Review: Forza Motorsport 4

It’s a feeling, much like everything in video games. It’s the speed of a jump, the time it takes for a character to change direction, the friction of moving, or the impact of shooting. Here, it’s the sense of speed; weight transferring back to front, side to side; and feeling where the edge of traction lies. Forza Motorsport 4 replicates this and all the relationships within: one and the car; one and the road; one versus another.

Forza Motorsport 4 (Xbox 360)
Developer: Turn 10 Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: October 11, 2011

However, some of this feeling is lost in translation to a steering wheel: the brake pedal input will fade as if loosing pressure, the game favors the center degrees of the wheel instead of being linear, and the inputs when counter-steering don’t seem to match output received. There is even an intermittent bug that is reportedly related to using a wheel where no credits or experience points are awarded after finishing a race. It adds a distinct disconnection to an otherwise great feeling game. Standard controllers work fine, though they lack the precision that is inherent to having a narrow range of motion.

For all of Forza’s generosity in helping players drive through numerous assists, it is a curiosity that the process of picking a car is still inefficient: test driving cars yet purchased is relegated to a separate mode, there is a lengthy track load, and to change cars is to experience the load again. Then comes making the car just right: tuning a car on the track is possible, changing things like tire pressure or spring rates, but the parts on the car can’t be changed without backing out to the main menu yet again. It is as if the race team had to drive home to change tire compounds rather than simply going into the pits.

It is in the tracks too, that a glaring issue arises: there is too much glare. The game readily blows the details in the bright values, making many things a wash of white. Beyond being unsightly and fatiguing on the eyes, it effects important elements like being able to see the apex of the final corner on Laguna Seca, or seeing the numbers on white braking signs. A new addition to the track list like Infineon Raceway is appreciated but the removal of the full length version of Sunday-morning-cruise-favorite Rally Di Positano is not—it was a beautifully twisting seven and a half mile long fantasy track set on the Italian coast that will be sorely missed.

The races on these tracks feature AI drivers that struggle to keep up; however, no AI has even been as good as another human opponent. Moving online brings about a different type of issue though—one with the community. There are some genuinely polite players who will apologize for bumping, but there are more of the other types: the ones who have numbers between 419 and 421 in their sTiCkYcApPeD names and enjoy giggling every time they intentionally cause a complete pile up in a corner; the ones who are just bad sports, people that would rather take you down with them like an aging soothsayer than to be cleanly passed on a straight.

The single player then becomes just a drive for driving sake, instead of being for competition. Driving for the feel of driving, or playing any video game for the inherent quality it contains, is the ultimate goal, after all. In Forza 4 though, complete satisfaction is beyond a looping series of obstacles. The wheel may not feel just right, but it becomes somewhat slight; finding a car and making it your own can be tedious, but that process doesn’t need much repeating; racing the AI is boringly static, but there is online play for drivers less apathetic; racing people online is more engaging, but then the bad sport stoners come in and cause the unraveling. The feeling is seemingly there but it is always fleeting.

Score: 64%