{"id":36361,"date":"2023-10-04T08:01:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T07:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/forza-motorsport-review\/"},"modified":"2023-10-04T08:01:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T07:01:16","slug":"forza-motorsport-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xtremeservers.com\/blog\/forza-motorsport-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Forza Motorsport Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sitting on the grid in my 2017 Holden V8 Supercar, surrounded by Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Audi R8s, I have to concede I\u2019m feeling a little underqualified. Forza Motorsport\u2019s online multiplayer spec racing should technically place all these cars on a level field, but I can\u2019t help but feel like I\u2019ve brought a cricket bat to a swordfight here. Several mediocre laps later and neither myself or my Vegemite-eating VF Commodore have troubled the timesheets much, finishing mid-pack one spot below where I started \u2013 but I\u2019m sweating, and I\u2019m smiling. The 2023 version of Forza Motorsport is brimming with new features across the board, from its muscular new multiplayer to its much-improved handling. All except for its upgrades, that is. They\u2019ve been downgraded. Confused? Me too.<\/p>\n

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Forza Motorsport is, by a significant margin, the best feeling game in the Motorsport franchise to date. It isn\u2019t necessarily a total reinvention of the Forza formula, and it still has that familiar level of forgiveness baked into it when you\u2019re at and just<\/em> beyond <\/em>the limits of control. This is a series that has always been about letting us have the confidence to grab a car by the scruff of its neck and step the rear end out with a boot-full of throttle without constantly over-rotating, and that\u2019s absolutely still the case here. The improvements before<\/em> we break traction, however, are marked.<\/p>\n

If the previous game, Forza Motorsport 7, has any noticeable handling blemishes, it\u2019d be that there\u2019s often a lack of bite to the feeling of grip. Six years later, that\u2019s totally gone here in this follow-up. The feeling of grip in Forza Motorsport is far more pronounced and authentic, and cars feel more realistically rooted to the road than they ever have previously. Push beyond the capacity of your tyres and grip will now taper away instead of falling off a cliff, meaning cars squirm more and skate less \u2013 which is a great improvement.<\/p>\n

Push beyond the capacity of your tyres and grip will now taper away instead of falling off a cliff.<\/section>\n

The pleasing side-effect of these terrific tyre modelling improvements goes beyond making racing feel more accurate; it also actually makes it feel easier<\/em> to drive fast. \u2018Easy\u2019 is too often used as a pejorative in a gaming context but, with respect to those who can\u2019t feel feelings until they\u2019re being flayed alive by a FromSoft game, in racing terms I can assure you it\u2019s not a contemptuous concept. Lapping as fast as the pros, millimetre perfect and at maximum attack? No, that\u2019s not<\/em> simple \u2013 if it was, we\u2019d all have yachts in Monaco by now. But hustling around a track quick and hard, confident the car beneath you is going to behave as it should? That\u2019s well within the means of a competent driver. The old sim racing mentality that \u201cif it\u2019s not difficult, it\u2019s not realistic\u201d is something that most good driving simulators have been moving away from for some time, and Forza Motorsport is no exception. It\u2019s easier because it\u2019s more<\/em> authentic.<\/p>\n

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Gamepad handling is extremely well-refined. While it\u2019s hardly a surprise considering good gamepad handling has always been a staple of this long-running series, I\u2019m happy to report it remains top-notch and has survived the physics updates beneath the surface. As usual, the team at Turn 10 has struck a terrific balance between softening things like rapid weight transfer and certain steering inputs to keep the handling tameable on a tiny analogue stick, but still demanding an indisputable deftness to drive consistently fast.<\/p>\n

On a wheel, my experience is limited to the Thrustmaster TS-XW Racer \u2013 but it definitely errs extremely heavy out of the box.<\/section>\n

On a wheel, my experience is limited to the Thrustmaster TS-XW Racer \u2013 but it definitely errs extremely heavy out of the box. Surprisingly so, in fact. The last time my actual car felt this heavy to pilot it was because my alternator failed and killed my power steering. It is, however, extremely tuneable \u2013 so I was able to eventually dial that aggressive heaviness out and enjoy what I otherwise consider the best Forza Motorsport wheel feel I\u2019ve ever experienced. There might be a slight numbness to severe kerbs, but the responsiveness and stability is excellent. <\/p>\n

The feeling of car weight is also great \u2013 especially on undulating and technical track sections like cresting over the rise at Laguna Seca before slamming down through the corkscrew. There are some small, welcome touches for wheel users, too. Those who play in cabin-view with the wheel visible may be happy to see the steering animation is no longer locked to just 90 degrees in either direction. The on-screen wheel now rotates up to 360 degrees, which is far more realistic. There are also car-specific force feedback and steering lock settings in the tuning menus, making it easier to keep cars feeling right without constantly re-adjusting the global settings.<\/p>\n

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Level: May Cry<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s more good news on tuning, including a new layer of suspension settings as well as the ability to add ballast. Adding ballast obviously increases car weight and lowers its performance index overall, but it is automatically distributed throughout the car to bring it closer to a perfect 50\/50 weight distribution. It\u2019s impossible to instantly gauge the impact the addition of ballast will have on competitive car builds, but it will be interesting to watch and experiment to see whether pushing a car over the limit before handicapping it with extra weight is a viable strategy on certain tracks.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that\u2019s currently where the positive news on tuning \u2013 or perhaps more specifically, customisation \u2013 largely stops. That\u2019s because upgrades are no longer all immediately available for any car by default, like they are in Forza Motorsport 7 or Forza Horizon 5. Instead, they\u2019re frugally rationed out for each car as you spend seat time in them and earn experience for that specific vehicle. They\u2019re also no longer purchased with credits, either; rather, each car will have a set amount of \u2018Car Points\u2019 that applying upgrades eats away at. The amount of Car Points you have per car will be determined by each car\u2019s individual level, which tops out at 50. Upgrades are always made available in the same order, but it takes several hours of driving to unlock things like engine swaps (40), body kits (45), and drivetrain swaps (50).<\/p>\n

It takes several hours of driving to unlock things like engine swaps, body kits, and drivetrain swaps.<\/section>\n

By design, this overtly RPG-style approach is meant to encourage us to form more profound connections with a narrower assortment of cars that mean something to us personally instead of bouncing around. In practice, however, it\u2019s just a bit bothersome. Sure, it never feels as trivial as, say, the luck-based upgrade systems under the hood of arcade racers like The Crew series or Need for Speed Payback; we\u2019re still in control of the parts we choose to \u201cpurchase\u201d and fit. And sure, at car level 50 with the full range of parts available, the upgrade system in Forza Motorsport is essentially the same as it\u2019s been for generations. The problem is getting there is now an unexpected treadmill, for every individual car<\/em> (including duplicates of the same car).<\/p>\n

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I do appreciate Forza Motorsport\u2019s \u201cbuilt, not bought\u201d philosophy, but the new layer of gamification here isn\u2019t really for me. It\u2019s not so much the Car Point system itself \u2013 I actually think there\u2019s a decent amount of merit in some kind of system that\u2019s perhaps roughly analogous to time sunk. Anyone who\u2019s ever spent time wrenching on a car will know that you can\u2019t do everything at once, and Car Points do<\/em> mean you have to slowly add and swap parts over time \u2013 just like in real-life. What I don\u2019t really get is the concept of gating away upgrades in a strict order \u2013 especially the super straightforward ones. Why do we really need a certain car level before we can yank out the spare wheel to shave some kilos? It definitely dilutes the previous freedom we had to focus on the upgrades we predict would make the most meaningful difference to a car\u2019s performance from the outset, and it\u2019s all bit silly that I\u2019m measuring fuel loads by the millilitre to slice bonus thousandths of a second off my lap times when I\u2019m still lugging around a spare tyre in the boot.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, you will earn car levels anywhere you use them… so you\u2019re never spinning your wheels on progression as long as you\u2019re driving.<\/section>\n

Fortunately, you will earn car levels anywhere you use them, whether that\u2019s career mode, free play, or multiplayer, so you\u2019re never spinning your wheels on progression as long as you\u2019re driving. The career mode is made up of several tiers of themed racing events that are otherwise fairly typically categorised by car class for this type of racing sim. With compulsory practice sessions ahead of each race it takes quite a while to move through each tour, so I\u2019ve been busy for a while and will continue to be for some time. The ability to select your specific place on the grid before each event may seem like a peculiar replacement for qualifying, but it does mean that you can have the exact racing experience you want each race.<\/p>\n

That is, if you want the old-school, Gran Turismo-style experience that\u2019s more like an overtaking challenge than a race \u2013 where you\u2019ll need to thread your car all the way to the front from the back of the pack in just a few laps \u2013 go for it. If you\u2019re interested in faster AI and dogfighting all race for a single spot, that\u2019s also possible. It\u2019s a smart touch, and it\u2019s a more robust single-player racing experience than the likes of GT7 as a result.<\/p>\n