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An outsider’s look at ‘Forza Motorsport 6’

An outsider’s look at ‘Forza Motorsport 6’

Forza Motorsport 6
Developed by Turn 10 Studios
Published by Microsoft Studios
Available on September 15, 2015

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I am completely out of my element here. The last racing sim I played was Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec when my brother and I rented it back in 2002. Usually, the racing games I play involve throwing turtle shells at the other racers to get ahead. So when our editor, Mike, e-mailed me asking me to review this game, I was understandably pretty hesitant.

But I’m not going to let that hesitation stop me because I have a job to do and that job is to tell our readers that Forza 6 is a pretty good game with a few glaring issues.

I think it’s safe to say that motorsport and car enthusiasts will find a lot to love about this game. There are hundreds of cars in the game and, as far as I can tell, every track is a real-life motor circuit, though the only one I recognized was Daytona.

Everything that I understand to define Forza is here. There’s heavy vehicle customization and complex vehicle tuning here for the players who want to control every aspect of what their cars look like and how they drive. There’s an over the top selection of drivable cars across numerous styles and eras. And the level of simulation can be adjusted to help inexperienced and less skilled players and keep them from being overwhelmed.

In fact, customization is the name of the game here. This game can be tweaked to exactly how the player needs it to be. Even if the tuning and custom paint jobs go untouched (personally, I’m boring and prefer solid paint jobs…. except the Rock Band 4 car I bought because seriously, Rock Band 4), there’s a list of computer assists available to be turned on and off to the heart’s content.

Some of these are expected, like switching between automatic and manual transmission or turning on and off Forza’s signature guiding line. The rest, however, are things that more advanced players will find to be hilarious, such as the game assisting with braking and steering, which at first seems like the game will practically play itself. Luckily for these more advanced players, they will be rewarded with in game credits for turning off the assists.

Still, the assists are not for Forza regulars. They’re there to make the game more accessible and ease newcomers into the game over time. I found myself, a first time Forza player, turning off or changing the assists a few times as I went. I still need most of them on, as well as keep to Average difficulty, to keep control of my car, let alone compete, but it is still an excellent way to ease players into the world of racing sims.

The only place I can say I’m disappointed with the customization is that the driver is completely unchangeable. There’s an option for the driver’s gender, but that is the entire extent for personalization. I get that it doesn’t matter what his face looks like, but I would love to be able to change what my helmet or racing suit looks like. It seems like a logical addition considering the game’s extreme emphasis on customization.

Forza 5‘s much touted Drivatar system is back, but I have no way to tell how it’s been changed or improved. It doesn’t feel like it changes the game much from if the feature wasn’t present, but that might also be because no one I know is a big Forza player. Players with a lot of Forza playing friends might notice changes in the AI that I can’t. It really doesn’t feel like there’s much to get out of it in any other situation.

What surprised me the mForza6_Reviews_09_WMost while I was playing is just how deep the simulation is. Practically everything that can affect your car will affect your car. From how hard it is to drive on grass and how much it will slow you down to how light damage will subtly affect how your car performs (that is, if you turn off the assist that leaves damage as purely cosmetic) and all the way to how your tires overheating affects your car’s performance, I honestly can’t think of a way to make the simulation more realistic outside of being forced to sit out of races for weeks at a time from broken bones.

Even the condition of the track affects how your car handles on it. While the effect is usually extremely subtle and makes practically no difference, as it usually just changes the material the track is made of (to the point where the biggest thing I noticed was how much my controller was shaking on different parts of the track), I swear that even sand blowing onto one particular track was making it harder to control my car.

What I know was affecting how I handled my car was the new weather effects. Races can be played in the rain and now hydroplaning and wet tarmac have to be taken into consideration while driving. The effect of slamming into a puddle at high speed is so realistic that it felt almost exactly like driving through a deep puddle too fast in real life. The folks wanting a new challenge from Forza will be extremely pleased by this addition.

However, I am not pleased by it. Racing in the rain isn’t fun. While there’s plenty of fun to be had on the dry tracks, the wet tracks are just frustrating to play on. It is extremely difficult to keep control of the car to the point where I could have sworn I lost control on a damned straightaway on a few occasions. I quickly got to the point of absolutely dreading playing any races on wet tracks.

At the very least, the game’s presentation is fantastic. The first time the game is booted up, you’re treated to a cut-scene and narration musing about why people race. While it is ultimately meaningless, it does romanticize and venerate racing as both a hobby and profession.

And it doesn’t end there. Every new section of the campaign, car category and Showcase Event is accompanied by narration from a number of sources, including former Top Gear hosts Richard Hammond and James May. This is a great way to set the tone. It really shows racing as something worth doing and helps the player get into character and immerse themselves as a professional racing driver.

Forza6_Reviews_10_WMOn the topic of Top Gear, licensing for the show is in a number of places. Most notably, the Top Gear test track is playable in Showcase Events and there is a series of Showcase Events where the player must race against the “digital cousin” of the show’s enigmatic test driver, The Stig, with the game keeping to his character of being an unbeatable driver by explaining that the digital double has a “glitch” that makes him beatable.

The Showcase Events are great. Most of them are extremely challenging, while others have goofy ideas like crashing into as many bowling pins as possible in a single lap around the aforementioned Top Gear test track. The best ones are the ones that give the player control of vehicles that are otherwise inaccessible.

The very first Showcase Event is a huge highlight of my experience. In it, the player is put into a Formula 1 race around a squarish track. This race isn’t particularly difficult due to the gentle turns, but the first time I experienced the speed and power of my vehicle, I was taken completely off guard and was even a little scared. This game can be extremely immersive and that event is particularly intense.

The big flaw in the presentation is the music. The music is good, but very ill-suited for the game. It’s mostly sweeping orchestral stuff that feels out of place with the racing. It’s odd to be speeding along the track, triumphantly leading the pack, but the music is low-key and filled with grim determination. It also doesn’t help that one of the songs has a weird high-pitched whine like a CRT TV’s white noise that I highly doubt was intentional.

Luckily the music is the weakest part of the sound design. While I don’t know if every car sounds like it’s real life counterpart, the cars sound exactly as they should, as do the tires on the pavement, with subtle differences between most of them. My 1990 Camaro doesn’t sound like the F-150 Raptor I rented in free mode, for a particularly obvious example.

And to top it off, the game is gorgeous. It runs at a wonderful 60 frames per second without any slowdown and everything looks almost like someone recorded the action with a camera, especially in the rain.

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While during the day, things can feel too bright at times, the grey lighting in the rain, combined with the misting effect behind the cars and the wet textures on everything, blew me away. Racing in the rain may not be very fun, but it is definitely a visual spectacle.

At the end of the day, Forza 6 is a great game. But there is one defining flaw: The career mode is extremely unambitious. As is, the only thing there is to do in it is race through three series of races across five “volumes.” You can choose between six classes of cars in each series of races, from historic cars to modern supercars. The classes change in each volume. But that’s all there is to it.

While there’s plenty of depth to the racing, all the career mode adds up to is choosing a car and doing a string of races with it. I would have loved to have seen some sort of narrative structure that shows the player’s rise from a racing hobbyist, or even street racer, to champion professional racing driver. As the career stands, it feels archaic and shallow.

I’m not likely to play Forza 6 after this review nor do I think I’ll ever be inclined to play any other entry in the series, but despite that, I enjoyed most of the time I spent with the game. Racing in the rain will always be an exercise in frustration, but this game will satisfy anyone looking for a solid racing game and is a perfect fit for motorsports fans who want to try out some of their favorite cars for themselves.

[wpchatai]