Panda Jenkins on 19 Jan 2010, 12:58am.
The Forza franchise has been becoming hugely successful over the past few years. Forza 3 only continues to push the franchise forward and delivers one of, if not the best racing experience to date.
One of the main focuses Turn 10 had for Forza 3 was to make a racing simulator that is accessible to anyone. Usually simulation racers are only played by the hardcore driving fans due to the fact that they are too difficult. However thanks to the new assist system in Forza 3, anyone can pick up the game and enjoy it. The assist system covers a range of areas. You can turn on auto-brakes, traction control, gear changing, anti-lock brakes, stability control, and various others things. You can choose to turn some on while having others off if you only feel uncomfortable in certain areas. The main thing is that you have the choice of all of this. Some are probably thinking this is unfair on the hardcore players. Well, it isn't. Depending on if you have assist on or off, or at different levels, each change will add a different bonus percentage to the overall credits you gain from a race. The max amount you can get up to is an extra 100% so for whatever you decide to not use it will only add up to a bonus between 0-100%. This means that hardcore's will be rewarded for not using assists while the non-confident drivers will still earn the normal pay, but will have help. The other feature added to make it easier for players is the now popular rewind tool. So now if you screw up that important last turn, you can save yourself. The rewind feature is a choice though and it is not forced upon you. If you don't use it in a race, you will get ranked higher on the leaderboard, actually for whatever assists you use and do not use they will affect your positions on the leaderboards.
How the cars handle is obviously extremely important. Trust me, they handle damn well. For those who turn off most of or all of the assists, you will feel how each car handles. What is great is that all of the cars feel different, so it isn't like you are just doing the same race over and over again. Then again those who are familiar with Forza will know that was never the case to begin with. In Forza there is several different classes of cars, and each event is usually only open to certain classes or types of cars. Each car class feels and handles completely different to each other, and it really mixes up the races since there is no linear order of races thanks to the new career mode. Just like its predecessor you still rank up in driver level (50 being the max), and also can level up each cars level (5 being the max). Like I said there is no linear order this time. The career mode works with a calender that alternates between weekday and weekend events. Each year of racing has a long list of races in a certain class for weekend events, Once you finish all of the races in that list, you finish a year of racing. However between each weekend race you get to choose a weekday event. The game brings up 3 choices. The first tries to pick an event list with tracks you haven't seen before, The second tries to pick a event list with the car you used for the last race, and the third tries to pick an event that has an eligible car in your garage that you have not raced yet. The order that they recommend races to each player will be completely different. (By event list I mean an event that has 3+ races in it). For those who want to have complete control for events they want to take part in, you can, The entire event list can be accessed and it shows what events you have unlocked and not unlocked, which ones you have cars that are eligible for, and which ones you don't. I should also mention that there is over 200 events in Forza 3 (more than double of what Forza 2 had) and all have 3 or more races (which a lot can take over 10 minutes per race). In other words, the career is REALLY REALLY long. The career mode isn't the only part of Forza 3 though. There is also car customization, multi-player, replay editors, time trials, and a free play mode.
Lets start with the customization and community features shall we? To lay it out, there is over 400 cars in the game with more being released as DLC. You can completely customize them all in so many ways. For those who are heavily into tuning you can change all the different settings you would want to have control over. Also you can upgrade cars with parts. Turn 10 have made it so those who understand how to build cars can choose which parts they want individually to upgrade their cars, but also for those like myself who aren't gifted in those areas can use an auto-upgrade which automatically chooses parts to be used. Cars can be upgraded to higher classes, or downgraded to lower classes. Then there is the most popular part of car customization, painting and decorating cars. You can design your own liveries and use up to a thousand layers. The amount you can do with customization is just awesome. Some are probably thinking 'I suck at art and designing', well then the storefront is there for you. The store front is an online database which lets players submit their own content for sale (with in game credits) and allows others to buy and download them. You can put screen-shots, tuning files, custom made liveries, full car designs and replays up on your own personal storefront space. Other players can find your designs and such or look through your storefront for content that appeals to them. There is tools to quickly find your friends storefront's, and you can also favourite other peoples to easily revisit them. The game has a massive community and a huge range of content up for sale. Many create insanely detailed liveries which makes decorating your cars that much easier and better, that is if you are willing to split with some credits. The other online community feature apart from the storefront is the auction house which is rather straight forward. You sell your cars on it, other players bid if they have interest or otherwise can buy it out. The last little feature is the movie editor which lets you edit saved replays to your liking (and can be uploaded to your storefront).
The last big part of Forza 3 is of course online play. The online has been highly criticized by some of the fans due to the fact it now uses matchmaking. So for those who loved how Forza 2's online worked, your out of luck. From my experiences with the matchmaking, it works well for the most part. You have quite a range of choice in what kinds of races interest you, not to mention what class you want to race with for each type. You can use cars from a list or your own garage so if you want to show off your cool liveries you can. I found that there wasn't too much lag, and since I live in New Zealand it is to be expected for me either way. Online is fun, but there is so much choice with what you can do in this game that some will spend tons of time in a certain area while some will equally split between them.
The last part of Forza 3 which deserves a mention is obviously the visuals. The visuals are gorgeous. The cars have so much detail in them, and you can see great detail in even the small parts with the screen-shot tool. There is 12 different locations of courses with over 100 tracks due to variations. All of the tracks look great, even in the backgrounds. The only problem I could say with them is that there is only Sunny weather in the game. This doesen't stop it from looking great though. Forza 3 is also the first game in the franchise to support cockpit view. Every car in the game has its own unique cockpit and I strongly believe that this game should only be played from the cockpit for the best experience.
As great as the game is there is still some problems. There is glitches and bugs like any game. The visuals has some screen tearing and frame-rate problems though usually it is hard to notice due to the fact you are focusing on your driving. The game only supports 3 difficulties, easy, normal, and hard. Easy is ridiculously easy while normal is still rather simple, but hard sometimes has 1 NPC who is just too good. I do think the game could have supported a few more difficulties because it gets annoying at times. There is also some long load times. The storefront sometimes runs slow, as well as your livery menu's (depending on how many you have). Thankfully some of the load times have been patched and improved already, and could keep getting better over time.
Overall Forza 3 is a fantastic racing simulator and Turn 10 should be proud. Despite what 'certain' fanboys say, it won't change that. Turn 10 may have ran their mouths by claiming that Forza 3 is the 'definitive' racing simulator, but from my experience it is just that. Brilliant single player, online, and customization, as well as a simulator which is accessible to all.
Forza 3, Forza Motorsport 3, Turn 10, Review, Xbox 360, I am very late with this
