Forza Motorsport 3 Review

In the midst of all the anitcipation and speculation surrounding the "ultimate driving simulator's" 5th instalment over on Sony's black box, an entire Xbox exclusive series is celebrating the success of its second sequel. That's right folks, since the last Gran Turismo title launch in March 2005, Forza has taken Xbox by storm and Xbox 360's Forza 2 has shown the world what's possible with the current generation of motor racing games.

So here we are, about to bask in the magnificence of the difficult 3rd coming, promising more and better in every way over the previous instalments, we waited with baited breath and now, you may gorge on this idiot's heartfelt opinion.


Gameplay

Sticking to the same 360 ethos of putting throttle and brake controls on the triggers (excellent idea) and mating that to a super intuitive and genuinely responsive precision anaolgue control stick steering, there is a genuine sense of grip and traction which comes pulsating through your fingers at every turn. From the progressive vibration through the rumble pad as your car grazes the rumble strips and slowly drifts into the kitty litter surrounding the track boundaries, to the AI shunting you and attempting to bump and unsettle you off the track at every turn this is a genuinely fun and entertaining racer for all skill types.

There are several game modes, but the menu design and display has been totally overhauled for this edition and features a much more simple and easier way to get you straight into the races. At the core of the game, is the story/career mode. This features a calender comprising of a race series which as you progress through in "years" gets more difficult and increases the speed of the cars competing as well as upping the difficulty of the tracks you race on. As well as basing the calender on the main championship, in between races you are allowed to select one of 3 mini-series that fills up the time in between races in the major series.

The simple idea gives you 3 options: Race with your current car, Race with a new car, Race on new tracks and it works brilliantly. This adds a sense of fluidity between championships as the years roll on and merge into each other, it's a very effective way of keeping you gripped ('scuse the pun).

As your skills develop, your track time increases and your money and garage build up nicely, the stats side of the game begins to slowly unfold. Cars are rated as  classes (F > U for road cars, R3 > R1 for racing cars) and are given a number for their performance (called a performance index or "P.I.") which relates to how fast and where they fit in accordance to other cars sharing the same class. This features a mixture of handling, acceleration, speed etc. and can be increased by tuning the cars up with the money you earn from races.

As well as upgrading and ranking your cars, you also upgrade and rank up your driver level (start at 1 and reach your peak at 50) by completing races. The harder the races, the more XP you earn. Cars XP levels are upgradable in the same way, but are based on levels of 1 to 5 and are again win and difficulty based. The higher the level your car is, the more discounts you earn for tuning and modifying and the higher the driver the level, the better your gift cars become after you reach every level.

There's a lot to do in Forza and it's all accessible no matter your ability or interest in cars or racing games. It's that fine line between arcadey and simulation that amazingly keeps both sets of fans gripped by using well adapted and coded assists including braking, steering and throttle assists to help people who just prefer to put the hammer down and attack every corner like it's their last.

Graphics

Forza is sensationally good looking, from shaking bonnets and exhausts to stunning draw distances and highly detailed backgrounds, the level of detail is astonishing. Cars are extremely detailed, interiors included, and all the cars feature an extensive crash damage engine that not only affects the cars performance by degrading the power and handling, but also on a superficial basis too with bumpers flying off and bonnets crumpling up. It's not a GRID or DiRT level of detail, but it's far more than we've ever seen from a certain other driving game series.

Lightting effects genuinely affect your vision as you come temporarily blinded by the sun glare as it also highlights blemishes in the tracks and the sun glistens off the cobbled streets on the road track levels. There's a satisfying depth of detail which is at the moment, unrivalled in the racing genre at the present time.

Sound

Audio in most racing games is most noticably based on the quality and variety of the engine tones and noises. The engines all sound good especially as revs rise and the exhaust kick out lumps of fuel out of the back box, due to the car backfiring under heavy downshifting. However there are several audio glitches which involve the audio codes scratching jumping and making a hideous cracking sound on certain tracks when the sound of rumble strips clash with tyre smoking.

The soundtrack to the game is not particularly varied and involves a host of current and recent hits which will soon grate on you (My Friend John, for example) to the point that you'll turn them off and chill to your own tunes. Not bad, and nice to see Turn 10 finally include the option so we're not all driving in silence, but they could've spent a little longer on getting the songs just right.

Online

As well as plenty of Downloadable content planned for the game (we've already had 2 packs which are availble for download now), there's plenty to do online. For the competitive among you, there's a fully fledged online mode featuring standard races for all skilled players to mess around with friends modes such as Cat 'N' Mouse (where each team has a mouse and the rest are cats, first mouse across the line wins) to the PGR4 lifted bulldog mode (ram the other competitors!).

For the people who always complain that "it's not their track" or "you have a faster car than me", there's a time trial mode where you are given a specific car for a specific track and everything is fair game. Your best time goes on a leaderboard so you can beat your friends and gloat, or compare with the best players in the world and weep at their ridiculously good times.

Also online, is the marketplace where you can buy and sell cars you've earned in career mode under an Auction House, trade paint jobs and tuning setups with others and generally share your creations with an online community marketplace unrivalled to any game. Seriously, the Forza community is the absolute greatest community I've encountered online and it's well worth getting involved with.

Summary

A must have 360 exclusive game, and a genuine rival to Sony's big black box exclusive killer app. Future plans for downloadable content, plenty of races and stuff to do and loads and loads of online options will keep you coming back for more. It's not without flaw, but it certainly pushes not only the Forza brand forward, but also helps Xbox 360 stand out as the console to own for racing fans in this generation.