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Forza 5

Platform: Xbox One

Genre: Racing

Publisher/Developer: Microsoft/Turn 10

Being someone who never really got into many racing games in the past, especially simulations, I never thought I would really get an addiction to a racing game like many others have. Well, even with that, I can safely say that Turn 10 has made a fantastic and beautiful racer that is a wonderful start for the Xbox One. It may lack some features that other racers have had before and some troubling online play, but it makes up for with just about everything else.

The menu system in the game is very clean and easy to navigate. You will quickly find anything that you want to go to at a moments notice. This is accompanied by beautiful background music that is soothing and creates a wonderful atmosphere.

The game offers multiple modes of play. A standard Career mode, Trials mode where you can beat the times of other players, multiplayer, and free race. All of these modes provide good variety despite the career mode being very simplistic. The trials mode gives you tons of options and plenty to do with each class of vehicles and tracks. The free play mode is excellent as it gives you full control over what you want to race. How many opponents, what track, how many laps, etc. You can even play alone entirely for a more relaxing drive. Multiplayer is the biggest disappointment of the bunch. While it does offer tons of modes which should be fun, there is no penalty system whatsoever with any of them. This means tons of bumping and grinding and often very sinister tactics will be used by some players and they will receive no penalty. It makes the races feel overly chaotic and extremely hostile. I played it for a good while but eventually I went back to the other modes. The drivatar system, while not feeling too revolutionary at first, does create a new sense of how AI can be done in a racing games the drivatars all represent other players and it makes the offline racing feel more social and these drivatars are prone to human errors, though not too often. I did notice one slight thing while playing in the career mode, some drivatars tended rubberband with extreme brutality but thankfully I have only experienced this in the career mode.

Across all of the modes you earn experience points to level up your driver level and your manufacturer affinity level. This system is done incredibly well as you earn experience not by what place you came in, but by driving. Yes, the more you drive, you level up. This system is done so well that I wish other games would do the same. It creates a tension less system of progression that is unrivaled in my opinion. It lets you get better at your pace instead of forcing you into unfair scenarios. It is all about how much you drive and this is one of the greatest systems the game has to offer beyond the driving itself. Again, you earn these experience points across ALL modes, so you can play what you want, how you want.

The graphics in this game are stunning. The sheer detail in every vehicle is some of the best I have ever seen by far and the in car view is the default and it is probably the best in car view in racing game history. The lighting system is very good too though there are times where you can be blinded a bit by some of the sunlight on certain tracks in certain spots. While there is no weather system or night racing to be found here, the sheer detail in everything else does drastically help in making me forget about that. Plus, this is a launch title after all.

There are also less tracks and vehicles from the past Forza's. Apparently a decent margin less. While this can be a negative to some I found the selection to still be really good given the detail that has been put into all of the vehicles. Other cars can be purchased through DLC as well, which might be worth it to some and not to others. It depends on what you want. Thankfully, Turn 10 has promised that all tracks will be free of charge as far as I know and so far they have stuck to that.

While there aren't as many tracks as previous games, the detail and variations within them make for a lot of play time. The recently added Nurburgring (Ich liebe diese Rennstrecke!) on its own has already cost me several hours, but it is all worth it. I have no doubt that the lack of tracks when compared to other Forza's will quickly be forgotten just like it was for me. Learning each track and mastering the turns will take a long while but it is so fun doing so. With the rivals and drivatar systems, you always have that little motivation to do better on the next lap. The game will display if you have a current rival that you can beat on the leaderboards, which will make you want to get some good times. Thankfully, the HUD options are very flexible, allowing you to disable these visual cues if you just want to concentrate purely on driving.

There are tons of assist options that can be enabled or disabled for a perfect balance for newbies and veterans of racers. You can ease your way into the game and work your way to disabling some of these options however disabling them is never required, offline or online.

One little thing I want to point out, there is a split screen option but it is rather lackluster, with no AI in this mode and no in car view. It works for what it is, but it is a very disappointing aspect.

The last thing I want to mention, when you buy a car, you can tune and paint the car to your liking. There are tons of options when making designs and you can download designs made by others. You like Ponies like me? Well, this game has you covered. This additional feature has been a staple of the franchise and it is just as great here. You can spend hours making your favorite designs and showing them off online, even if the online can be frustrating.

Final Verdict:

Bit of a longer review this time. This game has so much to it that it was hard to compress it all so I apologize if it was tough to comprehend at times. I hope you enjoyed it though. Have any thoughts or questions about the game? Share them below! Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Turbo out!