Forza Motorsport

Microsoft's latest 'drives' Sam wild...

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The first racing game that I can remember playing in the comfort of my own home was Activision's seminal Pitstop. Leap forward 20 odd years and I'm still straining to make the best time around a winding circuit while overtaking my opponents. This time round there are more colours in the decal just above my right rear brake light then there were in the entire palette of Pitstop. And whereas Pitstop would let you change the wheels mid race if they became worn, these days I can change the rim of the wheel, alter the tyre pressure, camber, and suspension as well as apply a new lick of pearlescent paint to the car's bodywork. Yes, things have changed mightily in the last two decades yet some things still remain the same. Just as Pitstop was a furiously addictive driving game that captured the thrill of high-speed racing to the best of that era's technology so Forza is the pinnacle of today's accessible racing simulators.

Stuffed with more gaming options that many franchise manage over the course of three or four sequels, this first offering from Microsoft Game Studios can initially seem a daunting prospect. While the meat of the game is the extensive career mode, there are plenty of multiplayer and arcade options to play with as well as a fully integrated online component that is the best example yet of how on- and offline play can be integrated to make both elements richer then they would be in isolation. After playing around with some of the racing modes, (spending the first of many hours on the Time Trial mode, which, like the rest of the game compares your best efforts with every other Live enabled Forza owner) I pulled up my britches and went looking for a future as a racing driver. Although you can only first choose from point-to-point or the amateur series as you win more and more races new career paths open up. Each set of events can contain between two or five separate races. You only need to come in the top three in each race to progress to the next set, but coming in first will reward players with a free car and other potential goodies. Each race will also earn the player credits. The harder the race the more you earn, but the more you bash your car around the more credits will be automatically deducted from your total to repair the damage. Much like a cut-down RPG, you get to level up in Forza, with credits replacing XP. Every new level will unlock some new cars or give you a price reduction on certain kinds of upgrades. Once you complete all the offline career paths there's an online competition to master. There are also a wide range of circuits and courses to compete on as well. There are hill climbs and descents to test your breaking and acceleration skills, street circuits and specialist tracks to challenge your overall driving ability and some torturous endurance tracks to test your staying power. In short, Forza offers all the tarmac based racing you could reasonably ask for. Just don't come here if you want to experience any rallying or ice racing, as Forza doesn't mess around with such deviance.

The driving model is fantastic in Forza. Far more of a simulation than an arcade-like experience, the first initial few hours with Forza are a period of intense learning and more than occasional frustration. There seems to be little concession to the sensibilities of gamers brought up on a steady diet of F1GP xxxx and Ridge Racer with even the driving experience of Gran Turismo being more inclined to go easy on the player than with Forza. But it's not stupidly difficult and the reward of an intense feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that floods into a player as they begin to get to grips with the driving and win races. All the tears of baby Jesus that the proceeding torrents of swear words will have caused are worth it at these times. There's not much else I can say about the driving model other than it is capable of reproducing all kinds of different rides, from the asthmatic efforts of the hatchbacks to the fire breathing rockets that are the purpose-built race cars. Forza takes its simulation goals to their logical extension with a wide range of tuning options. As you buy new and improved parts for your cars you can begin to tweak certain settings, from the differential to the stiffness of your shocks and bump damping. If you are into tinkering with your car the number of options in Forza should keep you occupied for ages. You can even test your new setups on test tracks and as each car has its own set-up library the amount of configurations you can save and test out is phenomenal. Those of us who like a quick tinker with the more obvious things such as gear balance or tyre pressure need not fear the depth of Forza's tuning options. It's only necessary to master this aspect of the game if you really want to bother the leaders on the online scoreboards. To get a full and enjoyable race out of Forza requires no more knowledge of car mechanics than the game will teach you in its unfortunately limited tutorial areas. The game could certainly do with a more considered approach to teaching new players about both the basics and advanced driving techniques but in this day and age of games which lead you by the hand it is somewhat refreshing to have to figure out so much for yourself. Just make sure you rip a few CDs to your Xbox's hard drive and switch off the terrible music that comes with the game, (in one neat touch the music can be made to play in both the menus and in race, providing an unbroken listening experience.)

Physics is also uncompromising and although I laud the game for its strict adherence to emulating the real world, I did tire of the inevitable spinout that a bump into a tyre wall would cause. Put it this way, you will be very lucky indeed if a collision with a barrier at speed doesn't spin you to the back of the pack. Driving over grass and sand will considerably deprive your car of momentum so any plans of skating your way to victory in a straight line across the fields are quickly dismissed. Forza really wants you to drive your virtual car as if it were on a real circuit and the time penalty for going off-road is so severe that even the most careless driver is quickly doing their best to stay on the tarmac at all times. But it's a race, and the heat of the moment can lead to mistakes. So it's with great pleasure that you realise your AI opponents are not driving on rails and are just as prone to crashes and sliding off the track as the player is. With many racing games a nudge that send you to the back of the pack is as good as the end of your race. With Forza your chances are always high that the leaders will clumsily pile into a bend with the resulting carnage allowing the player to quickly catch-up and retake their position. The AI is also an aggressive driver. It will happily go door to door with you down long straights and while the AI isn't adverse to using their car to gently prod you out of position things never degenerate into a game of bumper cars. This game is also free of any gum-based elasticity so if you tear off over the horizon you don't have to fear the entire pack rubber-banding past you on the last straight. The AI is a realistic and fair competitor and is the most human like opponent AI I have ever had the pleasure to drive against.

For a game that delivers such a sublime racing experience to be burdened with a menu system such as Forza's is a terrible shame. Not only is it poorly laid out and demands an unnecessary number of button pushes to navigate to the commonly used areas but it is so clumsily implemented that at times I bypassed tuning my car for a race because I just could no longer be bothered to slide up and down the screen at such a leisurely pace. The garage is the most oft used menu option, so why it isn't mapped to one of the unused buttons, thereby making it accessible with one button push from anywhere in the game, is a mystery that will never be satisfactorily solved. It's like the menu system was programmed by a completely separate company form the rest of the game and was delivered with explicit instructions that it wasn't to be modified in any way shape or form, especially not to make it more user friendly. Having to retreat through four or five screens just to change your vehicle if you feel it unsuitable to an upcoming race series adds a level of frustration that should be confined to the track. Forza 2 will be able to sell itself to the fans with this simple line; "Now with working menus". Still, although the menus are the most cack-handed aspect of the whole Forza package they are aesthetically inoffensive.