Forza Motorsport 5
Developer: Turn 10 Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: 22/11/2013
Format: XboxOne
Forza is the pin-up equivalent of a guilty pleasure. What? You don’t believe me? Sounds like you’re all in denial. Don’t tell me the awesome drones of a McLaren P1 don’t send your skeletal muscles asunder. You know those sparks that grind off the slightest contact with Indianapolis’ rock stiff white wall makes your nostril hairs stand like joyous puppy dogs. Forza 5 looks like a bag of skittles too with everything but a rainbow to marvel at.
Like all good things though, visual quality doesn’t measure up if the core isn’t profoundly stable. This is where Forza stops being a unicorn in a mystical heavenly utopia, and starts feeling like deja vu. You’ll uncover this sense once you’ve happened upon Yas Marina more times than displayed in the recurring dreams of Kimi Raikkonen when he won there in 2012.
As is the case with previous entries, Turn 10 packs in all the gloss, which crystallised the magnificent FORZA Motorsport 4. That means an expansive career, which feels like a machine guns clip full of races with no excitement gleaned towards them. One race follows another and another. Luckily, the reason why 4 wasn’t repetitive justifies why 5 isn’t either. Challenges on the Top Gear test track return with Car Bowling being a distinctive pleasure, and a race variant where you reak vehicular havoc on London landmark cutouts. Oh! And you can race The Stig’s prototype as well. This sounds all great and fun in theory, but in practise it further demonstrates that the launch flu many games suffer from, still poison FM5. Where are the new event types? The excitement, which stems from racing on a next generation machine? It soon turns stale and by the numbers when the track-list is smaller than Vergne Troyer. Maybe this could all be forgiven if there was a spark that gave it some personality, but Forza 5 is mechanical in personality despite the presence of Clarkson, May and Hammond.
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: 22/11/2013
Format: XboxOne
Forza is the pin-up equivalent of a guilty pleasure. What? You don’t believe me? Sounds like you’re all in denial. Don’t tell me the awesome drones of a McLaren P1 don’t send your skeletal muscles asunder. You know those sparks that grind off the slightest contact with Indianapolis’ rock stiff white wall makes your nostril hairs stand like joyous puppy dogs. Forza 5 looks like a bag of skittles too with everything but a rainbow to marvel at.
Like all good things though, visual quality doesn’t measure up if the core isn’t profoundly stable. This is where Forza stops being a unicorn in a mystical heavenly utopia, and starts feeling like deja vu. You’ll uncover this sense once you’ve happened upon Yas Marina more times than displayed in the recurring dreams of Kimi Raikkonen when he won there in 2012.
As is the case with previous entries, Turn 10 packs in all the gloss, which crystallised the magnificent FORZA Motorsport 4. That means an expansive career, which feels like a machine guns clip full of races with no excitement gleaned towards them. One race follows another and another. Luckily, the reason why 4 wasn’t repetitive justifies why 5 isn’t either. Challenges on the Top Gear test track return with Car Bowling being a distinctive pleasure, and a race variant where you reak vehicular havoc on London landmark cutouts. Oh! And you can race The Stig’s prototype as well. This sounds all great and fun in theory, but in practise it further demonstrates that the launch flu many games suffer from, still poison FM5. Where are the new event types? The excitement, which stems from racing on a next generation machine? It soon turns stale and by the numbers when the track-list is smaller than Vergne Troyer. Maybe this could all be forgiven if there was a spark that gave it some personality, but Forza 5 is mechanical in personality despite the presence of Clarkson, May and Hammond.
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In its favour though, FORZA continues to be a satisfying driving game. Each car handles distinctly and the interiors are excruciatingly detailed. The finesse required to weave through tricky corners like the corkscrew at turn 8 of Laguna Seca, prove that FM5 is as much about precision as it is about accessibility. Speaking of which, there are a handful of driving aids to make you feel like you’re being dragged through a busy supermarket by your mum. Though these are much appreciated for the neophyte petrol heads, Forza continues to be too lenient on the player, making them race on any difficulty they desire. It would have been nice if the challenge had progressed in difficulty, so you felt like the career wasn’t just a marginal stepping-stone to unlocking a boatload of achievements. Another issue with the career is that you always start small and progress to bigger and better machines. What’s wrong with being able to acquire that hot as heaven indycar and drive it in the career after a couple of series? It’s great to have a racing game that is tailored towards the player, but do you really want to grind for the coolest automotive? Credits are generously earned, especially if you crank up the difficulty, making the purchasing of vehicles a lot less of a hassle than in other racing games.
AutoVista returns, further elaborating on the articulation of the structural beauty of these four-wheeled leviathans. You can step in each car, open and close each limb to your erotic desire, and you can listen to historical audio information and the design minutia. This is another example of Forza 5 enlarging an existing foundation, but every car adoring XBOX ONE owner will be panting like a trusting German Shepherd once they get to fiddle with all the exteriors and interiors as if they were a toddler playing with stickle bricks.
Adding to the visual spectacle is the ability to select liveries for any vehicle you purchase, as part of the vast online community features. You can customise and make your own liveries to share with the world, which is an expected feature in this new generation. Another neat inclusion is the Drivatars. These are AI that communicate with the behaviours of real life FORZA Motorsport players, or more overtly- people on your friends list. This should be celebrated as a glimpse into a magic frock of how AI is becoming integrated with the modern age of social communication- though it seems like FORZA 5 has just scratched the surface here. Less welcoming are the constant comparisons of your lap times on a global scale. If you want to be competitive, then hooray for you, but everyone else shouldn’t have to be measured up if they aren’t in the spirit of global bragging rights.
The multiplayer is a seamless time sink, as is the case when you are up against 15 other drivers from around the world. You can choose from any of the available class types, and rent or purchase vehicles essential to doing well in each event. Matches are easily set up, and you’ll find yourself connected in minutes. There is sometimes a jolt of lag, that can irritatingly hurl you off course, but the stability is certainly respectable. It’s also good to know that you have a chance of doing very well, if you have a rig worthy of competing in the class set for multiplayer races.
AutoVista returns, further elaborating on the articulation of the structural beauty of these four-wheeled leviathans. You can step in each car, open and close each limb to your erotic desire, and you can listen to historical audio information and the design minutia. This is another example of Forza 5 enlarging an existing foundation, but every car adoring XBOX ONE owner will be panting like a trusting German Shepherd once they get to fiddle with all the exteriors and interiors as if they were a toddler playing with stickle bricks.
Adding to the visual spectacle is the ability to select liveries for any vehicle you purchase, as part of the vast online community features. You can customise and make your own liveries to share with the world, which is an expected feature in this new generation. Another neat inclusion is the Drivatars. These are AI that communicate with the behaviours of real life FORZA Motorsport players, or more overtly- people on your friends list. This should be celebrated as a glimpse into a magic frock of how AI is becoming integrated with the modern age of social communication- though it seems like FORZA 5 has just scratched the surface here. Less welcoming are the constant comparisons of your lap times on a global scale. If you want to be competitive, then hooray for you, but everyone else shouldn’t have to be measured up if they aren’t in the spirit of global bragging rights.
The multiplayer is a seamless time sink, as is the case when you are up against 15 other drivers from around the world. You can choose from any of the available class types, and rent or purchase vehicles essential to doing well in each event. Matches are easily set up, and you’ll find yourself connected in minutes. There is sometimes a jolt of lag, that can irritatingly hurl you off course, but the stability is certainly respectable. It’s also good to know that you have a chance of doing very well, if you have a rig worthy of competing in the class set for multiplayer races.
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Enough hasn’t been said about how monstrously gorgeous FORZA 5 really is. From the shadowing glimmers on the bodywork, to the scratches that look like someone has carved the paint with a breadknife, the details are as notable as ever. The tracks are scenic as well, with marbles littering the tracks- as obstacles for your tyres to battle with mid-race. A comprehensive damage model and diverse weather effects system still need to be updated in the new horizons of this generation- but visually it knocks out every other game on the XBOX ONE.
The sound design is rather hit and miss. The inclusion of the Top Gear cast deserves hearty thumbs up as always. And the engine sounds are incredibly angry and fuming in the way Turn 10 just nails. It’s just the music accompanying main menu screens, which is off putting. Sure, the majestic orchestra sounds nice, and presents the grandeur of motorsport. But it can often feel too over the top for a racing game designed for the thrills of driving. Last year’s FORZA Horizon managed to make racing feel like a club or a festival, which made the player feel like part of the scene. Here it takes itself too seriously to remain a competent audio experience.
To wrap things up, Forza Motorsport 5 is a good racing game. If you want a simulation racer on the XBOX ONE, there are few other options available at this point. Unfortunately this isn’t the new racing game many had hoped for. With a skinny track selection and a meagre car line-up compared with FORZA 4, there is no reason why you should pick this up over the latter. If you fancy a decent simulation racer with visually appealing aesthetics on a brand new console, dive right in and enjoy. For everybody else, the repetition and the feeling we’ve played this all before becomes too distracting. A few more years in development could have seen a true beast of a racing game, but instead it leaves you wanting much more variety and content.
James Davie 7/10
The sound design is rather hit and miss. The inclusion of the Top Gear cast deserves hearty thumbs up as always. And the engine sounds are incredibly angry and fuming in the way Turn 10 just nails. It’s just the music accompanying main menu screens, which is off putting. Sure, the majestic orchestra sounds nice, and presents the grandeur of motorsport. But it can often feel too over the top for a racing game designed for the thrills of driving. Last year’s FORZA Horizon managed to make racing feel like a club or a festival, which made the player feel like part of the scene. Here it takes itself too seriously to remain a competent audio experience.
To wrap things up, Forza Motorsport 5 is a good racing game. If you want a simulation racer on the XBOX ONE, there are few other options available at this point. Unfortunately this isn’t the new racing game many had hoped for. With a skinny track selection and a meagre car line-up compared with FORZA 4, there is no reason why you should pick this up over the latter. If you fancy a decent simulation racer with visually appealing aesthetics on a brand new console, dive right in and enjoy. For everybody else, the repetition and the feeling we’ve played this all before becomes too distracting. A few more years in development could have seen a true beast of a racing game, but instead it leaves you wanting much more variety and content.
James Davie 7/10
