Reviews October 19, 2011
Forza Motorsport 4
Reviewed by: Calvin Percy
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Racing
Rated: E
Players: 1-2 (2-16 online)
Cost: $59.99
Release Date: 10/10/2011
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Turn 10 Studios
Turn 10 is back once again with another iteration of Forza Motorsport, Microsoft’s head to head competitor to Sony’s Gran Turismo. After playing this title, I can say the king Gran Turismo has been truly dethroned and a new king has been crowned. Let me stop rambling and let’s get to it already.
First thing you will notice is how amazingly beautiful Forza Motorsport 4 is. The vehicles look absolutely amazing. Gran Turismo 5 has a slight edge but Forza isn’t limited to two levels of details, every car is fully rendered inside and out. Not just the premium cars but EVERY car. The tracks within Forza are stunningly amazing and are leaps and bounds over its predecessors. This is what sequels are supposed to do, get better each and every time. The tracks don’t seem to just wash out and the effects like tire smoke look amazing, while maintaining a high frame rate at 60 fps.
I do have a small complaint. The inclusion of time transition, the race moving from day to night in real time, would have been a great feature to have. I did read that this was excluded to keep the frame rate so high in Forza 4. I feel that it’s worth not having this feature in order to maintain such a high frame rate. I applaud Turn 10 for making sure the fundamentals were done correctly; executing this with such a regard to detail. Also to give the different experiences, some tracks like Infineon Raceway, Hockenheimring and Indianapolis Motor Speedway can be raced on at different times of the day. Multiple tracks have normal and overcast versions for extra variety. It’s also amazing how they captured the effect of the sun blinding through the windshield to create an extra degree of realism and difficulty during the races. Speaking of realism, the sound quality in Forza 4 is spot on as well. You can hear the changes in your engine every time you upgrade anything from your pistons to your valves and so on. The audio settings can be tweaked to focus on the sound of your tires to your engine depending on what you may want to focus on.
Before I get to the single player mode, I want to talk about an issue I had with importing cars. There is a reward system that is focused on loyal fans having game saves from Forza 3. Forza 4 will detect this and gift you up to 10 additional cars depending on your previous progression. You also will be gifted other special cars if you’ve owned them in the previous game, but unfortunately this did not work for me. I deleted my save three different times and not once did it detect my Forza 3 save. Sigh…moving on.
In the single player campaign the competition has been bumped up to 12 cars instead of 8. This is still done while maintaining the frame rate at a smooth 60 fps. For the most part it is plain old races, but some flavor is mixed in there also. You will have track days that have you racing an opponent through traffic very similar to the Project Gotham Series. You also have the Top Gear test track challenges that have you knocking down bowling pins to obtain the high score. This was interesting in how it made you think of different driving maneuvers to knock more pins down. Driving straight lines won’t get the job done, as you will need to drift and powerslide at times to take out more pins. The driver levels have been bumped up to 150 this time around so you can really on focus on being one of the top levels for those bragging rights.
Online play is smooth and very responsive with support for 16 racers at a time. There also is a variety of races or shall I say competitions that range from a standard race to tag and even car soccer. I know car soccer sounds weird but it turned out to be very entertaining. I recommend giving that a try, you will enjoy it. Also the return of car clubs is a very positive thing. Each club has their own leaderboards and car collections to shift through. You can only join one club at a time however, so make sure you are riding with who want (or you could just jump from club to club). Another nice addition is Autovista which is pretty much a virtual showroom of very high resolution models of cars that can be explored inside and out. This works amazingly well with the Kinect. The Kinect makes this feature what it is actually. It allows you examine every nook and crannie (that’s right I said nook and crannie) of the car.
Speaking of the Kinect, the new head tracking feature works nicely, but is not something I would use often. But the potential for something great can easily be seen and I can’t wait to see who developers implement this feature in the future. The Kinect can also be used to drive your car without a controller; you simply hold your hands out to control the steering while all the accelerating and braking are controlled for you. This makes the game very simplistic and would appeal to the younger crowd in my opinion. Additionally as you would expect, you can use the Kinect voice commands to navigate through the menus so you can jump straight to upgrades without having to press any buttons.
The controls are extremely smooth and responsive. The standard controller works as expected, but the shining spot is the Speed wheel. I took a chance and thought I would regret it, as Bryant always says, but I actually love using the wheel more than the original controller. The wheel is amazingly light and feels extremely comfortable in your hands. You use the d-pad to shift gears and the triggers for gas and brake. Now there is a learning curve when using the wheel under full simulation; it isn’t as tight as the standard controller but can be mastered with time and patience. Overall this is one of the unexpected shining moments with the game.
Gameplay: 10
Tight controls, various game modes, Kinect integration and great online community with the return of car clubs. You going to love it.
Graphics: 10
The most visually stunning racing game ever. Autovista is beautiful. 60 fps at all times can’t go wrong there.
Sound: 9
From the roar of the engine to squealing of the tires you will be engulfed in the audio magic here
What’s New: 10
Forza 4 shows how good developers can make awesome experiences for gamers using the Kinect.
Replay Value: 10
Once again the online community will have you coming back. Racing your way to level 150 will give you hours upon hours of racing beauty.
Final Score:
9.7