Forza Motorsport - Review
It has been six years since the last mainline entry in the Forza series, in between the last game and now we got two Horizon entries and a mobile game. So, coming into this there had to be some real growth and given the issues I had with Motorsport 7, I was hoping for a lot. Did I get what I wanted or was I left wanting?
In the last game, single player progression required you to earn a specific number of points in each cup in order to move forward, in theory it's a great idea, in execution it required a lot of replaying events to get the right number of points. That thankfully has been thrown out the window here player progression in Forza Motorsport is now based on you completing the cup. Each race will have its own specific individual target to aim for, usually aiming for the top three, but you won't have to keep replaying them in order to earn the right number of points to progress forward. The Builders Cup gives you access to one tutorial series and once you complete that you'll be granted access to the first regular series. All the other cups are locked you cannot access them until you have completed the one previous, but once you have you can then continue on in the theme or move down to a different one. The first theme is called modern tour and in here you'll find cups called practical performance and built for speed amongst others. Below that you'll find enthusiast tour, power tour and so on, with each tour having multiple cups within them.
Where things are a little complicated is that in each of the cups there are varying levels of events to complete. Sometimes it's four or five events, sometimes it's six or seven, and in order to progress along that series you need to complete all the events in that cup. For those who were aiming to do every single cup in the game this probably won't be an issue, but for those seeking a more thrilling cup where you can just put pedal to the metal in a high-powered sports cars, you're in for a bit of a wait. The games progression system may suit the developers designs for future content releases but it seems antiquated given almost every other racing game around let's players jump into any series they want to including Forza Horizon 5. You can jump into free play, where you can customise any options available, pick a brand-new car and just race, but that's only for a single race at a time, you can’t just create your own cup.
Once you have picked your cup to complete, the game will take you into a nice intro sequence to the track and then present you with a few options. Here you can customize the car, tune its performance modify settings and all that sort of stuff or you can jump straight into the practice laps. In order to progress through to the main racing event, you have to complete the practice session, there's no way to skip it even if you've done the track before, you have to do it again. For the most part each of the practice sessions runs the same way, you were given a number of laps to complete usually it will be 3 but it does vary, and once you complete them, you're done. In addition to the mandatory objective, you can also attempt to complete one lap before the target time which is a nice bonus to go for. Once you've completed the mandatory number of laps, the game will then give you 10 additional minutes in which you can continue practicing. You can quit straight away, but I often found myself retrying particular corners that I was struggling with so it's a great little addition to have.
While you are racing either in practice or in the main event, each action you do in your car earns you car XP, which is why the developers have jokingly called this a CarPG. This doesn't mean you have to drift 100 meters on a particular course or anything silly like that, but rather how close you stick to the racing line, to the right speed around a track, all the segments that make up a circuit have set aims. The closer you get to them the more XP you earn and the more you earn the more you level up your car. Now you might be wondering why it's important to level up a car, that is tied to the number of options you can modify. For example, until your car hits level 8 you can't modify its engine, if you want to tweak the wheels you might need to be level 12. Each time you level up or complete a particular segment perfectly you'll earn car points, which can then be used to buy upgrades equivalent to the level that you have access to. You can spend a lot of time picking and choosing individual parts if you are a car person, or you can let the game auto upgrade everything for you, which is what I did. Modifying your car increases its level, along with increasing its top speed, acceleration, braking and handling, which in turn makes you more competitive on the track.
However, in doing this I noticed a problem. The second time I attempted to upgrade a car, the game locked up on me, just set their spinning on the purchasing upgrades screen. In the end I had to quit the game and go back into it and this is when I found the massive problem, it deleted my progress, tracks that I had completed we're not saved, thus my cup progress was undone. While I was angry, I just assumed it was tied to the game having its moment, so I redid the tracks, completed the cup and moved on. I then went to a new theme attempted to buy a new car and had the same problem. On hitting purchase the screen to say it was saving my purchase was just stuck there, I was able to make dinner, eat it and clean up and it was still on that screen. So, I quit the game, went back in and lo and behold my previous cup that was finished was no longer finished, I lost progress again. Strangely my car did not lose any progress but my character level and my progression were gone.
It turns out Forza Motorsport requires an internet connection, something that is not listed on the website, nor listed on the store page on Xbox, in fact I do not recall ever hearing them mention it at all, but it does. A retail box at a local video game store did have that requirement on the bottom, but I noticed this after I found the issue myself. Not having an internet connection means you can't access any cups, it means all you have access to is freeplay, if you have a character that has a level and you have all these cars unlocked and you lose your internet, you lose access to all that. I did notice when I attempted to select one cup, it did present me with a challenge saying it was trying to download the latest information, which I just assumed meant maybe updated weather or something. But no if you have no internet, Forza Motorsport is useless to you, like playing Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 without the expansion pack.
All of this is a massive shame because the game plays beautifully, coming into a corner at a high speed if you're not controlling the car correctly you'll slide right off the track. If you're doing everything perfectly but the track is covered in water from a heavy thunderstorm, you can slide right off the track. The other races on the track will always adjust to the settings the weather and how close you're getting to them, I had cars literally swerve out of the way because they were about to hit me. The game doesn't offer a lot of fluff, it has single player career, free play and multiplayer modes, that's it. So having a foundation of a solid racer makes perfect sense, but sometimes things are a little too perfect.
OK that may not be a big negative that I've made it sound like, the game's presentation is so photo real at times, that it can be hard to see the track. In one of the events I had to do multiple times, the sun was setting and that meant that on one particular straight heading into a sharp left turn, I could barely see the road. Much like when you're driving into the setting sun in real life sometimes the amount of light hitting the asphalt sort of erases the asphalt from view the exact same thing was happening here. The flip side is that at night when there's hardly any light around, sometimes things can appear as if they're popping up at the last second, but that's literally because your car headlights are hiding things at the last second.
Speaking of cars, they look phenomenal, from the Hyundai Veloster to the Nissan ZX turbo and every other car in the game, the detail in each is insane. Will you notice any of this while you're powering down a straight at 250 kilometers an hour, highly unlikely, however what you will notice the details in your garage. You can jump into the car menu and look at all the cars you own, walk around them, open up all the doors and justice enjoy what's there. If you have the game set to enable ray tracing, then everything looks even better. You can have ray tracing on while racing, but I honestly don't think it's worth it as it either locks the game to 30FPS, or in a dynamic resolution. Much like the cars the tracks also look phenomenal, most people will likely stick to the bright sunny tracks in free play mode, but when you see a track at night, or in a thunderstorm, or even in the early morning when the fog is covering the road, you will notice how good this game can look.
Game presentation doesn't do so well in audio, much like every other game in the series the cars themselves are incredible to hear, from the first time you start the engine up to racing through a pack down a straight with things all around you, it sounds great. Where the audio fails for me is the same area it failed previously, there is no music in the game when you're racing. Now I understand for some people this is a realistic racing game, so they want to be in that moment and that's fine, but when you're 8 laps deep in a race some tunes would not go astray. As you select new cups, you'll also hear some narration talking about that particular one and while it is clear and understandable it doesn't feel real, it's very generic in its presentation.
Forza Motorsport is not the game I was hoping it would be. The game's need to always have an internet connection is absurd as it benefits nobody. Losing progress because the game failed to register to the servers my selections, is not a great look and that is when there's maybe a few thousand people playing right now, compared to the hundreds of thousands that will hit the servers in a few days. The game looks fantastic, anytime you jump into photo mode and see all the detail, you will notice how much love and attention went into every aspect. While the game's audio is a bit of a miss for me, there there's no way you can deny the cars don't sound amazing. If you are a hardcore racing fan there's going to be a lot here for you to enjoy, however if you're a casual fan or somebody who enjoys the Horizon series, this may not be the game for you and of course if you don't have consistent internet this is a game you just won't be able to play.
The Score
7.5
Review code provided by Xbox
The Pros
+The Cars and tracks look and sound amazing and that is before you enable ray tracing
+Career progression is much smoother this time and coupled with the CarPG mechanics, means you are always growing
The Cons
-A constant internet connection is absurd and limits anyone without one or a poor connection
-The tracks are mostly the same from past games, including other racing titles, which can dampen the fun
