Console: Xbox 360
Release Date: October 11th 2011
Review Date: January 21st 2012
Reviewer: Jon
Pros *Looks Amazing, 60 FPS, Excellent Lighting *Huge Car Selection, over 500 cars from 80 different manufacturers *Robust single player experience * Multiplayer and Community Features are innovative and well done * Kinect Support Cons *Kinect seems a tad gimmicky *If you aren’t a car fanatic can get monotonous *If you are a car fanatic kiss your life goodbye
Pole Position, The Last V8, Race Drivin’, F-Zero, these are some of the classic driving games that have populated our past. In the 80’s cars consisted of a few blocks that resembled a sports car. In the 90’s the speed started to really invade the genre as F-Zero and Extreme G brought us an experience that was truly breathtaking. Now we are in a time where technology has the ability to give us an experience that is almost true to life. Forza 4 is one of these examples as it is the closest thing I have ever played to getting behind the wheel of a sports car.
Presentation: A Graphics /Animation / SoundThe moment you open the package on Forza 4 you begin to get the feeling you are about the jump into something special. The game is spread across two discs, the first of which is the play disc. The second one however is purely there to install cars on your hard drive. (Yes there is that many) The game features over 500 cars from 80 different manufacturers. Once you get everything installed (including the free DLC cars and tracks) and jump into the game the main menu is actually a refreshing experience. To be honest it’s nothing extravagant, just sleek, modern and simple to navigate. The main hub of the career mode showcases the car you are currently driving in a way that on occasion can fool you into thinking that the model is actually real. The visuals just look that good at times. In motion however I don’t feel that the game presents a photo realistic experience so much, but it is definitely a good-looking one. The game operates at 60 fps, so everything is as smooth as you could ever hope for. Audio is somewhat of a mixed bag for me. The engine sounds are great, every car not only feels different but sounds different as well. The problem with this is you feel the need to crank the sound to enjoy the experience, but your family will hate the constant sound for hours on end. The only complaint I have in the audio department comes from the music. There isn’t really anything wrong with the techno inspired soundtrack, but I found myself just turning it off and enjoying the sound of each motor as I jumped from car to car.
Single Player: A
Game Mechanics / Length / Difficulty
The single player experience is about as deep as you could hope for. You have a quick play option that enables you to jump in and drive any car on any track of your choosing. There isn’t a need to start out with a car that you don’t want or be forced to play until you saved up enough money to get something worth being proud of. For casual racing fans, this is a good option for those who just want to drive.
The Autovista mode is a new addition to this entry in the series. This mode places you up close to 1 of 25 cars, as you opens doors, raise hoods and inspect various other aspects of these cars. This mode is Kinect enabled, but I found the controller to work just perfectly. The mode works kind of like a menu system, you can rotate the car model and various sections will be indicated using a dynamic user interface. Once one of these areas become selected you are provided a more in-depth narration from Jeremy Clarkson of the Top Gear fame. Most of these narrations are interesting as you come to find out facts about certain aspects of the cars. The biggest let down of this mode however is the car selection. I understand the required work that goes into creating an even more highly detailed model to look at up close, but with a roster of over 500 cars I found myself extremely disappointed that the Autovista mode only covered 25 of them.
The single player experience that you will be spending the majority of your time on is the career mode. You start out with a compact car and travel across the globe to compete in various types of races. The best thing about this mode is you aren’t stuck with terrible cars until you can’t take it anymore. The game does a great job of letting you drive cars that you have interest in fairly quickly. As you progress from race to race you gain experience that not only raises your driver level, but your affinity level as well. Once your start raising your driver level you will be gifted cars that are yours to keep. The great part about this system is instead on getting a car you don’t like, you actually get to choose between 4 or 5 cars. You affinity level provides you with manufacturer discounts and rewards, so if you drive a Ford then you will start getting discounts on Ford parts and upgrades. This continues until you reach level five with that manufacturer in which parts and upgrades reach a 100% discount.
When you go to buy a car, there literally is something for everyone. I must admit, I am not a huge car fanatic. This is never a problem and actually becomes quite refreshing when I jumped into the car selection and saw a ton of cars that I am familiar with. All of these are fully customizable with paint jobs, window tent, and upgrades. The paint editor alone is a feat within itself. You not only can paint any car the color of your dreams, but can apply decals to these as well. This may sound unimportant, but let me be the first to tell you the possibilities are endless. You add the decals using a layer system that some might be familiar with, and with enough work you can create custom paint jobs with unbelievable detail. You can literally create any kind of custom paint job you can think of. (Granted you are talented enough). The upgrade system is simply amazing. Buy a classic ’57 Chevy Bel-Air and want more power? No problem, just drop in a new engine. Find your new purchase takes too long to reach top speed, not an issue just upgrade the transmission. There are an enormous amount of upgrades and tweaks you can give each vehicle. Not only can you swap out parts, but you can fine tune each car with custom tunings. This didn’t really appeal to me since I would have no idea what I was doing, but you are able to change just about everything in this mode such as the shifting times of a transmission or the tire pressure. The amount of customization really does a great job in providing you with the feeling that the cars you earn and purchase are really yours.
The gameplay just simply feels great. As stated earlier, the 60 fps really makes this game a joy to play. The controls are incredibly responsive which give you the capability to drive how you want. I was impressed every time I slide between a pack of cars in order to find a gap to take the lead. I never once felt hindered by what the game allowed me do to. If I didn’t win a race, it was because I made a mistake. All of the cars feature damage, that doesn’t look near as good as the car models, but it does the trick. One gameplay feature that some may not be aware of if you are new to the series is the ability to rewind the game at any given moment. Let’s say you are close to the finish line and spin out on the last lap, as long as the race isn’t over you just hit the rewind button and the game literally rewinds the race a few seconds. From there you can either back up the timeline more, or start playing from that point. While it does feel kind of cheap, I suppose it could be a useful feature if you wanted to avoid last-minute mistakes.
You are also able to use Kinect while driving in Forza 4. This is done by either you steering with your hands while the AI controls your acceleration and braking, or you could simply use a controller and enable head tracking. This would allow you to simulate the experience on looking over at your mirrors or side windows while you race. There is also voice recognition that can be used within the menus to navigate. All of these additions are pretty cool, but they never seem major enough to not feel gimmicky. If Turn 10 had enabled gas and brake controls with the use of Kinect, the addition would be a lot more impressive.
Multiplayer: A
Game Mechanics / Features / Online Features
While Forza 4 has your standard multiplayer modes like offline and online racing, there is really much cooler features that were included. The main aspect of this would be the community. This really integrates into the game very well as you are able to buy/sell cars, tunings, designs and logos. Not talented enough to recreate a famous car from movie history? Just search for it, most likely you will find someone with a lot more talent than you made it and has it for sale. Have absolutely not idea what you are doing under the hood, but want a bad ass car? Just look up the model of car you have and look at the tunings for sale. This addition to gameplay really provides a greater sense of depth and helps to provide another layer of realism. All of the items that are on the marketplace are submitted by users using a “storefront”. this means that if you create content, you can place the item on the marketplace for people to buy. All of the items I have mentioned are bought and sold using in-game currency. There is nothing cooler than pimping out a car and then placing it up for auction, going about your career and after a few races seeing that it has been sold. You are able to claim your money and throw right back into something different. All of these features do a great job at enhancing the world of Forza and giving the player unlimited possibilities.
One of the other coolest features has to be the rivals mode. Let’s say you are racing a friend online trying to beat his best time at a certain track, and for whatever reason they have to get offline and you are obsessed with accomplishing this feat. Not a problem, the rivals mode just uses a ghost of your opponent to race against and allows you to continue competing against your friends even when they are offline. This is great for someone like me who can have a hard time getting online at the same times as my friends.
Replay Value: B
Lasting appeal / Bonus Content / DLC
This is the tricky part. There is an unbelievable amount of content to this game. If I chose to cover every feature this review would be entirely too long. With the amount of cars to collect and customize, online and community features this game can keep you busy for a long time. Personally however I tend to get bored with racing games anymore after an extended period of time. I suppose this came with the birth of Driver 2 for PlayStation as all of sudden you were able to not only have these incredible driving sequences, but you could also get out of your car. I realize this would be non applicable in a game like this, but I tend to just get bored with straight driving games as that is the only thing you ever do……just drive. The bottom line is that if you are looking for a great simulation based driving game, look no further. There is enough content to make you forget about all other driving games on the market.
Overal: A
