The best 15 minutes you'll play 1000 times over
| Platform | Presentation | Controls | Variety | Audio | Depth | Value & Fun | OVERALL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox | 7.00 | 6.00 | 5.00 | 7.00 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 5.13 |
| General Information |
| Previously played game in the series: None. |
| Gameplay Description |
| Forza Motorsport is a simulation racing game. This typically means slowing pacing and more tactical, careful driving, as well as plenty of customization and tuning of your cars. |
| Dedication Meter | 20.00 |
| You'll have to spend a bit of time customizing your cars to compete in the various races, but that doesn't really require anything in depth--just buy new parts and see how the stats change on your car. You can jump into a race quickly, but the races get very long and to unlock everything takes an absurdly long time. | |
| Presentation | 7.00 |
|
Forza has a simple and clean look that aims towards realistic end of the spectrum and does it rather well. The environments work well enough in the typical race, but slow down to take a closer look and things can look downright atrocious, but that's usually only if you're out to find the bad parts. More pressing, though, is the difficulty at which to see upcoming turns. The game helps with the interesting addition of a line on the track that tells you when to slow down, but it's almost as if the game design relies on this tool to assume that it doesn't matter if you can see when there's a turn. Even with the line, though, it's not entirely accurate as it doesn't attribute the different speeds of the cars, so ultimately the game becomes, to a degree, watching the tiny map in the corner as the most effective measure. It doesn't work that well. An additional issue is that the game does nothing in terms of its presentation to keep the player intersted. You're given some races to choose from on a menu screen you can flip through, and you can unlock some more. There's nothing more to the presentation than that. Win this race, increase your level, unlock a new race. That's about it, and it's very dry. There is also an issue regarding the capabilities of the different vehicles. For the car-ignorant, such as myself, they have nicely broken the cars into things us common folk can understand, such as Speed and Acceleration. Unfortunately these categories don't mean a thing and what really matters are the car-buff stats such as horsepower and torque meaning that those simpler categories are actually detrimental as they trick the player into thinking they're important. Lastly, there is nothing of a tutorial, so if you don't know cars, you're out of luck in the more in depth sections of the game. It has explanations, but those explanations are full of motorhead jargon (I still do not know what "oversteer" is). |
|
| Controls | 6.00 |
|
Simulation, at least in the terms of Forza Motorsport, seems to mean that you have to slow down at turns using lousy brakes. The game controls typically of racers, though, with the default having the acceleration and braking mapped to the shoulder buttons. The option of using the D-pad to turn is also in the game. A nice feature is the ability to map your custom soundtracks to the D-pad to skip songs. The brakes are the thing to note as the irritant of the game, as they can only be described as schizophrenic. You can make the same turn easily several times over, then suddenly speed uncontrollably into a wall on the same turn later in the race. Another strange issue is that the slightest bump can send your car into a big, irreversable spin-out, particularly if you bump the wall at the wrong angle. Related to the fact that going off the track is suicide, cars will slow to a crawl almost instantly if you go onto grass, although some sections more than others. It is also very common for the car to just spin out from being on the grass at all. Simulation, in that regard, is lacking. And interesting design choice was to make the steering affected by damage. If you take some damage from the wall, your steering will pull to one side. This is neat at first, but frustrating later. What is worst, though, is that there are a few cars that for whatever reason handle terribly. A maxed out Porche 911 is completely impossible to keep on the road. |
|
| Variety | 5.00 |
|
There are over 200 cars, the game takes a really long time to finish, you can customize parts, and you can add decals to your cars. Now that we've got the good things out of the way, you should here why the variety is severely lacking. Your progress in the game is tied to your winnings, and you get more winnings by doing well in races. Earn enough winnings, and you go up a level. Have a high enough level, you unlock a new course. That is the entire progression of the game. There is nothing in terms of a story or anything to make it worthwhile to continue other than earning more to buy more cars. Customizing the cars would typically be a fun rewarding process, if not for the fact that the developer felt the need to force you into endless numbers of races that require incredible specifics in terms of the cars you can use. Because of this, there's little interest in customizing much as there's no attachment to the vehicles because you're rarely using the same car twice. The limitations include car class, which is based around your max speed, the year, the weight, the region, etc. What these limitations often do is make the task of winning the races not a matter of racing well, but having the right car. For example, there's a race for Unmodified American cars made before 1975. The only car that can win this race is the 1967 Chevrolette Corvette Stingray--any other car and you're wasting your time, meaning they should have just made it a one-on-one race of '67 Stingrays, because that's what it ends up being anyway; this is similar for many races. The track list is also limited, if only because of poor implementation in the career mode, because it feels as though you're racing the same tracks over and over and over. |
|
| Audio | 7.00 |
| The car sounds, as best someone who knows nothing of cars can tell, are accurate, which is a very good thing. However, the in-game soundtrack leaves much to be desired. Extremely generic, boring, empty, repetitive guitar musak in the background forces the player to either use custom soundtracks or turn it off. The crash sounds aren't very impactful. | |
| Depth | 4.00 |
|
For as much as Forza likes to call itself a "simulation" as though that makes arcade racers in comparison elementary, Forza limits the racing depth to a significant degree by not allowing any significant way to improve on turns other than slowing to a crawl and turning. What few milliseconds one may be able to gain here or there is completely inconsequential to the half second gained from what kind of car is being driven. The races come down, more than any other racing game I've ever played, to the car you're driving and not the ability with which you drive it. There's the option to adjust various parts of the car is nice, but the effect aside from things that completely screw up the steering are completely unnoticeable. There's little to upgrading beyond buying the best parts. |
|
| Value & Fun | 4.00 |
|
Forza is a game to be played brainless. It's like an RPG with nothing but level-grinding. Choosing your attacks may have some initial skill, but ultimately it comes down to whether or not you're stronger than your enemies and not whether you're attacking them in the most efficient way. A heavy dose sheer boredom mixed with excessive length of both the career mode and the length of races, which are typically about ten minutes, but range late up to 45 minutes, and add in some complete frustration and we've got ourselves one really poor experience. The AI doesn't help, either, which will just move on a straight line whenever it's not trying to run you off the course, which is any time they possibly can. This isn't even the problem, that's fine, if not a little annoying. What is aggravating is that they will become kamikaze and crash into you full speed taking you both out. What is utterly blood-boiling is that it is impossible to catch the AI if they pass you. You can have by far the best car, if they pass you and you do not immediately retake first, that AI car is inexplicably gone for good. This inverted rubber-band AI makes no sense, but I am positive of its existence through several trials. The game is slow, seemingly endless grinding. Careful turns and a good car are the keys to winning, and are always the keys to winning. The long races become exceedingly bothersome as your available cars become worse than what the AI has and if you screw up once, you lose and can't come back. There is an "Arcade Mode" available with shorter races, but you can't use customized cars unless you unlock them in the neverending career mode. |
|
| Overall | 5.13 |
| Forza Motorspot is a slow, tedious, unrealistic drag. There's nothing to add, this game is not recommended. | |
Posted by Ellyoda Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:00:00
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