If you like racers this one's a keeper. I was a fan of Project Gotham and I think this game is even better and strangely it seems easier to play. It's got tons of depth yet is easily accessible. I spent an hour last night tuning an RX-7 to my liking and then another hour just screwing around with custom paint and vinyls for it. Yet you can easily pick the game up and get in one or two races in about 10 minutes if you don't have much time to play.
You would do that in Arcade Mode which lets you pick from a list of available racetracks and then choose your car either from a list of standard vehicles or your own personal garage from your career mode. Every car is ranked by class and you will only race against other cars of similar rank. As you play through the Arcade Mode new races and vehicles are unlocked.
The career mode is the real meat and potatoes of the game. To begin with you pick your region either Asia, North America, or Europe and buy your first car. The region determines which cars are available for you to buy at the start of the game and what discounts you will get later on in the game as well as the cost of the cars you can buy. Eventually all cars will be available to you but cars from different regions than yours will cost more for you than people from other regions. So, now that you have your first car you'll probably want to start racing right away and making some money right? Well, if you go and adjust the difficulty settings you'll have the potential to make twice as much money as you would on the default settings. You can adjust the computer AI, damage settings, racing line assist, and several other driving assists. Each setting you modify impacts the amount of money you can potentially earn either negatively or positively so with all settings at their hardest you earn 200% your potential at their default settings.
Career mode progresses in a fairly standard format especially if you're familiar with the Gran Turismo series. You start with your first car which is eligible for low level races and earn money to either buy new cars or upgrade the ones you have.
There are tons of different races you can enter which are divided into series of anywhere from two to five or more races in each series. The different series of races will all there own restrictions and guidelines for entering. In general there are limitations on car class, horsepower, front vs rear wheel drive vehicles and many more. Some of the more interesting race series are challenges between different vehicle models i.e. Integra vs Celica or Mustang vs Camaro. There are many more and these are just examples but as you progress through your career and earn more money you will gain levels which will in turn open new race events to you. In order to enter all the different race events you will have to have a fairly diverse collection of cars by the end of the game.
If you're really into collecting the different cars you might want to get with a friend and intentionally pick different regions so that you can buy cars for each other at the discounted prices. Yes, you can buy/sell/trade cars you own with others online. And if cheating is more your style there are plenty of exploits in the game which will allow you to make a TON of money in a relatively short amount of time. STOOPID CHEATERS.
Another neat feature in the career mode is the Drivatar system. You can train an AI controlled driver to drive like you. The way this works is you drive over several different tracks and the game learns your driving tendancies. Every turn you take the game rates you on and over time you are given a specific rating on a scale of 1 to 100 for every different type of turn. You can drive the different courses over and over trying to improve your ratings and when you are ready you can unleash your drivatar and let him enter races for you and earn you some money.
As far as gameplay goes the physics engine is nice and the controls feel appropriately responsive (I use the S-controller). You can really tell a difference between the way different cars handle and even minor tuning on a single vehicle will have subtle yet noticeable effects on the way it performs. The game has a complete set of upgrade and tuning features that let you get as in depth as you want and is similar to the GT series. If you aren't a great driver, don't really understand proper racing techniques or simply don't want to be bothered with memorizing every turn and every hill in the game you can toggle on the in game racing line to guide you through the tracks.
The racing line works as a dynamic aid that shows you the suggested line through the course and tells you whether you should be on the breaks or the gas or somewhere in between. The great thing about the racing line is it's fluid nature. It reacts to your current vehicle and speed and constantly changes to reflect your current situation. Going into that hairpin a bit too fast? The racing line turns red telling you to break and if you break too much it will turn green telling you to get on the gas pokey.
I love the fact that the cars take damage and that damage effects the handling and overall aerodynamics of the car your in (this is a simulation after all). Somewhat minor damage to the body of your car will start lowering your overall top speed due to decreased aerodynamics.
And if you bang into a wall really hard you might just tweak your drivetrain and you'll feel your car pulling to one side or the other. So if your playing with guys online that want to play bumper cars, just hang back and let them do their thing and before you know it you'll be cruising by their jacked up rides with ease. If that sounds intimidating to you its always an option to switch damage to the cosmetic setting so that it doesn't actually have any effect on your car's performance.
Speaking of playing online, I haven't fully delved into the online experience yet but what I have experienced tells me that you will probably want to stick to playing with your friends if you aren't a fan of random Xbox Live encounters what with all the idiots and midgets and idiot midgets online. It's got the standard optimatch/quickmatch system found in most Live enabled games. The basic experience online goes something like this: [1]find a game using search engine or join a friend, [2]sit in lobby and wait for current race to finish (you can chat with others in the lobby and see where the racers are on a map of the current track but you can't actually watch them race), [3]once current race is finished and everyone is in the room you talk smack, pick cars, and wait for the host to setup the next game, [4]begin next race, [5]wash, rinse, repeat. I've heard that if the host leaves the game a new host will be picked automatically much like Halo2 but I haven't actually seen that in practice. Because this game is Live aware you can always keep track of your friends list and more importantly every track you race on has it’s own real time scoreboard. So after each race you can see exactly where you stand among the rest of the world’s Forza elite. Hopefully not at the bottom like me .
It doesn’t hurt that the game looks and sounds great and overall I’d highly recommend this game to any racing fan. Join the 2Old2Furious racing club and get ready to Rock the Clit!
- Guapito
The career mode is the real meat and potatoes of the game. To begin with you pick your region either Asia, North America, or Europe and buy your first car. The region determines which cars are available for you to buy at the start of the game and what discounts you will get later on in the game as well as the cost of the cars you can buy. Eventually all cars will be available to you but cars from different regions than yours will cost more for you than people from other regions. So, now that you have your first car you'll probably want to start racing right away and making some money right? Well, if you go and adjust the difficulty settings you'll have the potential to make twice as much money as you would on the default settings. You can adjust the computer AI, damage settings, racing line assist, and several other driving assists. Each setting you modify impacts the amount of money you can potentially earn either negatively or positively so with all settings at their hardest you earn 200% your potential at their default settings.
Career mode progresses in a fairly standard format especially if you're familiar with the Gran Turismo series. You start with your first car which is eligible for low level races and earn money to either buy new cars or upgrade the ones you have.
If you're really into collecting the different cars you might want to get with a friend and intentionally pick different regions so that you can buy cars for each other at the discounted prices. Yes, you can buy/sell/trade cars you own with others online. And if cheating is more your style there are plenty of exploits in the game which will allow you to make a TON of money in a relatively short amount of time. STOOPID CHEATERS.
Another neat feature in the career mode is the Drivatar system. You can train an AI controlled driver to drive like you. The way this works is you drive over several different tracks and the game learns your driving tendancies. Every turn you take the game rates you on and over time you are given a specific rating on a scale of 1 to 100 for every different type of turn. You can drive the different courses over and over trying to improve your ratings and when you are ready you can unleash your drivatar and let him enter races for you and earn you some money.
As far as gameplay goes the physics engine is nice and the controls feel appropriately responsive (I use the S-controller). You can really tell a difference between the way different cars handle and even minor tuning on a single vehicle will have subtle yet noticeable effects on the way it performs. The game has a complete set of upgrade and tuning features that let you get as in depth as you want and is similar to the GT series. If you aren't a great driver, don't really understand proper racing techniques or simply don't want to be bothered with memorizing every turn and every hill in the game you can toggle on the in game racing line to guide you through the tracks.
The racing line works as a dynamic aid that shows you the suggested line through the course and tells you whether you should be on the breaks or the gas or somewhere in between. The great thing about the racing line is it's fluid nature. It reacts to your current vehicle and speed and constantly changes to reflect your current situation. Going into that hairpin a bit too fast? The racing line turns red telling you to break and if you break too much it will turn green telling you to get on the gas pokey.
I love the fact that the cars take damage and that damage effects the handling and overall aerodynamics of the car your in (this is a simulation after all). Somewhat minor damage to the body of your car will start lowering your overall top speed due to decreased aerodynamics.
Speaking of playing online, I haven't fully delved into the online experience yet but what I have experienced tells me that you will probably want to stick to playing with your friends if you aren't a fan of random Xbox Live encounters what with all the idiots and midgets and idiot midgets online. It's got the standard optimatch/quickmatch system found in most Live enabled games. The basic experience online goes something like this: [1]find a game using search engine or join a friend, [2]sit in lobby and wait for current race to finish (you can chat with others in the lobby and see where the racers are on a map of the current track but you can't actually watch them race), [3]once current race is finished and everyone is in the room you talk smack, pick cars, and wait for the host to setup the next game, [4]begin next race, [5]wash, rinse, repeat. I've heard that if the host leaves the game a new host will be picked automatically much like Halo2 but I haven't actually seen that in practice. Because this game is Live aware you can always keep track of your friends list and more importantly every track you race on has it’s own real time scoreboard. So after each race you can see exactly where you stand among the rest of the world’s Forza elite. Hopefully not at the bottom like me .
It doesn’t hurt that the game looks and sounds great and overall I’d highly recommend this game to any racing fan. Join the 2Old2Furious racing club and get ready to Rock the Clit!
- Guapito
