Forza Motorsport 4

Quote

In the interest of full disclosure, I should make it clear up front that I have always been a loyal devotee of Gran Turismo. The series helped craft my automotive knowledge through middle school and high school, helped me choose the proper spring rates for my track rat in college, and generally consumed days and days of my young life. So when Turn 10 introduced Forza Motorsport for the Microsoft xBox in 2005, I was skeptical. Whereas Gran Turismo seemed to push the realism line ever further, Forza Motorsport felt laced with traces of Cruisin' USA or some other relic of the arcade circuit. But that was then.

I've spent the majority of my time with Forza Motorsport 4 in the World Tour portion of Career mode, working my way from adorable subcompact hatches to brawnier sheetmetal. The progression more or less follows the same path as other driving simulators, with one big exception. With each step up in driver level, players are rewarded with genuinely interesting cars to drive.

Instead of filling your garage with 15 variations on the same obscure Japanese kei car, the crew at Turn 10 offers up a BMW 2002 Turbo or a Toyota Sprinter Trueno Apex. Even better, you can pick your victory car from a selection of similarly capable machines, so that you aren't just stuck with a default prize or a vehicle that you already own. As a result, you find yourself having fun almost by default. The variety of available vehicles is fantastic, and each one is rendered in painfully expert detail inside and out. Visually, Forza Motorsport 4 sinks the Gran Turismo battleship.

Turn 10 didn't just pour all of its resources into an impressive vehicle catalog, either. That same variety is applied to track selection. Instead of offering gamers the same reconstituted tracks, Forza Motorsport 4 delivers a wide range of venues spread all over the globe. In three days of racing, I never campaigned on the same track twice. Whether you're bashing fenders with a Ford Ka at Road Atlanta or nudging bumpers with an Escort RS Cosworth at Hockenheim, the track surface, background and lighting are all expertly executed. Of course, that variety also means that racers have to rely on their reactionary skill instead of course memorization, at least for the first lap or two.

I should probably lend a word or two to the driver AI in Forza Motorsport 4. Whereas Gran Turismo seems to be populated by a race of superhuman drivers who would rather fall on their own tire iron than miss an apex, Forza 4 lines you up against a virtual cast that actually has personality. Some are more cautious while others will go headlong into a hairpin and wind up playing in the gravel. As a result, you can't simply stick to the driver's line in front of you and hope for the best. That's a hard-earned lesson on a real track day, and it's no less true here.

New tech integration aside, Forza 4 is an impressive game. It lacks much of the technicality of Gran Turismo, but makes up for the deficit with excellent and engaging gameplay, an interesting and varied selection of vehicles and a wealth of detailed tracks. Is it enough to make me sell my Playstation 3 and finally become an xBox 360 convert? No, but I'll have no problem admitting that the Forza franchise has grown into an amazing effort from here on out.

With downloadable content available right from the launch date, each player can customize their game to suit their automotive tastes with packages that bundle similar metal together, including the currently-available Muscle Car pack. Forza Motorsport 4 is available starting October 11 with an MSRP of $59.99 for the standard edition and $79.99 for the limited collector's edition (above).