Having spent a month with the game I feel that I can give a pretty complete and comprehensive look at the game.
Lets start with the headlines. It has 500+ cars, 76 or something like that tracks and over 80 manufacturers. To say that this game doesn't have a great variety would be a lie.
Lets start with the car lineup because although Forza has 500 cars there is that other car game with a few more. I'm talking about Gran Turismo 5 which has, as you might know, 1000 plus cars. So you might imagine that Gran Turismo has a better lineup of cars, it has twice as many for flip sake. So does it? The answer your looking for is not a cat in hells chance! You see GT is ok but has nothing on Forza. Let me give you just one example of GTs terribleness. This game came out last year in 2010. The newest Aston Martin you can get is the DB9 and i'm not talking about the facelifted model either. Forza now with a download pack has the Virage, a car that is around 6 years newer. And unlike GT Forza makes do with a Honda S2000. GT has about 50 different versions of the car that all look the same and have the same power and torque figures. The other thing is that you can only get detailed interiors of 200 of GTs lineup, the other 800 all look like cardboard cutouts which is, I admit, better than the nothingness you got beforehand. In Forza you have to make do with complete interior views of all the cars, shame don't you think? In other words, in car terms Forza kicks GT in the nuts and kicks GT when it's cowering on the floor.
So let's look at the tracks. GT has all the usual lineup of it's own tracks, some of which are good, some aren't. It also has some real tracks and the only ones unique to GT are Fuji Speedway and Monza, or so I think. Forza has it's made up ones, all of which are very good. And the real tracks that are unique to it are Catalunya, Hockenheimring, Silverstone, Sedona, Road Atlanta, Road America and Mugello. It also has all the layouts of the Top Gear test track rather than just the one. In terms of tracks then Forza smashes GTs face off!
The next thing to look at is graphics. What does it all look like? Well thanks to a new lighting system called something like image based lighting every thing in the environment lights up the car. So if you park your car on a field and take a picture of it the individual blades of grass reflect on the underbody of your car. The very fact that it's capable of doing individual blades of grass should give you an idea of Forzas graphical capabilities. They are in short, f****** fantastic. GTs were good but once again it seems as though GT is being slapped around the room.
So how about what it feels like when you start driving somwhere? Again it is nothing less than astounding. You don't get any of GTs thoroughly annoying understeer and instead a car that turns in keenly in real life does so in the game. The Ferrari 458 Italia for example dives into corners with a heck of a lot more urgency than, say, a American Muscle car from the 60s. The cars also duck, dive and squirm under braking which makes you feel on the edge. Putting down a lot of power in a corner will result in a big slide and it's possible to make a car go light over a crest. To be honest this cars handling system is so in depth it's really hard to give a proper impression in words of just how far above the competition it really is. Let me say that it repeatedly stabs GT in the chest.
Sounds is up next. In Forza they are simply awesome and in GT they simply aren't that. A Ferrari in GT sounds like a washing machine on the spin cycle and in Forza it sounds like a Ferrari. What next? Oh yeah Forza has this thing called Autovista wihch allows you to explore a car in detail and scrutinise every part of it. I suspect it was put in to show off the new graphics model. In Autovista you can also listen to commentary from Top Gears Jeremy Clarkson. The only downside to Autovista is that only a handful of cars are available and one of them is the Warthog from Halo!
Forza has often been renowned for its paint tool, which I can report returns and is veru intuitive. I don't use it much myself but it is very intuitive. Top Gears involvemnt in the game goes further than just the track and some commentary I might add. They've helped when asked give stats about cars so they can be better represented against each other and have helped create game modes. Modes like car bowling and car football have become personnal favourites of mine.
OK then some niggles. There aren't any major ones if I'm honest. No F1 cars is a slight downside as GT does have two Ferraris from 2007 and 2010. I'm actually struggling like hell to think of something here. Oh I suppose it would be nice if the cars won and raced against in World Tour mode would be standard and not automatically tuned. And that's that.
I have missed some stuff out here but I'm cutting this review short because it's going on for ages. In summary I can tell you that Turn 10 have been just a little bit rude to release a game this good. If Gran Turismo used to be the real driving simulator it most certainly isn't anymore! Would I recommend you buy this game? Yes I would, in fact I order you to buy it. Score? 10 out of 5. I really can't tell you just how much of a leap forward this game is.
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