“Auto racing began five minutes after the second car was built.” ~ Henry Ford
Racing has always been a bit of a funny genre for me, as titles in this genre are mostly miss, while the occasional title goes way beyond hit and well and truly takes over my brain until I’m dreaming about tuning, upgrading and racing speed machines around some of the finest temples to motorsport on earth (proper race circuits, not boring street circuits like in Formula One!)
Modern racing games tend toward the extreme sports side and seem to have been doing so for a long time now, putting arcade action and flashy “you’re an influencer now!” pop culture overlays at the forefront of the experience. While it seems that a great many gamers love the Forza Horizon approach to racing, it just wasn’t for me. I enjoy a good racing sim, with a robust career mode, lots of cars and (real) upgrades and, of course, a fun yet realistic experience once out on the track. I don’t want to be driving 200mph through a field in some overly souped-up Koenigsegg, thank you. I’d rather be mastering the tricky “Corkscrew” corner at Laguna Seca raceway, behind the wheel of a sensibly tuned Ford Mustang.
There is a catch though – it has to be accessible because I’m not actually very good at racing games!
It is with these caveats that I roll into Forza Motorsport, the new Xbox (and PC) exclusive racing game from Turn 10. Like its rival Gran Turismo, Forza has been around for a long time, debuting back on the original Xbox in 2005 and seeing many sequels across the 360, One and Series X/S. In 2012 the series split into two, the traditionally sim-racing Motorsport and the arcadey Horizon. The latter drew in a great many new fans, who were looking for spectacle over realism and enjoyed the more pick-up-and-play approach to racing.
All of this brings us to 2023’s new entry into the Motorsport side of things and, while it hasn’t the most original name (it’s literally the same as the original) it does still promise to bring a lot to the series. But does it though, really?
Let’s find out if Forza Motorsport is sitting atop the podium chugging champagne, or if it has crashed into the barriers, watching all of the other racing games pass by to victory.
To begin with, let’s talk about those visuals, shall we? The Forza series has always been well-known for its good looks and this latest edition is certainly no slouch, utilising my Series X’s hardware and (admittedly a little old now) 4k TV to deliver some crisp, vibrant sights. The tracks and surrounding environments really do look amazing, with a decent amount of detail in everything that can be observed. The opening montage whenever you load into a circuit shows this off and it even looks pretty when you’re storming through it at 200mph thanks to some tasty motion blurring that doesn’t overdo it.
The cars themselves are the real visual stars though. Each one of them has been modelled with impressive attention to detail; they are sufficiently textured and even have fully rendered interiors for when you choose to use the cockpit view. The really beefy machines even belch fire out of the exhausts and the wall of smoke they leave when all grip is lost and they go sliding off into the gravel is impressive to see.
A final point to mention with visuals here is the weather. Forza Motorsport has random weather patterns that can change mid-race. So sunlight can be bathing the track one moment, then the next you’re storming through a filter of heavy rain hitting the screen, water spray following the cars like a glorious 4k comet tail. Throw in a highly detailed day/night cycle (those car headlights look stunning as they whir around the track) and you’d struggle to find a better-looking car racer out there.
But what are fancy visuals without a good audio package to back it up? Well, Turn 10 has clearly been posed such a question, as Forza Motorsport has some good noises on offer here. While I could go on about the sounds of the crowd as you hammer through that final bend, the roar of air guns as your pit crew swap out your tires or the instantly recognisable squeal of said rubber car parts as a ton of steel drifts out of a corner, that isn’t what a racing game is really here for, is it? No, we’re here for those engine sounds, aren’t we? Well thankfully Forza delivers here too, which is just as well as otherwise it would be like Doom without the gun sounds or Sonic the Hedgehog 2 without its amazing soundtrack! Each machine has its distinct sound, and even then, many different variants can be heard to you swap parts in and out and perform tunes and upgrades. My Mustang ended up sounding like it was giggling every time I accelerated – no idea how I made that happen, but it was cool!
The final notable point here is that the menus of this title have a soundtrack, but the actual races do not, removing the flowing, atmospheric (and, if I’m being honest, totally forgettable) music so you can get fully immersed in the soundscape of the racing. And yes, I know racers don’t need a strong score, but past games have had them and been all the better for it, just ask Ridge Racer Type 4!
Gameplay-wise, Forza Motorsport is something of a mixed bag. Unless you intend to play online a lot, there just isn’t a whole lot to do at launch. The career mode features a few different championships, but the only thing separating them is the circuits you race on and the types of machines you are allowed to use. Rewards are very sparse this time around, only unlocking cars by making it to the very end of a series (25-ish races worth of effort netted me a particularly beautiful Ford GT 2017, but it didn’t feel worthwhile for all the effort I put in).
But it’s not all doom and gloom on the gameplay front. The actual racing is tight and handles perfectly, cars feel responsive, and you can feel every change you make, be it a complete engine changeout, better tires or even just a tweak to the gearbox or differential. Customisation plays a huge part too, if you leave your car as its default, straight out of the showroom self then you won’t be winning much, you’ll need to invest in upgrades to beef up the power, handling and braking of your ride to stay at the pointy end of the grid. It’s here that Forza Motorsport makes perhaps its biggest departure from traditional racing formulae – upgrades don’t cost cash, instead, they are purchased with a separate currency that is earned by simply putting miles on the car you wish to upgrade.
I’ve heard a few reviews from others suggesting that this system is a misstep, forcing players to waste time essentially grinding with a certain car just to be able to upgrade it – but I find this quite an agreeable setup. By forcing players to use their machine to earn upgrades it essentially serves as good practise and lets you get to grips with the machine, better appreciating (and driving) it by the time it’s levelled to your liking. The best example would be the Mustang I mentioned earlier, this was the basic car that you are given at the start of the game, so to begin with it’s no mean machine. But after a few sessions using it, it was an absolute comet, barely tame enough to keep on track if not for the skills I’d picked up using it.
The final thread in this car upgrading system is tuning. You can throw all kinds of insane parts under the hood but, unless you adjust and keep everything in check, that car is going to buck like a Bronco. Certain car parts – race suspension and gears, for example – unlock menus where you can make minute changes to the vehicle. For example, the suspension will allow you to raise or lower the car’s springs to your heart’s desire and race tires will unlock the use of different rubber compounds, such as special wet tires for driving in rain or soft ones that wear out faster but provide superior grip. These are just two examples of how part upgrades and fine-tuning go hand in hand.
So, if hundreds of cars make up the largest slice of the game, the tracks make up the rest. Forza has a good few to choose from too, be they classic series raceways like Maple Valley, or famous ones like Suzuka, Laguna Seca, Silverstone and the mighty Spa Francochamps. Each track has several variants too, which makes for a lot of different variables. Throw in random weather patterns and a night to day cycle and Forza has plenty to give here. Each track also has a clearly marked pit lane, so you nip in for new tires or to have that damage fixed that you took fighting through the first bend, should you need to. The only surprising omission is the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife, the deadly track features in all of the best racers and is suspicious by its absence here. It’s like having a Mario Kart game without featuring the Rainbow Road!
The final point to consider in Forza Motorsport is that the whole experience is very scalable. If you wish to blast through a few races then you can do that, if you want to turn off damage, tire wear and fuel consumption, go for it. Or would you rather set up a monster twenty-five lap stormer of a race around Suzuka, keeping an eye on your petrol and rubber situation and working out pit strategies to get you out in front? Hey, this game has you covered!
A final warning here though, before we cross the finish line: Forza Motorsport is, at the time of writing, still being worked on. While it’s cool that Turn 10 is adding new tracks and cars all the time, they are also having to spend time chasing down and squashing bugs too. I’ve had a load of hangups and crashes in my 35 hours with the game so far, so beware of this!
It’s been nice to return to the petrol-fume-addled world of Forza after so many years, and Motorsport is a strong addition to the series, trying some new ideas and providing a solid, gorgeous-looking and sounding experience that is marred by some glitches and crashes, as well as a pretty mundane career mode. If you like the driving simulation experience, collecting lovely cars and bombing around famous circuits, however, there is still plenty to enjoy. Overall Turn 10’s Gran Turismo rival still has the moves, though I’m hoping that future updates flesh things out a little further.
PIXEL PERFECT
Recommended
Craig “Bizarro” Rathbone is a writer from the Northwest of England, nestled in the rainy countryside. He writes short stories and posts for his blog and found his love for writing on this very site. He’s still going on about Cyberpunk 2077 to this day though, and may never stop.
