The ultimate driving game arrived for day 1 of Microsoft’s next generation games console, the Xbox ONE, bringing with it some of the most impressive graphics of the launch games. Forza Motorsport 5 is fast paced and feels solid as you’re playing it, but lacks a little excitement in the finish, so while it’s arguable the most impressive racing game on any of the next generation consoles, it’s still got a few aspects it could improve on.
Graphics
Graphics are definitely one of the stand-out elements of Forza Motorsport 5, looking even better than reality at times, especially the detail on the paintwork of the cars. When you first fire up the game you’re treated to the opportunity to drive the McLaren P1 around a very cool Prague street circuit and you’ll be instantly blown away by how amazingly detailed the car looks.
The lighting, shadow and reflection on the body and windows of the car are impressive to say the least and they’re added to by the ability to pimp up the decal and paintwork of your many cars to suit your style. For petrol heads out there’s it’s one of the few opportunities to control the sheer beauty of many of the best looking cars on the market in an environment that feels as close to reality as you’re going to get, unless you’re a billionaire playboy.
The only real negative from our point of view is the animation of the crowds, which is fairly rudimentary at best. The spectators are wooden and apart from the occasional waving flag take away from the atmosphere of the game, especially when you skid sideways around a corner only to face the blank head of a motionless spectator. With the genius of bystander animation on games like Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag you feel a little bit jipped in Forza 5.
Gameplay
Whether you’re playing multiplayer or campaign the driving itself is pretty hardcore, with a very solid feel to the cars and tracks. The level of realism is impressive in terms of the driving experience, especially when you’re taking a tough corner, slamming into an opponent, pulling off a swift pass or catching a draft in the straight.
Wobble is a bit of a problem if you’re at your top speed, which can be pretty annoying and not necessarily very realistic. It’s frustrating to be right on the tail of and opponent in a slightly curvy straight only for you to randomly lose traction and start to swerve, keeping you too far back to pull off the pass you were building up to.
The campaign mode is big with a whole heap of events and challenges to make it through. They’re split up into classes, so you’ll need to upgrade cars to move up the ranks, which you can do by winning more experience points as you take part in campaign events and multiplayer races. It provides a lot of diversity in the gameplay as you go from throttling the life out of the little VW Rabbit, which is a lot more fun to drive than you might think, to cranking out the Gs in a classic, full force 1970 F1 machine.
In a move of genius, the classes are introduced by the well practiced petrol head commentary of the Top Gear team. You’ll go from finding out about mid class sports cars by James May to learning about hot hatches from Richard Hammond or classic super cars from Jeremy Clarkson. It’s a familiar mix and one which helps to make Forza that little bit more entertaining as you go through the ordinarily uninteresting class pages.
The Drivatar feature is yet another work of genius from the developers of the game, taking old school AI out of the equation and replacing it with the learned intelligence driving style of other gamers through the strength of the cloud. It makes computer controlled opponents much more fun to go up against as they feel a lot more real and unpredictable compared to previous racing games.
The lure of the more impressive cars is easily one of the big reasons to progress through the game and with the likes of the McLaren P1, James Hunt’s 1976 McLaren M23 and Niki Lauda’s 1976 Ferrari 312-2. That equates to the fastest road car along with the F1 machines that were a part of the epic season battle that inspired the movie Rush. For car fans, this one of the coolest aspects of the game and it’ll act as a pretty big incentive to keep chucking up the laps.
Tracks are incredible to drive and the added benefit of the visible racing line will help you become a much better driver. There’s everything from the Yas Marina to Silverstone, the Prague City track, a snow surrounded Bernese alps race, Le Mans, Spa and the Circuit de Catalunya. On the downside, there aren’t as many tracks as there have been in previous Forza titles, although it’s possible that there’ll be more as downloadable content in the not too distant future.
Though Forza 5 is a detailed and immersive driving experience it does lack a little bit of the fun racing, in particular when it comes to achievements. Winning a race is pretty much met with the same level of celebration as coming last with the exception of picking up a lot more experience points, which will in all fairness help you buy the more expensive cars you’ve been lusting after since firing it up on the Xbox ONE. The champagne celebration and pomp of high end racing hasn’t been braced, making it a slightly less enjoyable experience.
As well as the sheer size of the career mode, it also has a pretty significant multiplayer gameplay option. You can compete in a local race with a couple of controllers or take on the ferocious cut-up that is the online multiplayer. When there are a good number of players in your race and it’s all working well you can expect a gruelling dog-eat-dog race. However, if you’ve got to wait too long for a race to finish before you can join, or there just aren’t enough players to make it exciting (both of which can happen) then it quickly loses its sheen.
Forza Motorsport 5 review: 4/5
