Navigating Forza Motorsport 3’s many menus is like walking into Audi showroom, with all of it’s clean minimalist sophistication, and being offered a latte by a well dressed sales manager.
According to Eurogamer its Peter Egan in this case, who, frankly, be would just the man I’d want to sell me a high powered Audi R8. Just like Peter’s smooth received tones, Forza 3 oozes style from the moment you put the disc in the drive.
Graphically, the car models are detailed and accurate, but, despite its stylishness, compared to rivals like Need for Speed: SHIFT, Forza 3 is a little plain overall. However, the compromise is worth the smooth 60 frames a second it delivers when you are driving and ultimately the trackside glitz isn’t so important when you hammer past it at 120 mph.
The developers, Turn 10, have done a sterling job in creating a racing game that is accessible for players for all ages. Forza 3 can be set up to do all the hard work for you, even to the extent that you can hire an AI driver if your skills are that poor. It will certainly open the game up to a few new players, although on easier settings with every assist on all the cars tend to feel very similar and it becomes a little boring. The physics model is fantastic and even the more powerful cars like the Bugatti Veron are manageable and fun to drive with many of the assists off.
The new rewind feature, which allows you to undo crashes and the like at any point in single-player, frees you up to try the more challenging and rewarding difficultly levels without the frustration of having to restart races over and over. I found it to be a bit of a crutch at first and used it a lot, but as my feel for the cars developed I found myself using it less and less. Of course you don’t have to use it if you feel like its cheating.
The main single player part of Forza is Season Play, which takes you through 6 seasons of racing events based on what you’re driving, or what cars and tracks you haven’t tried yet. Initially it seems restrictive, but it actually makes Season Play different each time you restart.
Away from the career mode you can quick race any car you have downloaded or that is on the discs and as well any track. That means 400 cars and 100 tracks, then add on a huge number of multiplayer options. There are obscene amounts of content on offer here. I should note that much of the content on disc 2 has been recycled from Forza 2, which is good or bad depending on your viewpoint. The car catalogue covers all the expected bases, but I would have liked more everyday cars to pimp out.
When it comes to customising, upgrading and tuning your cars there are a mind boggling selection of options. Cars can be quick upgraded if you don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of it, but for the modders there is tons of content to mess about with. You can also paint your cars for that personal touch, from my feeble efforts to stunning community paint jobs.
The Storefront allows players to upload and browse replays, photos, paint-jobs and car tuning setups. The community can rate them allowing the best content to rise to the top. Again it lets a less hardcore player get the best from the more complex parts of the game they don’t understand or can’t be bothered to explore.
Accessible as it may be Forza 3 is not perfect, the damage modelling isn’t as developed as it could be and you’ll sit through a lot of loading. If you can spare 11Gb on your 360’s hard drive then it is worth installing both discs to take the edge off the loading times. To be honest these are such minor faults I doubt they will trouble you much in game.
The more you play Forza Motorsport 3 the better it gets and the less important the minor flaws it has seem to matter. When all said and done, Forza 3 is a sublime mix of speed, style and accessibility that easily makes it the most enjoyable sim racer out there bar none.
