Gran Turismo is a tough one to beat. It is THE definitive racer and the fourth instalment of the franchise is a huge title. Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) have stepped in to provide Xbox gamers with an alternative to playing GT4 on the PlayStation2 and obviously have to tackle the challenge of creating a racer that compares to Polyphony's masterpiece. Several racers over the years have tried to duplicate the Gran Turismo experience but never came quite close enough (namely the Sega GT series), so MGS were definitely taking on a huge challenge in developing Forza Motorsport. At the games first public showing during Microsoft's E3 2004 pre-show press conference, Forza certainly showed a lot of promise in spite of its obviously early build and managed to garner a small cult like fan-base across the internet ever since, all hoping for a "GT4 Killer".

The game plays a lot like Gran Turismo that's for sure. The same flow of gameplay is present but there is a lot more focus on actually customising your cars, which I'll come back to a little later on. The first thing you'll notice and either love or hate is the omission of licenses in Forza. There are plenty of other gameplay modes to keep you hooked and the structure of the game is a little more solid than the GT series. The first option you'll be given is upon starting up your racing career is which region you wish to start off in. You are given the choice of Asia, North America and Europe which determines which set of manufacturers you can initially buy cars from which starting cups you get to choose from. The game works on an almost RPG-style levelling system which sees you earning new levels as you gain more money and experience. Each time you level up you may be given a new car or discounts in the upgrade shop from certain vendors and most importantly it will open up more races and cups for you. It's not overly complicated and works hand in hand with the region choice at the start of the game which means in the early stages of your career you'll find you will gain sponsorships from companies based in the region you've started in.



So, progression in the main game is done by winning races, earning money, buying cars and upgrading them. Many of the different races and cups in the game are restricted to car type, power and various other characteristics meaning that to compete in a certain race you may have to buy a new car and upgrade it to a certain point. Earning money is the major factor here and this where Forza does things a little differently to other racers. First off, you get prize money for winning races, which is pretty much normal, however the amount of money you receive depends on your handicap settings in the race. If you want to see a suggested racing line you'll lose a percentage of your winnings, the same if you decrease the A.I. setting or remove car damage. Of course if you go the other way and make these settings more difficult it will actually give you much higher winnings meaning that expert gamers get rewarded and for those who find it too difficult can handicap the races until their skills improve at the cost of prize money. And of course I've just mentioned the inclusion of car damage, something that driving games have been strangely void of until now. It certainly adds a new aspect to the experience as your car will become harder to handle as the tires wear down or when you mash up various parts of your car. Props to MGS for including this feature as it really helps the game and has been implemented (for the most part) incredibly well.

Other than the career mode we have an arcade mode and a free run which basically allow you to try out many of the games different cars on any track. Arcade mode obviously puts you up against other cars in a race situation and free run simply lets you race on your own in a time trial environment. After that we have the Xbox Live aspect of the game where you can race against other gamers and get to show off your customised car and racing skills. As with Project Gotham 2, all of your stats and times are uploaded to an Xbox Live leader board so you can easily see how good or bad you are against the other competition. The game seemed to run fairly well online showing minimal signs of lag - it is certainly far smoother than Outrun 2 was and overall it's a positive inclusion to the game and a great experience.

The game looks pretty sweet with excellent car models and highly detailed tracks. The presentation is a love hate thing but personally I love it. All the menus are easily accessed with the minimal amount of confusion and the interface looks great. As I said, the tracks are great with more trackside detail than any other racing game I can think of and when compared with the already superb GT4 many of the tracks look far more accurate. Lighting is put to great use on each of the tracks to create a rich environment and my only gripe on the whole is the lack of weather effects - something which has, like car damage, been strangely absent in driving games. Again, I have to mention the car models which look great as standard but really come into their own when customising and adding new parts like bumpers, spoilers and changing the wheels. The real-time car damage looks pretty good in most cases but sometimes the textures look a little ropey when you smash the car up too much. The only real complaint that I have with the graphics is the one everyone is talking about: the framerate. Yes Forza runs at 30fps and yes it isn't locked at that. It will drop and you will notice it and that will detract from the overall racing experience. For me, racing games are all about speed and maintaining the illusion of speed and this is something that the frame rate has a huge impact on. I'd have rather the developers cut out some of the effects or detail in favour of a constant 60fps frame rate in the same way that Nintendo did with F-Zero 64. Sure a load of people would rather the game looked nicer than ran smoother but I'm not one of those. Either way, it's not major issue and doesn't blemish the overall package too much.



So I figure I should probably talk a little about the car customisation, something that plays a huge role in this game. This really comes in two parts, the first is adding new parts to your car and improving the engine and body and the second is the paint job and decals. The custom shop gives you access to many engine enhancements and body tweaks such as reducing the cars overall weight and adding roll bars. You can add different types of tires, hubcaps and even tinted windows and of course change the car's physical appearance dramatically be swapping out the spoiler and bumpers etc which also changes the way the car handles and adds to its rarity. Rarity allows for a higher selling price when you want to part ways with your machine in favour of something different and also gives a bonus to your winnings in each race. So in short, it pays to customise your car and improve its rarity. Once you have customised the physical parts of your car you'll want to make it look your own so naturally we head over to the spray shop. You can initially choose from a huge selection of colours to spray the body of your car and then depending on the car you can then paint various other parts in different colours. After that you are able to add decals to your car in pretty much any way you'd like to. You can apply several layers of decals to each part of the cars body which allows you to really make each car look very different.

Forza does some things better than Gran Turismo and some things worse. The main thing for me is the excellent control for each of the cars and the uniqueness of every car especially when upgrading and customising. Of course the Xbox Live support is a nice addition to the mix although could have been a little more fleshed out. My only real issue with the game would have to be with the frame-rate which does have a noticeable impact on how the game plays. It doesn't kill the game but it certainly dampens the experience. The other thing is that on the higher difficulty setting, the A.I. uses some very obvious rubber-band tricks to catch up with you which can be very frustrating at times. In particular I love the handling in this game a lot more than I did with the Gran Turismo and Sega GT games, it's not as extreme as PGR or Outrun but feels a lot more natural than the other GT style games out there.




Article By: Phil