game’s car classes in Xbox Live mode, for the entire roster of tracks including Point-to-Point. Forza also brings something innovative to the console racer (and for any game period that I can think of) by means of the "Online Career" mode, a mode that – you guessed it – pits you against other human opponents within the confines of the Career Mode itself. And in this mode you will win the same cash for your user profile as you would in the offline Career Mode challenges. Up to eight players can join for maximum winnings, and the more laps you race the more the money adds up as well. A puzzling omission in this game’s Live menu is the option to decline a game invite, leaving an irritating blinking icon on the screen until your friend cancels the invitation. Very odd. Otherwise it is smooth sailing with very little lag, if ever.
I’ll be honest, this is not the best looking Xbox game, or even Xbox racing game. It might have been with a faster frame-rate (Forza clocks in at 30fps), but it just doesn’t have the crisp clean look of Rallisport Challenge 2. But don’t get me wrong, the game looks beautiful in 480p widescreen, and really does have some impressive visuals, perhaps even a step beyond PGR2, and impressive lighting. Some of the draw distance is simply stunning – play Fujimi Kaido uphill and you’ll be a believer, no doubt. Forza also has the best looking tarmac textures ever seen in a console racing game. One drawback of the game’s beautiful graphics are the reflections, which run at a choppy 15fps and when racing in third person are very distracting and look just plain bad. And knowing that a potentially smoother frame-rate took a back seat to some ugly environment mapping frankly pisses me off. Another pet peeve of mine shows it’s ugly mug in this game: rims that don’t properly blur. Yuck. Somehow the replays manage to come out alright regardless, and boast terrific depth of field blurring effects and dramatic replay angles.
So what would good graphics be without the sound to back it up? Forza delivers in spades. This game has the best and most accurate engine sounds I have ever heard. Since the original Gran Turismo, one of the things I have wanted most was for my engine to sound different when I added exhaust, and I’m happy to say that Forza has finally and properly implemented this feature. Tuned cars actually sound like they are supposed to, and suddenly, hearing two beefed up STi’s come roaring past you online sounds so sweet you almost don’t mind you’ve just been passed. Turbos spool and whistle, blow-off valves hiss as you shift, tire squeal sounds like it’s supposed to... All in glorious surround sound. Very impressive stuff. Then there’s Forza’s bastard redheaded step child, the music. I really can’t comment much on it - I turned it off 10 minutes into the game. I suggest you do the same. That or use custom soundtracks. You have been warned.
I suppose I should mention the Speedster 3 wheel by Fanatec. It’s the official un-official Forza wheel, and the closest thing Xbox gamers are going to get to GT4’s Logitech wheel. Sadly, by some modern miracle, the very same Xbox that was able to port the most demanding of all current generation PC games, Doom 3, is somehow incapable of performing true force feedback. Fanatec’s solution for the Speedster 3 is actually pretty clever. The wheel features strong resistance to turning, and the more you turn, the harder it resists. It also features powerful jirations and vibrations somehow translated from controller vibration feedback, and let me tell you, having recently played with both a Logitech GT4 wheel and a Logitech MOMO PC wheel, the effect they were able to pull off with Forza and the Speedster is really awesome. In fact had I not known ahead of time the Speedster 3 wasn’t true force feedback, I might not have been able to tell - it’s that good. A built-in LCD screen with real-time visual tuning is a trick feature, and the wheel also features a slot for your Live headset, thank god. And while I’m ultimately satisfied with my purchase and will never go back to using a standard controller to play, in my opinion the price of the thing is way too high for it to not come with the game.
So there you have it. Forza comes flying out of nowhere and delivers the most realistic sim racer on any console, ever made, hands down. I could go on and on about every last detail really, but I think this has gone on long enough so let me leave you with this: Since I began playing sim racers with Gran Turismo, I have been making a silent list of features in my head that I have wanted implemented, and Forza has them all. Just thinking about what the next installment of Forza will bring in all of it’s HD glory and *fingers crossed* a real force feedback experience, it just brings a tear to my eye. you like driving fast, get in your car now and haul ass down to the game store. Give this game a chance - you won’t be disappointed, and you won’t be going back.
See you on the track. My gamertag is Fujisawa.
