Review: Forza Motorsport 3 [Xbox 360]
zoidbergmerc, 11-Nov-09 » Forza Motorsport 3
Developer: Turn 10 Sudios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Platform: Xbox 360
The box art for Forza3, Baby's got back!
Forza Motorsport 3 is a Racing simulator with quite realistic physics and features 405 cars from 50 different manufactures including Holden! The badge on the box also promises 8 different V8 Supercars. Locations to drive are plentiful too with over 100 tracks to choose from. So it all sounds like a perfect mix, lots of cars, lots of tracks, good physics. What could possibly go wrong?
Opening up the DVD Case you're greeted by 2 DVDs, one Play disk, one install disk as well as a card with a code for some free DLC. This DLC includes some extra tracks and 10 more cars, why this wasn't just included in the game I don't know..... So I sling in the Play disk and fire up the game and I'm greeted by a pretty cool FMV which shows off this games new car models which feature over double the polygon count as the previous Forza! After this rather exciting you'll want to jump in a car and drive, but you're asked if you want to install the additional content stored on the second disk, obviously you have to do it to get all the cars and tracks so sit back and watch as the content gets installed on your HD.
Now that's what I'm talking about! V8 Supercars!
After all that's over and you're finally ready to play the game the obvious choice is Career mode, or season play as they call it in Forza 3 and you're immediately dropped into an Audi R8 on a pretty basic track playing against some very easy opponents, which is a bit scary at first but luckily enough Forza 3 has a rewind feature which lets you rewind the game if you've made a bit of a hash of things, but the little message that says "Press < to rewind" that comes up if you so much as touch another car or drop 1 wheel off the track does get a little annoying. While I try to avoid using the rewind feature I'm sure it'll come in handy for rookie drivers who are new to the franchise, hopefully making the game more accessible to more people. Now while this rewind feature is handy I do feel that it takes some of the excitment out of the game. For example; you're in a race, fifteen minutes in, on your final lap, coming first but your opponents are right behind you breathing down your neck then you over shoot the last corner and they all pass you. A game ending situation which usually results in lots of cursing and requiring the purchase of a new controller before you can play again. But now all that's gone, thanks to the rewind feature, while this will save your controller from an epic rage quit, it's also taken away some of the passion and excitement from the game.
Forza 3 manages to have these amazing driving physics which wont leave all the better games disappointed but it still manages to be easy enough for anyone to pick up. How it does this is by making a pretty small field of assists. Ranging from Traction control to full blown "Just press the go button and pretend to steer, I'll do the rest for you" and everything in between. To make turning off the assists an attractive option you're offered more prize money, so if you've got all the assists off, it's pretty easy to double your prize money making that new car even closer.
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There are a wide range of exotic cars that will arouse the interest of almost anyone.
Playing through the "season play" is very linear and you can move up to bigger, faster, more powerful cars as you wish or you can forever stay fooling around in Front Wheel drive hatchback, shopping for new cars is a pretty straight forward process, go to the shop, pick the dealer, pick the car you want, pick the colour you want, done! But while you're shopping you might notice the large lack of any holdens apart from the v8 Supercars, the Monaro is in the game but it's a Vauxhall and there is another too as a Pontiac why not put it as a Holden as well? The biggest absence you'll notice is the g35 GT-R. Not putting in the R35 GT-R is actually criminal.
The Cars in forza3 are superbly modelled and the addition of the cockpit view all the cars are pretty pixel perfect inside and out. Comparing the interiors of the cars I've driven in real life to the models in Forza3, they're exactly the same, they've just skimped on some of the textures and attention to detail but why waste system resources on the interior of your own car, it'd make more sence to but more effort into the rear of the car in front as you'll spend a fair bit of time looking at if you turn the AI difficulty up to hard.
Turn10 have really spent some time with the AI in Forza3 and it really shows. All the AI drivers have attitudes and it's pretty easy to tick them off, running into the back of them really gets them going and they'll usually get you back given the opportunity and you'll almost always come off 2nd best. But if you play nice, they'll play nice too. Another thing is that is cool is when you're behind them looking to pass they'll change their lines to block you and if you really put the pressure on they'll occasionally run wide or powerslide on the exit giving you an opportunity to make your move. But when you're sick of playing against the AI you can jump online and go head to head with up to 8 opponents or just play some 2 player split-screen with a mate. But my favourite is the time-trail where you get one car, one track, with just you on the track and your time will be put on the online leader board which is a great challenge and really rewarding when you punch out a sweet hot lap and see it up there in the top 100.
That's right, you can drive the 1000HP Veyron in Forza3
A lot of time has also been spent on the driving physics in the game and the cars drive and behave just like you'd expect them to in real life. While it's still far from the more hardcore racing sims it's definitely the perfect mix to be playing on an controller with. When you tune and upgrade your car you can really notice the difference not just because you're blitzing everyone down the straights but hopefully you've upgraded your brakes and suspension too and you'll notice the difference in the corners.
Upgrading the cars is for the best part of the game and I was quite impressed with the amount of options of upgrades and modifications you're given. Not only can you do basic mods like change the exhaust and inlet systems to gain more power, you can also blot a mighty supercharger or Turbo onto your car for a big power gain. Tire upgrades have a lot of options too, you can change the compound to a more sticky rubber or increase the width of the tyres to get more rubber on the ground or you can change your wheels to get bigger or smaller diameter plus there is a massive assortment of brands and styles to choose from. The coolest thing by far about the upgrade feature in Forza3 is the abbility to change the drive train of your car. So you can change your little Ford Focus from a FWD to an AWD! But if you do this you better upgrade your suspension to a fully adjustable system because it'll require a lot of tweaking to get it just right and behave correctly but if you're into it you'll have a blast. Another feature is you can change your engine to something different. Just throwing it out there, putting a V8 in a hatchback and converting it to 4WD is pretty awesome.
The Symphony of sound that is produced by some the cars in fozra3 is simply orgasmic. Turn10 have successfully captured all the sounds of the cars perfectly, from the rumble of a boxer, the bark of a straight 6, the roar of a v8 and the howl of a v10. It's all there and it's all VERY good. All the Nissans sound like they should and the Toyotas all have their signature sound to them. All the little sounds that car lovers will enjoy are there too, Turbos make all the rights noises when they spool and the BOV in the cars are good too. Superchargers will whine just the right amount to add to the experience and strike fear into the hearts of the enemies as you whip past them. The Tires make all the right noises too and it's not just one generic squeal for everything, understeer, over steer, brake lock up, doing massive burn outs all have their own sound as they do in real life. The in game music is pretty annoying in Forza3 so I quickly turned it off and tuned into nGRadio for some real tunes.
Cockpit view is very well done and the interiors closely match the real thing.
All your old favourite tracks have returned in Forza3 and they're as pretty as ever. But I was quite disapointed to see that there were no Aussie tracks for the V8 Supercars, that is pretty much like having a gallon of vegimite and nothing to put it on, what's the point... Why put in these cars if you're not going to bother putting in at least one Australian track. I would swap them all for Bathust, but alas, it was not to be. Another thing that annoyed me in Forza3 with the tracks was that when you have an unfortunate encounter with a wall, it doesn't move... the only movable objects in the tracks are the witches hats and the other cars. Smash into a tire wall, you would be forgiven to expect a huge explosion of tires as you careen out of control into it but no, the crashes are quite uneventful, which is a shame, because who doesn't like a good crash. Maybe Turn10 thought we'd all be pressing the rewind button well before we hit the wall. The Damage on the actual cars is a little average too especially when you compare it to other titles competing with Forza, yes there is damage but it's not really to scale. You touch the car in front and your head lights are kicked in, bonnet is crumpled up, front bumper bar is hanging off and all the paint is gone. But if you have a head on at 300 KPH with a wall roll over 9 times and land upside down, it's exactly the same result if not less.
All in all there is a lot of fun to be had with the game and that fun is for everyone, weather you're a hardcore racing game fan, or if this if your first game ever. Both parties will be satisfied. Turn10 have really ticked all the boxes with Forza 3 but they loose a few marks for not including Australian Tracks and missing out on a few cars that I would expect to be in there.
I give Forza3 4.5 Stars.
TLDR Version
+ Lots of Cars and Tracks
+ Driving Physics are great
+ Easily accessible to all audiences.
- No Aussie Tracks
Developer: Turn 10 Sudios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Platform: Xbox 360
The box art for Forza3, Baby's got back!
Forza Motorsport 3 is a Racing simulator with quite realistic physics and features 405 cars from 50 different manufactures including Holden! The badge on the box also promises 8 different V8 Supercars. Locations to drive are plentiful too with over 100 tracks to choose from. So it all sounds like a perfect mix, lots of cars, lots of tracks, good physics. What could possibly go wrong?
Opening up the DVD Case you're greeted by 2 DVDs, one Play disk, one install disk as well as a card with a code for some free DLC. This DLC includes some extra tracks and 10 more cars, why this wasn't just included in the game I don't know..... So I sling in the Play disk and fire up the game and I'm greeted by a pretty cool FMV which shows off this games new car models which feature over double the polygon count as the previous Forza! After this rather exciting you'll want to jump in a car and drive, but you're asked if you want to install the additional content stored on the second disk, obviously you have to do it to get all the cars and tracks so sit back and watch as the content gets installed on your HD.
Now that's what I'm talking about! V8 Supercars!
After all that's over and you're finally ready to play the game the obvious choice is Career mode, or season play as they call it in Forza 3 and you're immediately dropped into an Audi R8 on a pretty basic track playing against some very easy opponents, which is a bit scary at first but luckily enough Forza 3 has a rewind feature which lets you rewind the game if you've made a bit of a hash of things, but the little message that says "Press < to rewind" that comes up if you so much as touch another car or drop 1 wheel off the track does get a little annoying. While I try to avoid using the rewind feature I'm sure it'll come in handy for rookie drivers who are new to the franchise, hopefully making the game more accessible to more people. Now while this rewind feature is handy I do feel that it takes some of the excitment out of the game. For example; you're in a race, fifteen minutes in, on your final lap, coming first but your opponents are right behind you breathing down your neck then you over shoot the last corner and they all pass you. A game ending situation which usually results in lots of cursing and requiring the purchase of a new controller before you can play again. But now all that's gone, thanks to the rewind feature, while this will save your controller from an epic rage quit, it's also taken away some of the passion and excitement from the game.
Forza 3 manages to have these amazing driving physics which wont leave all the better games disappointed but it still manages to be easy enough for anyone to pick up. How it does this is by making a pretty small field of assists. Ranging from Traction control to full blown "Just press the go button and pretend to steer, I'll do the rest for you" and everything in between. To make turning off the assists an attractive option you're offered more prize money, so if you've got all the assists off, it's pretty easy to double your prize money making that new car even closer.
There are a wide range of exotic cars that will arouse the interest of almost anyone.
Playing through the "season play" is very linear and you can move up to bigger, faster, more powerful cars as you wish or you can forever stay fooling around in Front Wheel drive hatchback, shopping for new cars is a pretty straight forward process, go to the shop, pick the dealer, pick the car you want, pick the colour you want, done! But while you're shopping you might notice the large lack of any holdens apart from the v8 Supercars, the Monaro is in the game but it's a Vauxhall and there is another too as a Pontiac why not put it as a Holden as well? The biggest absence you'll notice is the g35 GT-R. Not putting in the R35 GT-R is actually criminal.
The Cars in forza3 are superbly modelled and the addition of the cockpit view all the cars are pretty pixel perfect inside and out. Comparing the interiors of the cars I've driven in real life to the models in Forza3, they're exactly the same, they've just skimped on some of the textures and attention to detail but why waste system resources on the interior of your own car, it'd make more sence to but more effort into the rear of the car in front as you'll spend a fair bit of time looking at if you turn the AI difficulty up to hard.
Turn10 have really spent some time with the AI in Forza3 and it really shows. All the AI drivers have attitudes and it's pretty easy to tick them off, running into the back of them really gets them going and they'll usually get you back given the opportunity and you'll almost always come off 2nd best. But if you play nice, they'll play nice too. Another thing is that is cool is when you're behind them looking to pass they'll change their lines to block you and if you really put the pressure on they'll occasionally run wide or powerslide on the exit giving you an opportunity to make your move. But when you're sick of playing against the AI you can jump online and go head to head with up to 8 opponents or just play some 2 player split-screen with a mate. But my favourite is the time-trail where you get one car, one track, with just you on the track and your time will be put on the online leader board which is a great challenge and really rewarding when you punch out a sweet hot lap and see it up there in the top 100.
That's right, you can drive the 1000HP Veyron in Forza3
A lot of time has also been spent on the driving physics in the game and the cars drive and behave just like you'd expect them to in real life. While it's still far from the more hardcore racing sims it's definitely the perfect mix to be playing on an controller with. When you tune and upgrade your car you can really notice the difference not just because you're blitzing everyone down the straights but hopefully you've upgraded your brakes and suspension too and you'll notice the difference in the corners.
Upgrading the cars is for the best part of the game and I was quite impressed with the amount of options of upgrades and modifications you're given. Not only can you do basic mods like change the exhaust and inlet systems to gain more power, you can also blot a mighty supercharger or Turbo onto your car for a big power gain. Tire upgrades have a lot of options too, you can change the compound to a more sticky rubber or increase the width of the tyres to get more rubber on the ground or you can change your wheels to get bigger or smaller diameter plus there is a massive assortment of brands and styles to choose from. The coolest thing by far about the upgrade feature in Forza3 is the abbility to change the drive train of your car. So you can change your little Ford Focus from a FWD to an AWD! But if you do this you better upgrade your suspension to a fully adjustable system because it'll require a lot of tweaking to get it just right and behave correctly but if you're into it you'll have a blast. Another feature is you can change your engine to something different. Just throwing it out there, putting a V8 in a hatchback and converting it to 4WD is pretty awesome.
The Symphony of sound that is produced by some the cars in fozra3 is simply orgasmic. Turn10 have successfully captured all the sounds of the cars perfectly, from the rumble of a boxer, the bark of a straight 6, the roar of a v8 and the howl of a v10. It's all there and it's all VERY good. All the Nissans sound like they should and the Toyotas all have their signature sound to them. All the little sounds that car lovers will enjoy are there too, Turbos make all the rights noises when they spool and the BOV in the cars are good too. Superchargers will whine just the right amount to add to the experience and strike fear into the hearts of the enemies as you whip past them. The Tires make all the right noises too and it's not just one generic squeal for everything, understeer, over steer, brake lock up, doing massive burn outs all have their own sound as they do in real life. The in game music is pretty annoying in Forza3 so I quickly turned it off and tuned into nGRadio for some real tunes.
Cockpit view is very well done and the interiors closely match the real thing.
All your old favourite tracks have returned in Forza3 and they're as pretty as ever. But I was quite disapointed to see that there were no Aussie tracks for the V8 Supercars, that is pretty much like having a gallon of vegimite and nothing to put it on, what's the point... Why put in these cars if you're not going to bother putting in at least one Australian track. I would swap them all for Bathust, but alas, it was not to be. Another thing that annoyed me in Forza3 with the tracks was that when you have an unfortunate encounter with a wall, it doesn't move... the only movable objects in the tracks are the witches hats and the other cars. Smash into a tire wall, you would be forgiven to expect a huge explosion of tires as you careen out of control into it but no, the crashes are quite uneventful, which is a shame, because who doesn't like a good crash. Maybe Turn10 thought we'd all be pressing the rewind button well before we hit the wall. The Damage on the actual cars is a little average too especially when you compare it to other titles competing with Forza, yes there is damage but it's not really to scale. You touch the car in front and your head lights are kicked in, bonnet is crumpled up, front bumper bar is hanging off and all the paint is gone. But if you have a head on at 300 KPH with a wall roll over 9 times and land upside down, it's exactly the same result if not less.
All in all there is a lot of fun to be had with the game and that fun is for everyone, weather you're a hardcore racing game fan, or if this if your first game ever. Both parties will be satisfied. Turn10 have really ticked all the boxes with Forza 3 but they loose a few marks for not including Australian Tracks and missing out on a few cars that I would expect to be in there.
I give Forza3 4.5 Stars.
TLDR Version
+ Lots of Cars and Tracks
+ Driving Physics are great
+ Easily accessible to all audiences.
- No Aussie Tracks
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Article Stats
| Category: | Game Reviews |
| Posted: | 11-Nov-09 12:16:44 pm |
| Author: | zoidbergmerc |