Forza Motorsport 4

Forza Motorsport 4 – Review

Published By: Microsoft Games Studios, Developed By: Turn 10, Genre: Driving, Release Date: Oct 11, 2011, Rating: E, Systems: Xbox 360.

Presentation: Upon release Forza 4 and Kinect were suppose to revolutionize the driving genre with its hands-free gaming. In other words it was suppose to be the main draw of Forza 4 and the main show if you will. Well as it turns out from using my Kinect with Forza 4 its more of a watered-down sideshow than a main attraction. Sure you can examine cars from the inside and out in Autovista mode with Kinect. You can also race hands free with head tracking enabled. At first it was pretty neat to put your hands at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock as if you’re holding a racing wheel to steer. It was neat to turn my head and see it reflect on the screen. However after one race, i literally felt like Kinect was tacked on and didn’t look back. I was done with Kinect with Forza 4. Besides you can do everything that Kinect does much easier with a gamepad. Navigating menus with Kinect was decent.

Forza 4 is a robust driving game. This time around Turn 10 added a few new tracks including the famous Top Gear 1 mile long track, Ingineon Raceway, Hockenheimring and Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a fictional track in the Bernese Alps. There are over five hundred cars with not one manufacture that makes up the bulk of the number. You won’t see over one-hundred Nissans in Forza 4. Rivals is a new multiplayer mode that takes some aspects from Autolog via Need For Speed games. In Rivals you can compete against friends or stranger’s ghost cars. Types of races include Top Gear Rivals, Autocross, Open Time Attack and Track Days. You can also except spontaneous Rival Challenges.

Autovista is a virtual garage mode i like to call it. Narrated by Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame. While in Autovista you can inspect some of the world’s most exquisite automobiles in fine detail. Expecting motors, interiors while starting up the engine was visceral.  The history and stats of each Autovista car is explained by Jeremy Clarkson as your checking things out. They-re only a select handful of cars for Autovista in Forza 4. You can unlock more vehicles like the Halo Warthog (not driveable) by completing Challenges with cars. The challenges are mostly you using a fast car to past a bunch of slower ones.  You can’t talk about Froza 4′s presentation without talking about the AI and physics. Afterall this is a driving game and its very important.

First off i did experience some weird physics mostly having to do with car hitting a barrier at high speed and flipping over instantly. The AI counterparts sometimes drive eradic when i used the Rewind Feature often times crossing into me erratically. I seen cars ahead of me magically drop out of a race when they ran into a barrier as if they were not looking where they were going. There are many difficulties to choose from including Easy, Medium, Advanced and Expert. Braking, stability control, traction control, shifting and suggested line are all adjusted accordingly. You can custom adjust any one trait if you want. I played at medium which was easier than i expected. Even as i made my way into the more challenging events Medium added alote of  ”help”.

Visuals: It looks better than the last game thanks to the new lighting engine. The cars have a semi photorealistic look in Forza 4. Details are in the pudding and as they say. You can see sun glare bouncing off your hood and windshield. Cars do look and sound better in Autovista mode but that is expected. For a game that features 16 car races and split screen Forza 4 performs and runs buttersmooth at all times. I never got tired of looking at cars and the tracks in this game. Sure you can spot faulty blurry textures on cars and see a 2D tree in the background but it doesn’t take away from the entire package regarding the game’s visuals. I can’t say Forza 4 is the best looking driving game my vote still goes to Gran Turismo 5. I will give second place to Forza 4 which isn’t chopped liver.

Sound: Turn 10 outdid themselves recreating car’s sounds. The exhaust tunes and motor at times had me thinking the car was real. While in Autovista nothing was better than listening to a car start-up. The latter sounded like your really inside a car and the motor sound real. So kudos to the sound design in Forza 4 as it was impressive. As far as the music go in-game its ok. Its mostly fast beats and techno stuff.

Gameplay: Forza 4 initially granted me a car and credits from Forza 3. I received 13,000 credits and a Fiat Aberth 500. When you first start playing Forza 4 your gonna spend most of your time in the Play Career section which is like a single player RPG for your career. There you will level up in XP, earn credits, unlock new cars, earn badges, gain affinity bonuses and learn how to play.  You start out playing the Clubsman series then Sports Man then Semi-Pro series etc. Each series has ten separate races that range from one on one cat and mouse chases to full 16 car races on big tracks. Each time you gain a level you can unlock different class cars from S, A,D and C ranks. I never felt like i had to go out and use Microsoft Points to buy tokens to buy a supercar.

You win plenty of cars to use for these events. As you make it up the ranks in the world tour your going to have to upgrade and modify your car to compete. Adjusting suspension, brakes, gearing and tire pressure helps alote. Buying weight reductions, engine upgrades can and will raise your car Class level so keep track of the numbers. Lets say your car is a Class A 599. If you mod it to 600 its now a Class S car and your competition will be tougher. There are so many upgrades you can do to all of the cars. You can pay nothing by earning Affinity points by using a specific manufacture for races over and over. Who doesn’t like free parts? For the most part each event depends on the car you pick, Sometimes you will have to switch your car but not often.

Replayability: The Career Mode in Forza 4 is robust let alone the the Multiplayer. Turn 10 made sure thye wanted you to stay busy with this game. Lets start with DLC. You have The November Speed Pack, December IGN Pack, January Jalopnik Pack and Free Hyundai Veloster Bonus Pack. There is a February Pack but i forget its name atm. There is a Season Pass if you want to save some money on all of Forza 4′s DLC. The multiplayer side of things was deep as well fun with many gamemodes and daily credit bonuses keeps you logging in. In multiplayer you can access your club where you share a garage with freinds full of great cars.  Race modes online included: Rivals,The Playground, Drift, Drag, Turn 10 Select and Circuit. Each category has a deep list of different types of races to take your skills online to. I personally really enjoyed the online for Forza 4. As far as replayability goes you can play this agme everyday till Forza 5 releases.

Final Verdict: I can’t compare Forza 4 to its past games much since i really didn’t spend alote of time with them. As far as Forza 4 goes, its a great driving game. The physics and AI could be better but what it does do great outweighs all of the negatives. You have a great library of diverse cars. You have alote of replayability. And most important the game is just fun to play and addicting. Thanks for reading.

8.5/10

Forza Motorsport 4: American Le Mans Car Pack DLC – Trailer

Here is the next in line of monthly DLC packs for Forza Motorsport 4 titled American Le Mans Car Pack. To make a long story short the video below shows ten new cars that we will never get to own or drive. This particular Forza 4 DLC drops next week February 7. I’m still in the process of playing Forza 4 for review. However i wished i bought that Season Pass when it released months ago as it would’ve saved me some money already. One thing Turn 10 does is support they’re games as evidenced by the monthly DLC packs. Thanks GamerSpawn.

Forza Motorsport 4 – Multiplayer Impressions

Forza Motorsport 4 is the grandest of all driving games available on the Xbox 360. Its deep, beautiful and has a multiplayer gamers need to check out if they haven’t already. This particular article will focus on my recent experiences regarding Forza Motorsport 4′s multiplayer. For the record i have played Foza 3′s multiplayer which was fun. I do believe Forza 4 upped the ante regarding multiplayer due to the increase driver count per match and new exciting gamemodes such as The Playground: Tag (Virus). Forza Motorsport 4 is a driving game developed by Turn 10 and published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. It released October 11, 2011.

The Community Menu houses all of the multiplayer menus for Forza 4. Its basically where you want to hang out if your playing online all day. Main submenus include: Race Online, My Club, Rivals, Leaderboards, Auction House, Storefront, My Profile, Message Center. At the bottom of the screen you can see Top Features, News Feeds, File Depot, Rivals Alerts and Car Club HQ. One thing Forza 4′s community especially Turn 10 manages to do is make you feel good by giving you free stuff. For example, just by logging into multiplayer i received a Daily Credit Bonus of 2,416. Thats not all, Turn 10 Community  also “gift” me a DB5 Vantage (James Bond old school).  ”My Profile” section of Forza 4 has all of your personal online info. Edit Playercard (can net you an achievement by setting it up), My Stats, Affinity, Media, Options and Team Credits. The Clubs section lets you create car clubs for multiplayer. Add players and give them access to your garage of cars to use (for all club members).  Its also where you can set up to compete against other car clubs.

The Rivals section has Monthly, Top Gear, Hot Laps sections you can try your hand at. Most of your time will be spent in the Race Online section of the Community Menu. Menus here include: Find Race, Create Race and Invite Friends. Find Race is where i started and has the following sub menus: Quick Match, Turn 10 Select, Circuit, Multi Class Circuit, Drift, Motorsports, The Playground, User Created Races. Turn 10 Select: Cycled Production, November Speed Pack, Ferrari Showcase, 5 on 5 Soccer. Multi Class Circuit: A and E, The A B Cs, Forza Le Mans, S and D. Drift: Unlimited Drift and Unlimited Drift RWD. Motorsports: American Muscle Drag, B Class Time Attack, RWD Unlimited Drag American, Stock Car, RWD- Unlimited Drag, Stock Car Unlimited Drag. The Playground: Tag (Virus), Cat and Mouse, Keep The It, Soccer, User Generated Races. That about covers all of Forza Motorsport 4′s online gamemodes.

The first match i played was a Circuit Race. I picked the Saleen S7R. I don’t remember the track honestly other than the fact it was a huge track and it took forver to complete five laps. The host of the race didn’t even compete. Since it was just the two of us he figured he would let me race alone until the next match filled up with gamers. I did end up winning the match. Gained 17,000 XP which boosted me to level 3 or Driver License D status. I was also awarded level 1 Affinity award and a level 2 Affinity award from Saleen and 2000 extra credits to spend.

The second section i visited was Drag. I figured i did drag racing in reallife so a videogame shouldn’t be a problem, wrong! I picked an old school ZR1 Vette. The problem at the time for me was that you can only modify cars you buy or win. I didn’t have a suitable car so i had to pick a car with stock tires, gearing and suspension. In other words, the cars were not set up for drag racing, they were just stock muscle cars basically. In every heat i got spanked by other gamers online by about 3 seconds in the 1/4 mile. It was fun still and quite addicting. I kept playing over and over. You can only quit a match after a race and you better be fast when you do it. Next time i play Drag i’m buying a car and modifying it specifically just for drag racing.

The Playground is a fun area of Forza 4′s multiplayer if you just want to act like kids and play around on tracks. I played Tag which was fun. It says “You are it” on the screen when your it. I was driving the wrong direction trying to tag other drivers. Everybody had mics and was having fun. One thing i want to make clear. If you want to level up fast i would play multiplayer for XP. Its fun and there are many ways of scoring huge amounts. Forza 4′s community is pretty big as it should be. Many people have mics. Afterall what other driving game does the Xbox 360 have similar to Forza 4?

Forza Motorsport 4′s multiplayer is addictive with interesting and fun gamemodes. Its also good for leveling up and learning how to drive. Thanks for reading.