XBox 360 Review: FORZA 4

rating:5

Forget the Battlefield/Call of Duty debate, or the question over which football franchise should come out on top, the longest burning debate in the gaming universe - and the one that as of yet remains to be sorted out - concerns driving games, and which property for petrol heads deserves to take pole position. Gran Turismo has long been considered the pinnacle of design achievement, F1 is as realistic as possible without having to invest several million pounds and learn to deal with G-forces, while more off-the-rails games like Burnout and Dirt taking up the other end of the experience scale. But it is Forza that wins for me, because it is the franchise that has that something extra, and now with Forza 4 skidding onto shelves this weekend, it's time to jump back into the high-octane thrills and eye-popping beauty of Turn 10's fully amped series. Forza 4 is brilliant, there can be no doubt. It is is precisely designed, and downright stunning as Gran Turismo, and there's a good deal of realism in the drive experience, but it is also fun - something that can't quite be said of recent release F1 2012. That has something to do with Turn 10's resistance to make handling and response 110% realistic - so no matter how beautiful it looks - and you really are invited to share in the awe of those machines - it can't really be considered a simulator. It's a game, pure and simple, and it makes the best attempt yet of any driving game to capture the intangible spirit of driving. That drive experience sits somewhere between dragging your sports car to the limit around the Nurburgring on a track day, and blaring open topped down Highway 66 - and that's where it overtakes Gran Turismo for me. GT is all glitter without the unadulterated joy on the road: yes it looks incredible, and the car responses are ultra-realistic, but there isn't this sort of dynamism between player, car and road. What Forza has always done best is cater to the automobile perverts: not those shady men in dark corners of parking lots doing unspeakable things to exhaust pipes, rather those petrol-heads who blow their minds at the sight of heavily waxed carbon-fibre bodywork, and at the smell of burning petrol and rubber, and the feel of air whooshing into their faces as they tear down the tarmac. If there were any doubt that Forza was in some way aimed at those perverts, you need only look at the brand new Autovista mode, which quite simply allows you to look at the automobile stars of the show, gawping at the beauty, and the detail that has gone into them (and their reproduction), while Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson talks about them in his own inimitable manner. Yes that's right, you can unlock the opportunity to just look at a car. And despite how odd that sounds, it is a hugely entertaining mode - which perhaps explains why casual and non-drivers will avidly tune into Top Gear to watch men talk about cars they will never get the chance to drive. It's an obsession that once you're handed the keys to it, never lets you go. But then, again, unlike something like F1 2012, Forza 4 is extremely accessible, taking new players (or those new to the franchise at least - which is surely to be likely, since the game was marketed with a fantastic TV spot heavily) into consideration with a multi-tiered assist system that ranges from the infantile (no braking needed, cornering aided), to the new "full simulation mode" which takes some serious getting used to. Even more impressively, Forza 4 makes the intoxicating spirit of driving completely infectious. While games like Gran Turismo and F1 are obsessed with the nuts and bolts of the car, in an attempt to seduce those who already love cars and recognise their appeal as being about more than their components, Forza 4 seems to understand that some people don't think like that. To some, a car, no matter how well designed, is just a car. So, Forza's objective is to break that down, to give the cars character, and to teach the uninitiated how to love them and driving. And if it is any barometer of the game's success, both myself and fellow WhatCulture writer Michael Atkinson - two committed non-drivers - agreed that Forza was enough to make driving in real life look and feel like a world of fun. It's not all geared towards new players though - Forza 3 veterans will find themselves rewarded with cars based on what they achieved in the former game, and what level they got to. Great touch, that, and the perfect way to reward those who have helped encourage the growing position of the franchise in this genre.And for those fans, Forza will feel like a development - evolution, not revolution - and it will feel like a big step up, despite the subtlety of a good deal of the improvements. There's a change to the lighting system, which is more dynamic and more realistic, and which ultimately better helps describe the relationship between the car and its environment. And there is a marked uplift in the quality of the audio - especially of the cars' engines, which sound like uncaged beasts, but which are each as distinct in their mechanical orchestra as us humans are in voice. The other new point is the game's Kinect features. Seriously, try it with the Kinect, if you have the kit, because using the wheel, and the flat-out coolness of being able to look around, and having the perspective of the driver on screen move with your head is very, very good. We're talking one of the first games not made specifically for Kinect that sells the technology. In format terms, the game shines as well - it introduces a brilliantly executed XP system that encourages the gamer to push themselves, to achieve and to evolve. That dynamic has been advanced this time out as well, with a brand new, broader levelling set-up that now includes manufacturer specific levels, adding a far vaster depth of achievement (and a greater appeal to the gamer's own personal sense of competition) than in Forza 3, and adding even more appeal to the solo campaign. Multiplayer though injects even more quality: the franchise has always done multiplayer well, and this time out is no different, but it is the introduction of the Rivals Mode that really stands out. Within it players can face friends or unknown rivals online (even, brilliantly, when they're not online! thanks to a ghosting system that logs their last performance for you to compete with). Rivals packs in a load of individual modes as well, including Top Gear Challenges (with the show's Reasonably Priced Car challenge featuring as one of the most purely fun). There are a few little niggles - opponent AI could do with some more work (but then, is that ever not the case with sports games?), and the environments are never quite as beautiful as the foreground of the track or the cars (but then, we came here to drive), but really they are nits picked for no reason other than the inherent resistance to afford anything a perfect score. However, resistance is futile: Forza 4 is undoubtedly as close to perfection as driving games have ever been before. It deserves the highest accolades, and it will be a travesty if its success is swallowed up by that other game that's being handed a raft of perfect scores this week. After all, both Arkham City and Forza 4 can merrily co-exist on any gamer's shelf, and come the end of the year, they'll both be up there with the finest of this year's releases. Forza 4 is available to buy on XBox 360 now.