Exilerating and Excellent
Forza Motorsport 2 was an impulse buy for me I bought it for about £10 but I always ended up coming back to it. The thing that made this game so addictive for me was a mixture of accessability, challenging gameplay and a great online community. Forza Motorsport 3 had a lot to live up to after this brilliant predecessor and I am pleased to say it builds upon FM2 and improves in every way.
Forza 3 throws you in to the game in a now common first race in an Audi R8. Instantly the visuals strike you the lighting is superb and the increased draw distances combined with stunning scenery really drag the game out of Forza 2 comparatively drap tracks. The cars all look brilliant and often on the start line close to photo realism. The visual package really gives you a feel of driving these expensive cars round the worlds best race tracks. After finishing the race the options screen pops up with suggested settings allowing you to adjust them until you are happy. I ended up having a breaking only driving line and keeping things like traction control on you can also have auto breaking and full line if your new to the genre. However, if you want to you can have no driving line turn all the assists off and then you have one of the best simulations around.
The game has a very clean looking menu making it much easier to get into a race and progress through your career than in the previous games. The main game is built on jumping into season mode. This gives you a calender of the season with weekend world championship races. This mean at the start of each week you are given some options of races you can enter during the week. The best part of this menu is it tells you why you might like to choose a certain race series for example, try a new car, new tracks or use your current car. The races get increasingly difficult and longer which bring a few new features to light.
If I am about to jump into a race with a Bugatti Veron with my Fiat-500 a small menu pops up saying that your car will not be competitive would you like to upgrade. You then see what upgrades will be applied and the cost and then your car will be able to race. This gets rid of the problem I had with FM2 where I would lose miserably put all my money into upgrades and then find the race far too easy. This is a great feature and keeps the game challenging but not frustrating. Now for long races I always get to the last corner spin off and lose the new rewind feature gets rid of this problem allowing you to rewind the last part of the race at any time. It really makes life easier and keeps you playing and I can also imagine perfectionists spending hours getting each corner perfect.
Forza Motorsport 2 had a great community and Turn 10 have really put everything into giving everything to the community. Vinyl groups, car designs, tuning setups and cars themselves can all go up for sale on the marketplace where they can be purchased and reviewed by your peers. This gives way to an amazing storefront in which you can easily find what your looking for with accurate searches. This really is one of the best parts of the game and I have often sat down to play the game and not actually done any racing.
Of course the game has online racing with a great matchmaking system and customisable search options making it easy to jump into the game or find a specific race. The driving model of the whole game is close to perfect the handling feels just right and this really immerses you into the race atmosphere.
Forza Motorsport 3 is an amazing driving simulation and with stunning visuals, great gameplay and a buzzing community make Forza 3 a must buy for any racing enthusiast and most gamers.
