If you judge video games on their development time, Xbox’s Forza Motorsport franchise absolutely flattens PlayStation’s juggernaut Gran Turismo series. We reviewed the last Forza—number 3—just two years ago. By the time last year’s Gran Turismo 5 finally appeared, fans had waited nearly two and a half millennia since GT4. (Okay, so it was closer to four years, but the constant delays—it’ll be out in March! In October! Two years from now!—made it feel longer.) By the time GT6 comes around, Xbox players might be on Forza 12. For now, though, let’s take a closer look at number 4.
Evolutionary Road
Nothing about Forza 4 radically differs from the formula utilized by Forzas 1 through 3, but the game certainly takes a solid step forward. There is now a single, more accessible main menu that houses the Career, Autovista, Community, Free Play, and Marketplace modes. In Career play mode, players choose specific events to compete in or let the computer lead them through a racing season in World Tour. Career is also where you can manage your stable of cars, buy new ones, and upgrade the rides you have.
Free Play is unchanged; you can enter a Quick Race with the car and track of your choosing, go for a spin alone in Hot Lap, or battle your friends in Split Screen multiplayer races. The Community tab takes you to online battles and the cool Auction House where players can put their in-game cars up for sale or bid for other players’ rides with in-game credits. Developers added two new online community features to Forza 4. Car Clubs, as their name suggests, allow gamers to form clubs with like-minded users. Rivals mode is an aptly named conduit for challenging friends to races and Top Gear challenges like car soccer and lapping the British TV show’s test track. (The show is prominently integrated into the game.) This is unique from typical online play in that you can challenge specific players to one-on-one battles; cooler still, the battles need not be wheel-to-wheel. You can set a lap time on a track and see if your buddy can beat it—even if he is offline. He will be issued your challenge the next time he goes online.
Also new to Forza 4 is Autovista mode, in which players get an in-depth look at 26 cars that have been rendered inside and out in extreme detail. Using either a controller or Xbox’s trick Kinect motion-tracking device, players can “move” around the cars. With Kinect, lowering your body results in a different view on the screen, and you can manipulate doors and trunks using hand motions. Whether viewing the exterior of a car or inspecting its cabin, players can pan the view on the screen by moving their head around (which they can also do while racing to “look” into turns when using the in-car view). Click on highlighted areas of the car, and the narrator will provide a cool factoid (for example, clicking on the tab in a Ferrari 458’s engine bay launches a short rundown of the engine’s specifications). In some of the cars, the narration is handled by Jeremy Clarkson, which is neat. But the feature gets boring, especially if you’re a regular Car and Driver reader and you already know everything about all of the cars.
Still a Hoot
Just like the overall presentation, Forza 4’s game play is similar to that of 3. We preferred the old Forza over the newer Gran Turismo 5 when we played the two last year because it was easier to get into and out of than the much-denser GT5, even though it gave up some realism to its rival. Forza 4 is still easier to jump into than PlayStation’s game, thanks to its widely variable difficulty settings, but it is now quite a bit more challenging when all the driver aids are turned off. It isn’t simply a matter of stripping players of their safety nets, either. We detected a noticeable improvement in the game’s physics engine, which made the cars behave more realistically at the limit than they did in Forza 3.
While neither Forza 3 or 4 has the dizzying array of cars GT5 boasts, there are still nearly 500 cars out of the box, and countless more on their way in the form of downloadable packs. And—unlike Gran Turismo, which offers a bevy of tiny Japanese econocars and other turds—it seems that Forza’s designers used some discretion in choosing their fleet. In an interesting and unfortunate turn of events, there is not a single Porsche available in Forza 4. Stuttgart’s sleds were previously available in Forza—but not Gran Turismo—through a sub-licensing deal Forza maker Turn 10 hammered out with Electronic Arts. EA holds the exclusive license to put Porsches in video games, and this time around decided not to share with the other kids. As a consolation prize, Forza players can hop into a trio of Rufs, but the factory Porsche range is gone.
In contrast, there are numerous Ferraris, from classics—including a 1957 250 Testa Rossa—all the way up to today’s 458 Italia and FF. Other notable additions to the roster include the GMC Syclone, Hummer H1 Alpha, Aston Martin One-77, and Jeff Koons’s BMW M3 GT2 art car. All can be raced at 26 locations, each of which has multiple track configurations. Among the available courses are the Hockenheimring, the Top Gear test track, the Le Mans Circuit de la Sarthe, and, of course, the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The cars are meticulously rendered inside and out, and the interior views have been jazzed up noticeably compared to those in 3. While the graphics seem a bit sharper, the biggest upgrade is to the frame rate. Things that aren’t supposed to be blurred (stuff that isn’t passing scenery) now stay sharp as they move about. Damage and the ability to roll your car return in 4, but be careful: If the damage settings are set to “simulation,” impacts can and will affect the car’s drivability.
You’re Still the One…
After toiling behind a virtual wheel for a couple of weeks, we found much to appreciate in the new Forza Motorsport. The Kinect-based functions range from goofy (Autovista) to helpful (in-car-view head tracking for looking into turns), and the new Rivals and Car Club online features had us wondering why nobody thought of them before. Improved physics are a good thing, as are Ferrari Testa Rossas. Given all of this, we consider Forza the best combination of fun and challenging, and the racing-game franchise to beat.
Fanatec Forza Motorsport CSR Racing Wheel
Fanatec, a German builder of video-game wheels and other accessories, shipped us its Forza Motorsport CSR Racing Wheel, as well as a pedal and shifter set, to help us test out Forza 4.
The wheel is a beauty, a big, flat-bottomed piece fitted with grippy cloth inserts and solid-feeling metal shift paddles. The pedal assembly (a top-level Elite model) amounts to aluminum sculpture, and its milled kickplate, pedals, and pedal tracks—with exposed tension springs—look and feel trick. To facilitate heel-toe shifting in anything from snow boots to your finest moccasins, the spacing of the clutch, brake, and gas pedals is adjustable, as is the tension in the springs on each pedal. The brake pedal is stiffer than the others, and adds a sensitivity dial to make finding the lockup threshold easier.
With many automakers making the switch from hydraulic to electric steering assistance, we’ve driven our share of cars dogged by lifeless steering wheels. We were amazed by the CSR’s force feedback, which seemed to offer better communication than some real cars’ wheels. As you bend a car into a turn, the Fanatec wheel loads up nicely before a quiver lets you know the front wheels are about to let go. Real life still wins, mind you—the Boxster Spyder has nothing to worry about—but this is alarmingly good for a virtual system. Of course, credit must be given to Forza 4 as well, as the wheel gets its precisely metered feedback signals from the game.
The shifter mechanisms are the only letdowns. Two were included, one a fore-aft sequential knob, the other a realistic six-speed H-pattern unit. Both felt flimsy, as did the brackets for mounting them to the wheel assembly. But stick to the paddles, and the CSR setup—compatible with Xbox, PlayStation, and PCs—seems worth its admittedly high cost. The extra shifters are $60 you don’t need to spend; the wheel is $250, the pedals $150.
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