Screenshots :.
Forza Motorsport
Xbox
Matt
11-05-2007
"Shiny graphics"
"Shiny cars."
"Shiny women"
"Shi[*snip -stop it, Jay. Stop. Now.*]"
In an age where it has been determined that each gaming platform requires a killer ap in pretty much every genre known to man to be viewed as successful, the arrival of a game aimed at offering Xbox owners the delights that only PlayStation 2-owning driving nuts were able to get with their exclusive Gran Turismo titles isn’t so much of a surprise. What will be news to people, though, is that Forza Motorsport not only comes incredibly close to matching the enjoyment of Polyphonic’s driving sim, in some areas it bests it.
Focusing primarily on the simulation end of the driving spectrum, Forza’s main concept is relatively similar to Gran Turismo’s, with a career mode offering you the chance to start off as a poor rookie and build your own racing legacy the way you see fit. Key differences do linger though; during initial setting up you are given the choice of which continent you wish to be resident in, with your choice resulting in car companies of the same continent offering you equipment at a reduced price.
When it comes to the racing itself, Forza again offers a few new tricks that its main rival would do well to learn from. Credits and experience are earned not only from your end result, but how little damage you received, how few driving aids you used and how rare your vehicle is. In terms of offering a different driving experience, Forza differentiates itself quite a bit here as clean, careful driving pays dividends not just on the circuit but on the bank balance too. Whilst bouncing off rivals is an untroubled – if slightly guilty – tactic which Gran Turismo veterans occasionally use, doing so here will actually impede your progression in the game.
On a more immediate note, damage also impedes your progression in the races too. Not only will you find yourself carefully avoiding barriers and opposition cars to gain that little extra cash, you’ll soon come to realise that keeping your car in one piece is generally going to give you the best chance to win a race as possible. Hit a barrier with the front end of your vehicle, for example, and chances are that upon your return to the ribbon of tarmac you’ll find your car veering drastically in one direction or the other and generally being a pain to control. As with the cash benefits, this certainly adds a great deal of realism to proceedings and will change the way in which you develop your technique.
Talking of technique, the physics model buried within Forza is immensely satisfying and provides a challenge to even seasoned simulation players. Balancing your car through a corner and making sure that it is weighted properly becomes as important as learning when to brake and accelerate. Turning off all the driving aids reveals some of the cars to be the snarling, restless beasts which they are in real life, and nothing will ever match the satisfaction of learning your craft and improving your lap times and results on the hardest setting possible. The driving always feels intuitive and quite soon with a little effort you’ll find yourself totting up the extra cash awarded for driving with no aids at all.
When you’ve won your credits, Forza offers you a number of ways to spend them. A wealth of different cars are available, although in total Forza offers some 500 models less than the latest Gran Turismo game. Despite this there are plenty cars of varying capacity for you to buy and test, and should you feel the urge to tweak then you can buy parts from various parts manufacturers to bolt on in order to shave those lap times down a little further.
On top of this, Forza allows you the opportunity of customising your own paintjob and plastering it all over the vehicle of your choice. This turns out to be surprisingly fun and will have you churning out various lurid cars which really add a personal touch to career progression. One particularly impressive example I managed after a few hours of basic shape rotation was a Clio V6 painted in official Renault F1 colours, a product which left me with as much a feeling of achievement as winning any race did.
In terms of licenses, Forza offers a wide range of manufacturers such as Ferrari, Ford, Porsche and Mercedes and a selection of real circuits like Road America, Road Atlanta, Silverstone and the 14-mile Nurburgring. Not all classes of car and race are available from the very start and will only become available once certain levels of experience are attained in the career mode, which adds a great incentive to fully explore the races and championships available for each and every class as you progress.
Xbox Live offers players who become jaded with the career mode a chance to test out their talent in against up to seven other opponents. Racing online also offers you the chance of increasing your credits total for use in buying new cars and the like, and it’s pleasing to also be able to take your own custom paint schemes to the watching world too. The racing is solid enough online and is usually smooth, but occasional lag does happen.
Like a shiny, juicy cherry on top of a delicious cake, Forza is graphically wonderful. Coming along as it has at a time when developers mostly have the Xbox hardware licked, the game displays about every graphical effect you’d expect from a driving title, be it smoke from a locked brake or mist from a recently visited gravel trap. The cars and circuits also look resplendent, with light reflecting off bonnets of vehicles as they scream past dense scenery packed into each track with very little, if any, slowdown.
So, is Forza a better game than Gran Turismo? The question which was obviously going to be asked is very tricky to answer and as much as I hate doing so, I’m going to have to sit on the fence and say yes and no. The yes part of the answer is due to the fact that Forza has a proper damage system as well as incentives to keep things clean, meaning that the racing is much more fulfilling than Gran Turismo games manage. The no part of the equation comes about due to Polyphonic offering more variety in terms of cars and circuits in their game, which inevitably means that there is slightly more variety within. What you can say about Forza though is that it is an excellent starting point with which to build a great racing franchise, and given what it achieves both in terms of gameplay and in terms of graphical prowess it all serves to make the prospect of an Xbox 360 sequel all the more enticing.
Focusing primarily on the simulation end of the driving spectrum, Forza’s main concept is relatively similar to Gran Turismo’s, with a career mode offering you the chance to start off as a poor rookie and build your own racing legacy the way you see fit. Key differences do linger though; during initial setting up you are given the choice of which continent you wish to be resident in, with your choice resulting in car companies of the same continent offering you equipment at a reduced price.
When it comes to the racing itself, Forza again offers a few new tricks that its main rival would do well to learn from. Credits and experience are earned not only from your end result, but how little damage you received, how few driving aids you used and how rare your vehicle is. In terms of offering a different driving experience, Forza differentiates itself quite a bit here as clean, careful driving pays dividends not just on the circuit but on the bank balance too. Whilst bouncing off rivals is an untroubled – if slightly guilty – tactic which Gran Turismo veterans occasionally use, doing so here will actually impede your progression in the game.
On a more immediate note, damage also impedes your progression in the races too. Not only will you find yourself carefully avoiding barriers and opposition cars to gain that little extra cash, you’ll soon come to realise that keeping your car in one piece is generally going to give you the best chance to win a race as possible. Hit a barrier with the front end of your vehicle, for example, and chances are that upon your return to the ribbon of tarmac you’ll find your car veering drastically in one direction or the other and generally being a pain to control. As with the cash benefits, this certainly adds a great deal of realism to proceedings and will change the way in which you develop your technique.
Talking of technique, the physics model buried within Forza is immensely satisfying and provides a challenge to even seasoned simulation players. Balancing your car through a corner and making sure that it is weighted properly becomes as important as learning when to brake and accelerate. Turning off all the driving aids reveals some of the cars to be the snarling, restless beasts which they are in real life, and nothing will ever match the satisfaction of learning your craft and improving your lap times and results on the hardest setting possible. The driving always feels intuitive and quite soon with a little effort you’ll find yourself totting up the extra cash awarded for driving with no aids at all.
When you’ve won your credits, Forza offers you a number of ways to spend them. A wealth of different cars are available, although in total Forza offers some 500 models less than the latest Gran Turismo game. Despite this there are plenty cars of varying capacity for you to buy and test, and should you feel the urge to tweak then you can buy parts from various parts manufacturers to bolt on in order to shave those lap times down a little further.
On top of this, Forza allows you the opportunity of customising your own paintjob and plastering it all over the vehicle of your choice. This turns out to be surprisingly fun and will have you churning out various lurid cars which really add a personal touch to career progression. One particularly impressive example I managed after a few hours of basic shape rotation was a Clio V6 painted in official Renault F1 colours, a product which left me with as much a feeling of achievement as winning any race did.
In terms of licenses, Forza offers a wide range of manufacturers such as Ferrari, Ford, Porsche and Mercedes and a selection of real circuits like Road America, Road Atlanta, Silverstone and the 14-mile Nurburgring. Not all classes of car and race are available from the very start and will only become available once certain levels of experience are attained in the career mode, which adds a great incentive to fully explore the races and championships available for each and every class as you progress.
Xbox Live offers players who become jaded with the career mode a chance to test out their talent in against up to seven other opponents. Racing online also offers you the chance of increasing your credits total for use in buying new cars and the like, and it’s pleasing to also be able to take your own custom paint schemes to the watching world too. The racing is solid enough online and is usually smooth, but occasional lag does happen.
Like a shiny, juicy cherry on top of a delicious cake, Forza is graphically wonderful. Coming along as it has at a time when developers mostly have the Xbox hardware licked, the game displays about every graphical effect you’d expect from a driving title, be it smoke from a locked brake or mist from a recently visited gravel trap. The cars and circuits also look resplendent, with light reflecting off bonnets of vehicles as they scream past dense scenery packed into each track with very little, if any, slowdown.
So, is Forza a better game than Gran Turismo? The question which was obviously going to be asked is very tricky to answer and as much as I hate doing so, I’m going to have to sit on the fence and say yes and no. The yes part of the answer is due to the fact that Forza has a proper damage system as well as incentives to keep things clean, meaning that the racing is much more fulfilling than Gran Turismo games manage. The no part of the equation comes about due to Polyphonic offering more variety in terms of cars and circuits in their game, which inevitably means that there is slightly more variety within. What you can say about Forza though is that it is an excellent starting point with which to build a great racing franchise, and given what it achieves both in terms of gameplay and in terms of graphical prowess it all serves to make the prospect of an Xbox 360 sequel all the more enticing.
9/10