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Review: Forza 3
By Edge Staff
October 23, 2009
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FORZEFUL COMMUNITY
Criticise the game as much as you wish, but Forza Motorsport 2’s community remains unchallenged in its genre. Until now, presumably, because its successor continues the auction houses setup but in considerably improved fashion, with players able to showcase their content – cars, liveries, photos, videos – through individualised storefronts. And, as ever, the eight-car multiplayer racing comes complete with every game-setting option you could want for entirely personalised online encounters.
Format: 360
Release: Out now
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Turn 10
Screenshot gallery
How often can you reinvent the wheel? It’s a question videogame developers are more qualified than most to answer. Year after year, driving titles strive to overtake each other for the lead in a continually evolving genre. It’s an interminable race, although one that in recent times has felt like it’s approaching its closing stages. How much more intense can digital racing get than Race Driver Grid? How much prettier can things look than Gran Turismo 5 Prologue? How much more advanced a driving model can be squeezed on to a disc than the one found in Forza Motorsport 2?
In the latter’s case, it turns out there is room for more (provided you include a second ‘Content Install’ DVD in the final package). We could talk figures – not the 400 cars, 100 tracks, but the number-crunching going on beneath the pretty surface – yet that would distil Forza 3 into a cold, impersonal entity, something its predecessor has often been accused of. Far better to discuss how Turn 10’s latest effort makes you feel.
On-track, you find yourself engaged with a handling model that is noticeably more refined than Forza 2’s equivalent. And while you can try to pin down the differences – the utterly convincing behaviour of vehicles under braking, the increased feedback during understeer situations which conveys the point at which tyres regain their grip in one of the most intuitive manners yet – perhaps the biggest compliment you can throw Forza 3’s way is that never at any point does driving feel anything less than fabulous.
That sentiment carries through the rest of the game. The seven AI opponents behave themselves admirably for most of the time, fighting for and protecting positions in convincing fashion. Sometimes one will do something straight from the Jason Plato school of racing, but that adds character and you can’t help but admire its resolve – before hitting the rewind button.
Borrowed from Grid but, bravely, implemented without restriction here, in reality the ability to rewind and retry missed apices, overshot exits or overambitious braking points contributes to better driving. Meaning that, far from having to apply monk-like discipline, the longer you play, the less you come to rely on the option.
Additional welcome tinkering can be found in the inclusion of a narrator, a reworked Season mode that varies the choice of race series (cleverly broken up by ‘World Championship’ rounds) and, at last, an in-car view. Together with a stylishly revised presentation they work to imbue a more involving and much-needed personal touch than anything Forza 2 ever managed.
Grid still offers the most on-track excitement (and better car damage), and the forthcoming GT5 already looks graphically superior, but anyone looking for the most rewarding console driving experience to date has found their ride. Where does the genre go from here? With no one looking particularly threatening in its slipstream, Turn 10 has time to decide. [9]
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
i didn't like prologue either until i got a logitec steering wheel. I would say the game is 100 times better with a steering wheel.
Buy one now and come back to me
"Too right, in the same way as "Riiiiiidge Racerrrrrrrrr!"
And if it doesn't say "Game over, Yeahhh!" after losing a race I'll also be equally as disappointed."
Excellent zerobob, especially with the Sega Rall quote. I still say that even to this day if I lost on a game (or beat someone else)., ha ha!
Game Over Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
I've always been a fan of the Gran Turismo series. Graphically GT has always been to die for and the crispness of the driving experience STILL hasn't been equalled, never mind bettered by any other game. The way the cars behave, bounding from bump to bump effortlessley by the physics engine (instead of "floating" above the track) is astounding, and this is on PS2 hardware.
HOWEVER,
After playing the demo/prologue of GT5 I was completely underwhelmed and was left thinking "is this it?!....A sterile, graphically re-hashed verison of GT4?"
Forza has always tried to be like GT, but has always paid dearly to introduce other key elements, such as very good driver A.I, detailed customisation, crash damage, good game progression (which GT severely lacks) and most of all a bit of fun to the race itself.....but never quite rolled all this into a coherent, well tuned (bad pun) and satisfying race experience.
As much as I love the GT series in terms of it's realistic and crisp playability, I think all Forza's elements have finally come together to create a more fulfilling game. I loved the demo and can't wait to play the full game when I have time.
Love the rewind feature, sure a driving game with realism in mind should have realistic driving, but this shows that it's not necessary to confine the game to the linear reality it takes place in. It is after all a game, and it's nice to not be hounded by the fact you screwed that corner up just to hit instant restart, a feature just as unreal as rewinding. An exercise in futility Turn 10 has wisely quashed.
I don't know why forza attempts to be a racing sim when it has a stupid “rewind feature” that you’re allowed to use endlessly, doesn’t make sense. The environment looks sterile and plastic lacks the grit and roughness of reality. The car models are great though and tons of content, still has not surpassed GT 3 in my opinion. Edge is pro 360 not surprised by a 9 should have got 7.5 or 8…..
Doesn't make sense!? *jaw drops, wondering what does make sense then?* I guess race restarts are kinda lame too then (too unreal eh?), hell might as well just go take the old Toyota down to the Nurburgring fuck this "games" business, I thought this was reality, Turn 10 should rethink their realismometer because this shit is whack hasan.
PS: this game has 9s across the board, ie rapturous applause from the game media, much like Demon's Souls or Uncharted 2, the PS3 games that scored so well because of Edge's 360 bias.
Quality reply mate :-)
IGN gave it a 9.4...Do reviewers actually think that people may enjoy playing Forza 3? or is it another case of platform bias?
We've had this argument time and time again. Opinions do vary, if your don't like the looks of it that's fair enough, wait for something else to come along and tick all your boxes. However I get the feeling that If Edge had marked it lower we would have seen a huge backlash.
The review is meant to be a guide, it's just one persons opinion. Why not reserve judgement until you've played it yourself? I personally think its a huge leap forward in terms of racing games on the 360, it certainly surpasses Gran Turismo in terms of overall fidelity. For now at least.
Well said man.... Seems some people on here favor a game over the competition so much so that they feel threatened when the competition puts out a quality game. And it's even worse if it's a well reviewed game. I don't understand this, but see it time and time again. A good game, is a good game no matter which console it comes out on.
I for one am looking forward to Forza 3. I really have enjoyed the demo and thought it looked fantastic. However I am also looking for to GT5 when it's finally released. I am not so caught up in supporting one consoles games that I can enjoy the other. And I won't be angry if it's review score happens to be higher than Forza 3.
There only games......that's all......so just enjoy them
Considering the latest full version of GT was GT4 released on the PS2 in 2004/05 saying it is better than GT in terms of fidelity is hardly an acheivement.
This is true, of course. If anything people would be comparing Forza 3 to the likes of GT Prologue, rather than games from previous generations. Although, the customizable features and mechanical tinkering presented in GT Prologue's rudimentary "Quick Tune" options, do not even come close to either of it predecessors.
In absence of GT5 until till spring (at the earliest), will Turn 10 be able to elevate Forza 3 above the benchmark set by Polyphony? and what will Polyphony do to raise the bar once again?
My two penny worth as someone who can and does drive sports cars, forma 2 felt like a car in many ways that previous games did not.
I enjoyed it and in the same way as fsx does believe that it offers good preparation and training for the experience of actually doing it.
The tech today. Is far in advance of 10 years Ago in military simulations. To knock it makes you sound a fool
my brother drives sports cars often in his job (db7, arial atoms, porsches, high spec elises etc etc) and he prefers burnout to any other racing game, in his words, racing games should be fun rather than a realistic chore.
not disagreeing with you or agreeing, just saying
Fun factor I agree......Burnout Paradise is one the funnest(is that a word?) driving games I have ever played. And it's huge and has tons of DLC. Big fan of that game!
racing games should be fun rather than a realistic chore.
Couldn't agree more with this statement. Hence the reason i prefer games like Burnout, GRID, Outrun, Mario Kart (the snes version...the rest were shit), etc.
Personally, i find racing sims about as exciting as playing Pitfighter for 8 hours straight.
yes the rest were/are sh!t...Except for Mario Kart Super Curcuit on GBA, (next best IMO) and almost good but not sh!t DS Mario Kart! They need to make Snes S.M.K Exactly has is...but with addec online play! I would happily pay 2100points for it!!!
Wow, Pitfighter, that's a blast from the past. Digitized torture that was.
For anyone that can actually drive, these racing sims (Forza/GT) are fuck all like real driving, they don't even come close. Anyone who says otherwise clearly doesn't/can't drive a car.
"For anyone that can actually drive, these racing sims (Forza/GT) are fuck all like real driving, they don't even come close. Anyone who says otherwise clearly doesn't/can't drive a car."
Eh? 'don't even come close'. I have been driving for 25 years, everything from a mini to a 911 turbo. The games still dont relay the shaking you get from mid engine cars at high speed, but 'not even close'? Sorry bud, but this is pretty good in my book. I can see my car in this game, it sounds like my car, it banks on the corners like my car. It loses its steering grip at the same speed as my car. I say it does come close.
Actually, quite a few professional drivers (NASCAR/F1) use driving sims to both refresh their memory of an upcoming track and to polish their skills during off hours. Car & Track has had a few articles where pro and semi-pro drivers compared their times in a driving sim (I remember one done after the first Forza) to their actual times on those tracks using the same vehicles/setup and came within fractions of a second of their real times.
The A/I of competing drivers certainly isn't realistic yet, but the tracks for games like Forza, are extremely accurate (with different surfaces being modeled correctly, grade and certainly dimensions). Andy Mahood (former semi-pro driver, PC Gamer contributer) often wrote of how accurate modern sims came to real life experiences with the proper setup (a good wheel).
Define "close".
On one hand you could argue that no soccer game is "close" to really playing if you pedantically pick at all the minutae, but do they give you a reasonable representation of the game? Yes I think most people would agree that for the purposes of a video game they do. Nobody's actually said these games are supposed to be exactly like driving, just very good representations within the confines of gaming. You're clearly just being ridiculously pedantic to try to imply what an "expert" driver you are.
No offence but if people such as game designer and semi-pro racing driver (winner of his highly respectable class), Kazunori Yamauchi, and former F1 driver Tiff Needell (who is on record saying they're good), among others, think these games are reasonable representations then that's more than enough, let's be honest, nobody's going to take your opinion more seriously than theirs!
Listen, you're just kidding yourself on if you think these racing sims are anything like "real" driving.
No they're not like real driving, you're absolutely correct! You don't waste fuel, damage the environment, you don't have the risk of damaging yourself, your car or other road users. But what you can take from it is the same use of quick reactions, competitiveness and the accuracy which are similar (but not the same) as what you'd experience if you were driving for real.
Games like Shift, GT or Forza have made good attempts at bring all the exhilaration of driving and racing to our consoles. In combination with force feedback steering wheels, it's certainly a good representation as Mooks was saying. However, a sub eight minute lap Nordschleife in a GT3 in any game is one thing and is achievable within a couple of hours of practice, but doing it for real is something completely different.
None of us here, I doubt will ever have the opportunity or the skill to do this for real.
I agree, no game on the planet can beat jumping into you're own car and going for a spin.
Yet, some idiots on here think a stupid videogame can perfectly replicate that and the reality is...it can't.
Clearly neither of you have understood my point. I never said it is a perfect replication, I said it is a good representation "within the confines of gaming". Obviously a game can never be exactly like the real thing, it's so blindingly obvious that it doesn't even need stating, which is why you two feeling the need to make that comment just shows that you're just being ridiculously pedantic to try to prove how knowledgeable about driving you are in some vain attempt to look cool.
The argument is not "is this a perfect replication of driving?" any idiot knows it's not without the need to say so. The argument is "is this an exceptional representation of driving, within the confines of what gaming can offer?". Try to get your heads around the differences between the concepts of "replication" and "representation".
Accrington Stanley
Who are they?
In real life will I ever get to drive a Nissan GT-R? Unlikely. In video games? Definately. Of course they are not real life, they are entertainment to allow people like me to get a pretty damn good representation of what ragging a souped up supercar around a track feels like. In the real world I have to drive my Seat Ibiza to work every day in traffic averaging 20mph...
Well said, thank god someone is capable of understanding what "representation" means!
I think the main argument here can be solved by making a distinction between the 'technical' similarity with real driving and the 'feel' of real driving.
" I can see my car in this game, it sounds like my car, it banks on the corners like my car. It loses its steering grip at the same speed as my car." Those things are all so well simulated that it (apparently) even causes real race drivers to end with realistic track times when playing the game.
But the feel of actually driving = feeling an engine react to the motions of my hands and feet and experiencing the accelaration and braking: I have never felt that when playing a racing game. Not even with a proper setup (wheel and pedals). Hell, not even in a moving arcade installation.
I'm not convinced by the comment that GT5 is graphically superior. Basing GT5 on Prologue (I have heard of no significant graphical improvements in GT5 over Prologue) I can see the argument that the car designs could arguably be slightly (and I mean slightly) superior on GT5 - though I think there's very little in it, maybe ever so slightly better car colour/lighting, but the artistic differences in the shininess/reflections of the metal could be equally argued either way based on personal taste. Furthermore, I would say that the environmental graphics (e.g. grass/foliage/curbs) on Forza are slightly better, while environmental effects (e.g. heat haze) is better on GT5. My point, as a whole there's really very very little in it, some of which is personal taste, and none of which makes a significant enough difference to actually make it fair to make such a conclusive comment on.
I would say that for petrol-heads (real and purely gaming ones), those with both consoles are going to appreciate the differences between the two games enough to opt to purchase both, especially because they are released a reasonable time apart. For example, I love the accessibility and community aspects of Forza, the more "game" aspects if you will, while the important exclusive cars that GT5 will support (e.g. stock Nissan GT-R '07, Ferrari 458 among others) make GT5 very desirable. Combining this with the fact that there is no significant racing simulation competition on either console, so the people who only own one console and want a sim will have to buy the respective game, I think both games will sell enough to be highly successful. The largest seller will be that which attracts the more casual racer (from their own user base, but particularly from those with both consoles who are going to make the choice between the two), which means a direct competition between Forza's accessibility and GT5's brand name -- unless GT5 has made some ridiculously large accessibility/community strides. Forza will probably win because the Xbox's slightly larger user base will probably compensate if GT5's brand proves most important. But as I say, whoever is the "winner" isn't going to be a big deal for either publisher when they will both sell in very large numbers for the above reasons.
Dude, how much time has there been between Prologue and full version GT5? Do you really think there will be no graphical difference? You're comparing Forza's graphics with the graphics of an unreleased game. How do you do this? Can you see the future?
It was shown at TGS alongside Forza 3, a lot of people made comparisons then, good and bad. But yes this was still an older copy I guess. But GT5 nonetheless, not prologue.
What? No 360 bias quotes up yet? Forza is pretty and all, but I'm still more excited by the prospect of GT5 next year. Although I imagine it'll be delayed again though...
Give it time, they'll be here. :(
sshhh... Don't Jinx it :P
Can't we have a comment on a single review that doesn't mention this? If it doesn't happen, can't we just enjoy it, instead of worrying about when someone will turn up to shout it down?
Oh come on Alex, Lighten Up. it's just a bit of fun!!
I'm sorry I couldn't resist! :)
I would have been tempted to buy this. But Microsoft's and Turn 10's decision to include support for the Fanatec Wheel and not the Logitech G25 has swayed me away from it.
I love the look of Forza 3 and the sheer volume of content is bewildering and I'd really like it to be part of my collection, Having spent the last few weeks with Shift and wrestling Zonda's around Nordschleife, going back to a controller now would be a step in the wrong direction.
I'll be looking forward to having a bash on it next week at the Eurogamer expo. Maybe sampling it first hand will change my mind.
Sorry, SNOREZA, but my heart belongs to Burnout.
Put guns on the cars, then i'll care!
Both franchises (GT/Forza) are shite, personally i much prefer racing games like GRID, Burnout, Dirt 2, F-Zero GX, Wipeout, etc...
If i want real life/simulation, all i need to do is jump in my own fucking car. You can't get any more realistic than that.
Do you own an Enzo that you can casually take for a spin around the Nurburgring?
You clearly don't understand my point with such an absurd comment.
Or you missed the point of the game entirely. Forza 3 gives you access to a huge number of cars and tracks that very few people will be able to go out and drive in real life. Taking a Mondeo for a drive around Manchester is hardly comparable to what Forza offers.
You might not find the game particularly fun, but thats just your opinion. Simply owning a car is clearly not the same as Forza.
While you make very pertinent points, I think you still seem to be missing what the previous poster actually means. I think they probably "get" that Forza is supposed to offer what most people can't get - although judging by other comments above, they don't seem to get that Forza offering a representation is not supposed to be a direct substitute. I think what they're trying to say (albeit a little over the top) is that they don't want to play a driving game that could be at all possible in real life, irrespective of finances - it's the exaggerated fantasy type driving experience, that would never be possible in real life, which they are interested in - hence quoting the games they mentioned. But as you say, personal taste accounts for a lot and many people won't want to play a driving game that is not predominantly routed in reality, in the same way that some people prefer reality based FPS's and some prefer Sci-Fi based ones.
Way to solve an argument, Mooks!