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GAMING —


FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 REVIEW: THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING!


FORZA MOTORSPORT IS THE XBOX'S ANSWER TO THE PLAYSTATION'S GRAN TURISMO …

Jonathan M. Gitlin - 10/6/2011, 6:32 PM

Photograph by Jonathan Gitlin

READER COMMENTS

143

As Ars Technica's resident petrol head, it's no secret that I've been eagerly
anticipating getting my hands on Forza Motorsport 4, the latest installment of
Microsoft's marquee racing game for the Xbox 360. Ever since Sony finally
shipped Gran Turismo 5, console racing fans have been waiting to see how Turn
10, Forza's developers, would respond. From where I'm sitting, it's clear that
there really is a new king in town.


LOOK, LISTEN, FEEL

The first thing you'll notice is a big improvement in the graphics. GT5's
premium cars may still (just) have the edge, but unlike in that game, Forza
doesn't have two different levels of detail—every car has a fully rendered
interior and none have been dragged kicking and screaming from 2006. The Forza
tracks are simply stunning, and a huge improvement on Forza Motorsport 3, where
certain settings suffered from looking washed out. Particle effects like tire
smoke and dust look great, hanging in the air realistically without causing
frame rates to falter below a constant 60 fps.

In the run up to the launch I spoke with Dan Greenawalt, Lead Game Developer at
Turn 10, who told me that this focus on ensuring a high frame rate was the
reason Forza 4 doesn't feature dynamic weather or races that transition from day
to night. The team made the right decision; it's this sort of attention to
getting the fundamentals spot-on that shines through the game.

Some of the tracks are available to race on at different times of day:
Hockenheimring, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Infineon Raceway (all of which
make their series debut) can be raced at sunrise or during the day; Camino Viejo
and Suzuka both have mid-day and sunset versions; and the Top Gear Test Track
comes in normal and overcast flavors. These do a good job of simulating the
difficulty of seeing where you're going with the sun blinding you, and are used
to good effect in career mode when you have to complete multiple heats at the
same circuit over the course of a day.

Greenawalt told us that the audio has also had a makeover, and your cars' sonic
character changes as you build up their engines with new exhausts, valves,
pistons, and so on. In the audio settings, you can also tweak the sound effect
focus between engine noise or the sound of your tires, which can be handy
depending on what sort of feedback you like when driving.

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Forza 4 also features an entirely new physics model with completely new tire
modeling courtesy of Pirelli. 

Bluntly, you'll not get a more realistic driving game on any console. Bearing in
mind that Turn 10 always aims to appeal across the gaming spectrum, from kids
several years away from their driver's licenses to hardcore racers, the result
is accessible and accurate. Depending on your skill level, you can tweak the
difficulty to provide steering and braking assistance on top of the usual ABS,
traction control, and so on. The rewind feature returns, as does the suggested
racing line, but all of these can be turned off.

You can have a great time playing with the Xbox controller, but the game truly
comes alive with a steering wheel. The boffins at Fanatec have produced an
official Forza Motorsport 4 wheel, which I'll discuss in a bit more depth later
in the review. With the steering set to "simulation," the game really is a great
approximation of having a real car on track. You get a nice sense of weight
transfer and how much grip you have, with the steering going light if you turn
too hard as the front wheels lose adhesion and begin to spin, just as you would
in a real car.


START ME UP, BUTTERCUP

If you've played Forza 3 and have a saved game on your Xbox, when you first
start playing Forza 4 the game will detect your old save and you'll be gifted up
to 10 cars depending on how far you progressed. The game also gifts you a number
of other special cars if you've owned them in Forza 3, so gamers loyal to the
franchise can hit the ground running.

You'll also want to install the content from the second disc. Load times are not
particularly annoying; they're shorter than GT5, and menu navigation is
significantly less frustrating.

In single player, the car count has gone up from eight to 12, but despite the
greater AI workload for the CPU, framerate remains a steady 60 fps. Most events
are good old races to the finish line, but mixed in with these are autocross
challenges similar to those seen in Projects Gotham; Track Days where you have
to beat another car to the end while dodging traffic comprised of slower cars;
and mixed class races where you're competing against some cars of the same class
but sharing the track with other, faster (or slower) cars having their own race.
The Top Gear test track challenges are much less infuriating than those found in
GT5, and you're tasked with knocking down bowling pins to rack up a high score.

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Career mode has undergone some tweaks in this installment, presumably to keep
players interested. As before, you can choose between World Tour, which sends
you from track to track across the course of racing seasons, or pick from the
event list. There's now an incentive to stay in World Tour; different races will
offer you extra credits, or boosts to your driver experience points (XP) or to
your car's Affinity (which gets you cheap car upgrades) on top of the normal
rewards. However, you can't control the AI difficulty level in World Tour, and
the AI scales as your XP increases. If your goal is to amass as many credits as
possible, World Tour is where you'll want to spend your time.

On the other hand, if just completing every race is your priority, you have more
control over your opponents by picking from the event list. Not only can you
choose how smart the AI cars are, but you can limit the upgrades to the cars
they drive. This does come with a penalty, though; the easier you make races,
the less you earn.

Each time you reach a new driver XP level up to level 50, you'll be offered a
choice of reward cars instead of just being awarded one, which I think is a
pretty neat touch. In Forza 3, players maxed out at level 50, but now the game
goes up to 150, with large credit bonuses from Level 51 onwards, so players with
a compulsion to complete the game will find it takes significantly longer.

All of this means you don't really need to spend much time building up a stable
of cars unless you particularly want to. Should you have your heart set on one
of the more expensive cars in the game (I'm still nearly 2 million credits shy
of a McLaren F1) you can even skip the grind by spending Microsoft points to buy
car tokens. One token will cost you 80 points, or $1, with price breaks for six
(400 points) and 13 (800 points). Even the most expensive car will only cost you
three tokens. Sadly at the time of writing, it's not yet possible to purchase
tokens, so right now it's a race to see if I get to 3 million credits before
October 11.

Overall, Career mode offers a rich gameplay experience that should keep you busy
for a while. According to my stats, I've spend just over four and a half hours
driving time (don't worry, I've spent much longer with game in total) across 62
races. Despite reaching level 26, I've only completed 2.8 percent of the game.
As you can see, I've got some way to go!

Page: 1 2 3 Next →


ARS VIDEO


HOW LIGHTING DESIGN IN THE CALLISTO PROTOCOL ELEVATES THE HORROR





READER COMMENTS

143
Jonathan M. Gitlin Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a
BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion
for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and
launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

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CHANNEL ARS TECHNICA

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF QUANTUM LEAP WITH DONALD P. BELLISARIO

Today "Quantum Leap" series creator Donald P. Bellisario joins Ars Technica to
answer once and for all the lingering questions we have about his enduringly
popular show. Was Dr. Sam Beckett really leaping between all those time periods
and people or did he simply imagine it all? What do people in the waiting room
do while Sam is in their bodies? What happens to Sam's loyal ally Al? 30 years
following the series finale, answers to these mysteries and more await.

 * UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF QUANTUM LEAP WITH DONALD P. BELLISARIO

 * UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF WARHAMMER 40K WITH AUTHOR DAN ABNETT

 * STEVE BURKE OF GAMERSNEXUS REACTS TO THEIR TOP 1000 COMMENTS ON YOUTUBE

 * MODERN VINTAGE GAMER REACTS TO HIS TOP 1000 COMMENTS ON YOUTUBE

 * HOW THE NES CONQUERED A SKEPTICAL AMERICA IN 1985

 * SCOTT MANLEY REACTS TO HIS TOP 1000 YOUTUBE COMMENTS

 * HOW HORROR WORKS IN AMNESIA: REBIRTH, SOMA AND AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT

 * LGR'S CLINT BASINGER REACTS TO HIS TOP 1000 YOUTUBE COMMENTS

 * HOW ONE GAMEPLAY DECISION CHANGED DIABLO FOREVER

 * HOW FORZA'S RACING AI USES NEURAL NETWORKS TO EVOLVE

 * 30 PEOPLE PLAY MARIO KART 8 FROM NEWBIES TO PROS

 * UNSOLVED MORTAL KOMBAT MYSTERIES WITH DOMINIC CIANCIOLO FROM NETHERREALM
   STUDIOS

 * HOW NBA JAM BECAME A BILLION-DOLLAR SLAM DUNK

 * LINUS "TECH TIPS" SEBASTIAN REACTS TO HIS TOP 1000 YOUTUBE COMMENTS

 * HOW ALAN WAKE WAS REBUILT 3 YEARS INTO DEVELOPMENT

 * HOW HOMEWORLD ALMOST GOT LOST IN 3D SPACE

 * 30 PEOPLE PLAY SUPER MARIO BROS. LEVEL 1-1

 * HOW PRINCE OF PERSIA DEFEATED APPLE II'S MEMORY LIMITATIONS

 * HOW CRASH BANDICOOT HACKED THE ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION

 * MYST: THE CHALLENGES OF CD-ROM | WAR STORIES

 * MARKIPLIER REACTS TO HIS TOP 1000 YOUTUBE COMMENTS

 * HOW MIND CONTROL SAVED ODDWORLD: ABE'S ODDYSEE

 * CIVILIZATION: IT'S GOOD TO TAKE TURNS | WAR STORIES

 * DEAD CELLS: HOW TO AVOID FALLING TO YOUR DEATH (AND RESURRECTION) | WAR
   STORIES

 * WARFRAME'S REBECCA FORD REVIEWS YOUR CHARACTERS

 * SUBNAUTICA: A WORLD WITHOUT GUNS | WAR STORIES

 * HOW SLAY THE SPIRE’S ORIGINAL INTERFACE ALMOST KILLED THE GAME | WAR STORIES

 * AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT - THE HORROR FACADE | WAR STORIES

 * COMMAND & CONQUER: TIBERIAN SUN | WAR STORIES

 * BLADE RUNNER: SKINJOBS, VOXELS, AND FUTURE NOIR | WAR STORIES

 * DEAD SPACE: THE DRAG TENTACLE | WAR STORIES

 * ALIENS VERSUS PREDATOR: THE 11TH HOUR DECISION | WAR STORIES

 * ULTIMA ONLINE: THE VIRTUAL ECOLOGY | WAR STORIES

 * BLIZZARD ANSWERS UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF THE HEARTHSTONE UNIVERSE

 * UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF WARFRAME

 * UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

More videos
← Previous story Next story →


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