Forza Motorsports 4 carries the Turn 10 Studios tradition of being one of the most inclusive, hyper-detailed and realistic auto simulators ever to have come to Microsoft Xbox.
You can almost feel the Alpen wind in your hair, and a soothing scents and sounds of the Ricola yodeler as you plow through the opening sequence race, the studio’s showcase fantasy Bernese Alps tracks, one of 23 different International racing locations.
Partially narrated once again by Jeremy Clarkson’s from the BBC’s hit series, Top Gear, Forza 4 also includes the Top Gear raceway, and bonus levels featuring some of the kooky stunts you may have seen on the show, like pylon battles or multi-player car soccer. You’re also entertained by Clarkson’s typical smart-ass but tough as nails honest approach to some of the suped-up performance vehicles.
And what a selection! Along with some startlingly pedestrian brands like Mini, Kia (your starting vehicle) or Fiat, Forza 4 includes over 80 different manufacturers, with specialized auto-makers like Tesla, Joss, McLaren, and Gumpert. And that’s just for starters. Turn 10 has been rolling out new car packs on a monthly basis.
Along with stunning hyper-realistic graphics, that would keep your 55 year old driving instructor guessing, Forza 4 offers new styles of game play to keep the die hard fans even happier. Rivals mode lets you challenge your Xbox live friends, even if they aren’t online. If you beat them, you get a nice coin purse, and they’re notified of the humiliating defeat. There’s also Autovista which gives you a hands on 360 view of your vehicle with guided explanations of the parts
Another new feature is the Car Club, which is a players club garage turned online community. Logging in daily will reward you with bonuses and the chance to show off your mods and gear to players connected from around the world, and also race together as a team
The soundtrack, as in Forza 3, was again composed by Lance Hayes aka DJ Drunken Master. I admire that Turn 10 gave the honours of producing the soundtrack to just one guy, and he’s truly earned his rights. He’s written about 15 different tracks to suit different racing moods, mostly at a higher end 150-160 BPM. Some of it echoing aggro d&b style of Pendulum, others, more on the bouncy Deadmau5 or trancey Tïesto side of things. IMHO as a musicophile who likes to discover new songs or old favourites in-game, the experience is a bit lacking, but I get that this game is meant for the purists, so this decision makes sense.
If you’re in the holiday gift shopping spirit and you really want to impress that certain someone Forza 4, combined with the new Wireless Speed Wheel peripheral is really an incredible bundle. It takes a few tries to get used to, but once you have adjusted to the arms-straight-out steering technique (just like in a real car) it rides like a charm. The wheel has just the right weight and ergonomics to give you that ‘white knuckle experience’ marketing guys are always bragging about. I usually find my hands to be a bit too tense at the end of a session, and I’m usually catching my breath, so I think the game does live up to its claims.
If you have a Kinect, you can really take things to the next level of gaming and play hands free. Yes, I kid you not. Just stick your hands out at 9 and 2 o’clock and play make believe just like in kindergarden – Vroom Vroom! I haven’t had a chance to experiment much with this, but apparently the game is voice reactive and also responds to head nods.
Some of the most fun I’ve had in the game involves going head to head and breaking the rules in a renegade A-Team style with your friends, and getting up to silly fun like playing chicken or practicing stealth now-you-see me, now-you-don’t, jam-on-the-breaks-and-reverse grind house kind of moves. So you don’t have to be a gear head to love this game, it’s great fun for anyone who has a need for HD speed on their Xbox 360 system.
