The Forza Motorsport series for some has arguably surpassed the legendary Gran Turismo series; in my personal experience Forza Motorsport 4 was the definitive racing game on the home console, piping even the recent Gran Turismo 6 to the checkered flag. So with the newest instalment Forza Motorsport 5 making its way to the Xbox One, surely this had to be the new definitive racing experience that we all had hoped…right?
Let’s start off the Forza 5’s visuals, which are nothing short of stunning. In my humble opinion this is one of the best looking next gen games currently available (from what I have played at least). The attention to detail to each and every car has been created to near perfection, both inside and out. Games such as the Gran Turismo series, while they featured more cars, had a category of standard and premium cars. Basically meaning that some cars would look better than others, this is certainly not the case with Forza 5 as every car is created to great detail. On the flip side of the coin, Forza 5 not only features far less cars then the Gran Turismo 5 or 6, but also less than the Xbox 360’s Forza 4. I’ll get onto that a little later into the review.
The Forza series has always looked beautiful, regardless of its generation, but now with the power of the Xbox One, the series has never looked so good. You can almost smell the leather on the steering wheel and the burning rubber of a smokey tyre. The developers at Turn 10 Studios have done an amazing job in creating these gorgeous cars and their passion flows with every minute detail. Each track is also created to an unprecedented level, the tarmac, dusty sands, the photogenic countryside, the stars that light up the dark skies, the exotic and wondrous locations, cities, landmarks and iconic tracks have never been created to such near perfection in any racing game.
Forza 5’s user interface is also easy on the eye and just as easy to navigate. There’s not much worse in any game when the developers over complicate the user interface and in-game menus. Which is why I prefer the PS4 interface to that of the Xbox One, but that’s another story for another time. Everything that you need to find in Forza 5 is nothing then a mere glance away in all its bright and colourful glory. Sometimes when certain aspects are kept to a simple level, it does a game wonders and makes the overall experience far more pleasant for the gamer.
During E3 2013 Turn 10 and Microsoft Studios spoke a lot about the feature Drivatar that which would be Forza 5’s biggest gimmick and when I first heard about it, that’s exactly what I thought. It’s a mere fancy sounding gimmick in which the novelty would quickly wear off, but my assumption was clearly wrong. Basically how Drivatar works is that Forza 5 would learn your driving style whether you’d be considerate or aggressive to your fellow rival, whether you’d be the type to cut a corner or stick to the line. Then every five races or so you’re driving style would then be uploaded and your Drivatar would then not only compete in your friends offline races, but to any fellow gamer that has an online connectivity and of course a copy of Forza 5.
So for example I would be participating in one of the many offline events, then among the starting grid I would see a friend’s Gamertag, along with various random’s from the Xbox One online community. Their personal Drivatar would be in your race to represent that gamer and would play to almost the exact style as the real life counterpart. It was soon realised by myself that this was no mere gimmick, the Drivatar feature had suddenly set a new standard in A.I, surely one that other developers would attempt to mimic, possible even developers outside of the racing genre.
The Drivatar makes all previous A.I in any racing game almost obsolete, because surely nothing would bring a more authentic driving A.I experience then one in which the bot racers in your game would race just like their real life counterparts? Surely this new standard functions much better to that of a pre-programmed A.I that would do very little other then fellow the same racing line in single file? In my personal opinion it most certainly does and it works so well in fact that I wouldn’t want racing A.I to be any other way.
It also works well in respect to not only will many of the Drivatars race with more accuracy then the A.I (from the most skilled online Forza 5 drivers of course), but you would also see them spinning off the track into a barrier full of dust as they attempt to overpower their way out of a tight corner. It adds much more realism to not only how well they race, but the common human errors that they would make from time to time.
The more you play Forza 5, the more you would naturally improve and because your driving habits are registered every five races, as you improve, so does your Drivatar. It’s even more handy to know that while you are away and your Xbox One is switched off, your Drivatar will continue to race in other races across the world and when you fire Forza 5 back up, you would be welcomed to some extra credits that your Drivatar has earned to spend on new cars, upgrades and so forth. It may sound a little cliché, but once you’ve experienced the Drivatar, there’s no going back to how you once knew it to be.
There are so many great aspects for Forza Motorsport 5 that makes it one of the best launch titles for either of the new generation consoles, but with its many great features, it seems to be lacking in the amount cars and tracks, something that has never really been an issue with previous titles. With Forza Motorsport 4 you had give or take around 500 cars from more than 80 manufacturers and a relatively impressive 27 tracks. These numbers were eventually increased with the release of DLC. Forza Motorsport 5 however and considering the game is running on a far more impressive machine comes with 200 cars from more than 50 manufacturers and 14 circuits.
It’s a strange enough decision to have around 300 cars less on release then the previous instalment, but the lack of tracks is also a puzzler, especially when you consider the names that are missing. The tracks excluded from Forza 5 include the iconic Nürburgring and the Suzuka Circuit, along with the Sonoma Raceway.
They could argue that Forza 5 will feature new vehicles such as the Formula One Lotus-Renault driven by Kimi Raikkonen in the 2012/13 season and the new tracks include the Silverstone Circuit, Bathurst and a gorgeous fictional Swiss Alps race circuit. But surely these additions cannot in anyway compensate the amount of cars and tracks that are missing in comparison to Forza 4. With the option of buying a £20 VIP car pass (which also comes packed with the special edition) and a £40 season pass, some might argue that the lack of content is intentional for the purpose of DLC sales. The publisher will argue one case and the customer another, I guess only time will tell, but either way it’s a decision that has baffled many.
Much like the visuals and gameplay, Forza 5’s sound effects are also of a high standard. When a petrolhead is playing their beloved genre, not only must the cars look and play great, but they must also sound great too. This may seemingly sound like a small aspect, but it plays a big part in the overall authenticity package. There have been many racing games that have neglected this element somewhat and the sound effects can be quite lacklustre, a little lazy. This I’m glad to say is not so with Forza 5, just as it’s not been the case with all the other games prior.
Every single car sounds significantly different to the other; each has their own unique roar, hiss of the gear change, the burst of the turbo kicking in, and the screech of the breaks as you perfectly execute a corner. It’s this kind of authenticity that the racing fans demand as a minimum and with the excellent vibration feedback of the Xbox One controller which allows you to feel the power of acceleration, the heavy break of an instant corner appearing before your very eyes, I’m sure this is something that will not disappoint fans.
As with previous Forza instalments, the modes themselves have plenty of depth to keep you busy. You of course have the standard career mode with 8 different events which can feature anything between 40+ to 90+ races among the many competitions that they include. Then there’s the Rivals mode which will see you take on your friends best times and scores, and there will also be a variety of weekly/monthly events that include Hotlap challenges, Time Trials, drifts events and more, as well as a host of online modes to sink your teeth into.
Should you want to divert away from the intense driving competitions for a short while, there are plenty of other features to keep you occupied, such as Forza Vista which will allow you to explore in-depth the various luxurious cars from the Forza 5 world all narrated by Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Then you have Forza TV where you can view replays for your saved races and even footage from some of the best Forza 5 drivers the game has to offer and if there are any players you particularly like, you can even follow them and keep posted with all their Forza activity. You can also visit Forza Gallery which is much like Forza TV, only this time you can enjoy your and others gamers exotic photos taken from their Forza 5 experience.
For gamers that like in-game bonuses and let’s be honest, who doesn’t? You can visit Forza Rewards.com. Here you will login with your hotmail/MSN account attached to your Xbox One Gamertag and it will not only track all the Forza games that you have played on the Xbox 360, but it will also monitor your progress in Forza Motorsport 5. Just login on a monthly basis and you will be rewarded based on your earned Tier, there are 6 Tiers in-total, the higher Tier you are, the better the rewards. Cars and Tracks aside, there is plenty of depth hidden within Forza Motorsport 5 both on and off the track that should keep you more than busy until the next instalment.
Despite its suspicious lack of cars and tracks, Forza Motorsport 5 in my opinion is the go to game of its genre on the new generation of console. It not only looks stunning, but it plays like a gamers wet track dream. The quality of the control pads vibration feedback and the awesome Drivatar makes it very difficult to go back to any other racing game in the same class as Forza 5. It’s one of the most addictive racing games that I’ve played in a very long time that gives you the urge for one more race.
If it wasn’t for the lack of car and track content, this game would be the definitive racing experience on any current console, which is a shame because if it wasn’t for that lack of content, it results in Forza 5 falling just short of greatness for its respected genre. But for now Forza Motorsport 5 will just have to make do with being the definitive racing experience on the new generation console, well at least until Forza Motorsport 6 or Horizon arrives at least.