Violence and Sex: FMS3.
Can I tell you a secret?
...
... I love car porn. I absolutely love it. I live in a huge city so my experience with driving actual cars is, admittedly, limited, but I adore cars. They’re the ultimate testament to engineering, design, and power. They blend sophisticated engineering, scientific precision, and sleek kinetic design, with raw sex appeal and danger.
I just eat car culture up. I watch rerun broadcasts of Top Gear gluttonously, own every movie with a cool chase I can get my hands on, and have long coveted the Impreza 555 as my prospective first solely-owned car, since I saw Colin McRae drive one on an old video my grandfather kept. He used to drive rally cars, so I’m pretty much indoctrinated since birth.
My window into the world of racing has always been video games. The first racing game I ever played was Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, introducing revolutionary driving modes, beautiful cars and immersive environments, NFS3 was an enormous step forward for the racing genre.
This brings me to Forza 3.
Jeremy Clarkson once said that “a good sports car should exude two things: violence, and sex.” If that’s true, Forza 3 makes Saints Row 2 look like Dora and the Snow Princess.
I really believe that Forza 3 is a revelation. Everything it does, it does brilliantly, and all I can do is list them in bullet point form:
-The driving: a racing game with slack driving is like a car with square wheels – it just doesn’t work. FMS3 works. It works wonderfully. Each car feels different, feels like it should. Each car has subtleties and irks that are worked out through finding your favourite cars and driving them in excess. That kind of nuance is generally reserved for simulation racers, and appropriately, Forza 3 IS a simulation racer, but for the intimidated or uninitiated, an arsenal of assists, as well as a ‘Race Driver Grid’ style rewind system makes easing into the kind of depth FMS3 presents seamless and approachable. That’s not to say the game is a slouch when it comes to challenge: for every assist you initiate, you stunt your experience points and money, but I’ll get to that later. It’s also worth mentioning that this game has easily the best, THE BEST first person driving I’ve ever come across. I can’t even really explain why it works so well, but it just does. It never feels limiting, only immersive.
-The tuning: a level system is incorporated for both you, the driver, and to each car you use. Levelling up opens up all kinds of tuning options and new parts for the cars, so the more you use them, the better they get. You can custom tune cars to your strengths, or for a quicker, casual experience, the computer can simply optimize your car in a general way.
-The graphics: slick, slick, slick. For a game with so much content, it shines. Each car’s given an astounding level of attention both over and under the bonnet. Beautiful courses, beautiful cars, beautiful presentation, in a word, Forza Motorsport 3 is beautiful.
-The Storefront: custom paint jobs are half the fun in Forza games and the new system is not just a step up for the series, but a step up in how user generated content is done. Painting sweet decals and graphics on your cars is no longer just for boasting, you can sell your creations in an online store for in-game currency which you can then use to unlock the 400 cars waiting for you in the game’s library. This buy-sell-trade system also applies to tuning, so if you create a tuning ratio that perfectly adheres to a specific type of driving, you can sell it online. What this all adds up too is a community driven longevity to an already staggeringly large game, and probably the most novel idea the racing genre has seen since the police chase.
2009 has been a staggeringly good year for video games, and the biggest titles aren’t even out yet. Forza 3 is an astounding game, anyone who loves racing games owes it to themselves to buy it. Don’t ask yourself “which game should I buy? Dirt 2 or Forza 3?” instead ask yourself: “how the hell am I going to afford both of these amazing racing titles?”
All I have left to say in this maelstrom of praise is that Gran Turismo 5 has a stratospheric bar to clear. So good luck to the devs, and take notes.
