The Xbox brand might be known for its class-leading shooter titles, but it isn’t limited to that. Since 2005, Turn 10 Studios has provided Forza Motorsport to Microsoft’s consoles. During its short time of existence, the series has not only achieved remarkable success, but has grown a reputation for being arguably the best racing series in the modern world.
With Microsoft releasing new hardware opening a door to new possibilities, Forza Motorsport 5 looks to usher the award-winning flavor of Forza Motorsport to the Xbox One’s launch. Does it live up to the series’ standards?
Playing through the introduction sequence it’s made immediately clear that not only is Forza 5 a racing simulator, it’s a celebration of cars. Camera angles before and after races highlight the beautiful curves of whatever vehicle you’ve brought to the track, offering you a chance to admire it. You don’t have to gawk at them alone, though. An integrated photo mode lets you capture moments and share them with the world. You can do the same while in a race or while in the garage, although having it in your own home lets you open doors, turn lights on or off, and adjust other options to take what you consider to be a perfect image. Never before have the most gorgeous, or muscular, cars been more fully realized in virtual space.
Once on the track, the racing experience is as thrilling as you could ever hope for. This is a simulator, so toss away any expectation that you’ll be using nitrous oxide or doing barrel rolls off of ramps. The physics are an improvement over the previous Forza title, and a new Drivatar system makes each vehicle opponent behave like real players rather than purposefully designed robots. That means the same decisions you see made when racing competitively online are present in the single-player, mistakes and all. In order to achieve this, Turn 10 has designed it so that each racer builds a profile based on their racing behaviors (brake points, aggression, preferred angles, etc.). The result is that every time you put one of your cars on the track you’re given a different experience. You’ll see some drivers swerving around trying to regain control, and others making precise inside passes.
What’s most important about creating a proper racing environment is the challenge of achieving first place, and Forza 5 pulls that off triumphantly. You’ll be able to fine tune the amount of assist you receive while driving, whether it be having Traction Control enabled, racing lines shown, or racing with a manual transmission (you can even require a clutch). Fewer assist and higher difficulty equates to more credits earned, so making the game harder isn’t just for the sake of it. Made better, you can decide which tier of Drivatars you’d like to race against. If you want to make each pass feel as momentous as possible, throw the difficulty on Highly Experienced and you’ll be put on the track with the Drivatars of players who know what an apex is.
Career Mode is well presented, divided into dozens of different series that have stringent requirements. These requirements push you to expand your garage with vehicles of all styles. If there’s one that you like in particular, there are bonus races to partake from. Once you enter each you’re presented with a video narrated by one of the Top Gear hosts, which further strengthens the car enthusiast aspect of the game.
On the topic of requirements, the game does a great job of setting standards for each series so that you can’t just tune a car to its limits and lap other racers with ease. As long as you have the difficulty and assists set to your limits, you’re guaranteed a race where every turn matters. If you just want to cremate other racers in your McLaren P1, you can do that, too.
The paint customization from previous Forza games is back.. The sky is the limit in terms of how you make your cars look. A laundry list of decals, colors, and a high-limit layer system provides all the tools you need to design showroom-worthy cars. Showing off your personality is easy with the provided tools, but if you just want to shortcut to a nice looking car you can use one of the uploaded paint sets from other users (you can rate them, too). In tandem with a long list of tuning options, you’ll be able to personalize your garage to your heart’s content.
The game’s visuals are well beyond what racing simulation has ever seen before. Running at 1080p with 60 FPS, the visual experience when racing around track such as Circuit de Prague and Bernese Alps is pure bliss. The tracks and their environments are well detailed lending credence to the believability of the game’s simulative nature. The cars are even more carefully crafted, inside and out. You’ll feel compelled to pause mid-race and take a snapshot of your new car overtaking an opponent. The only shortcoming is a noticeable amount of aliasing which causes jagged edges on an otherwise great image.
The game has fewer cars than Forza Motorsport 4, but don’t let that keep you away. What’s here is great, especially for a launch title. Crowd-favorites like the BMW M3 and McLaren MP4-12C made the cut, while speed royalty like the Ariel Atom and Pagani Huayra are also available to drive in. The same can’t be said about the track list. There are 14 tracks, but a few of them are low-profile. The absence of Nürburgring, Monaco, and Indanapolis is mind-boggling for a game that executes so well on being car enthusiast focused. Maybe they’ll show up in DLC?
Speaking of DLC, Turn 10 made a bad design choice with its content delivery. At launch, the game is ripe with DLC-only vehicles, all of which should have been made standard in the package. If you want to drive a 2013 BMW M6 or the illustrious LaFerrari you’ll have to pay beyond your initial purchase price. Made worse, low payouts for wins urge you to spend real-world money on the game’s purchasable tokens. Even after dozens of wins you won’t even be close to having the purchasing power for some of the game’s more enjoyable rides (open-wheel cars, hypercars, etc.). Though, as much as this is a dirty tactic by Turn 10, there is plenty of readily-available content in the game to make it only a small unfortunate blemish on an otherwise well-designed game.
At launch, the game has a generous amount of content to explore. Outside of Career mode, you can battle for hot laps in Rivals mode, watch and share epic moments in Forza TV, or hop online and experience a proper online racing system rich with options. Monthly content is added to make sure there’s always something new to do.
Forza Motorsport 5 is a game designed for car enthusiasts by car enthusiasts. The racing experience feels genuine with an ambitious Drivatar system that makes even single-player races thrilling, and 1080p visuals that bring the world of racing to life. It’s unfortunate that Turn 10 decided to nickel and dime its loyal fanbase with outrageous post-purchase content, but it’s easy to look beyond that when there’s as much flavorful content as there is. If you love cars, this is a game you don’t want to miss.
Jonathan Leack is the Gaming Editor for CraveOnline. You can follow him on Twitter @jleack.
Review copy provided by publisher. Game is exclusive to Xbox One.
