Microsoft Forza Motorsport 4 Xbox 360 One Size Multi

Let me start off by saying that I do not consider myself either a hardcore racing fan, nor a hardcore Xbox enthusiast. First, a bit on my background (I'll try to keep it short I promise ;) My first racing game experience was when I played PGR 3 for the Xbox a few years back. I had borrowed it from my friend just for the gamerscore (lol sue me), but it turned out that after two weeks of nonstop playing I was vastly piqued by the racing genre. I searched around on the Internet for a game that would satisfy my desire for a more involving, difficult, realistic, and lengthy game than PGR, and I ended up getting Forza 3. I was in love with that game for soooo long. Previously I could've cared less about cars, much less know their names, mechanics, engines, etc. but I quickly began to unconsciously pick up real world knowledge about cars from playing Forza 3, so that I would call out the model, year, manufacturer, and cylinder count of nearly every semi-interesting car on the street. Forza 3 was an amazing game, in which I believed everything was perfect; so, naturally when I heard Forza 4 was coming out, I pre-ordered ASAP. Expectations: As stated above, I thought that Forza 3 was perfect in every way, from painting, (which I spent hundreds of hours in) to physics, models, and tuning. All that I really expected and even wanted from Forza 4 was MORE CARS to play around with! So, my expectations one could say we're low, but in a good way. Results (3 sections) ***Graphics The graphics I get on my HD 41 inch Sony TV with HDMI connecting it and my Xbox are easily the most beautiful and stunning console graphics I've ever seen in a sim. I'm more of a PC gamer, but this game (even with the limitations of the Xbox) looks just as good as I would imagine it on my gaming rig. The cars pop off the screen and the immersion is intense. The sound of an Enzo Ferrari's engine revving in anticipation of launch is gripping and ultra-realistic. I thought that the graphics in 3 were fine, but Forza 4 knocks it out of the park! And the light reflections, my God, are STUNNING. Finally, you get a cockpit view in every car and if you have a kinect (this is it's only use for me now lol) the game will even mirror you're head movements while driving! Amazing. ***Multiplayer (HUGE upgrade, prob the best IMHO) To me, Forza 3 was a 100% single player game. Of course I would take full advantage of the auction house, but I don't like racing competitively with people that I don't know. I don't know why, maybe just too intimidating, but I'm definitely good enough. So, the big surprise for me with Forza 4 was the multiplayer which COMPLETELY altered how I view Forza. With their new rivals mode, you race ghosts of other, live people to try and top their time in the leader boards, and T10 will give you quite the chunk of change (as much as 150K credits) for beating a "Rival" depending on how high up they are in the boards. In stark contrast to Forza 3 where winning online would give yourself only like 300 credits, this is a huge leap. Plus, Turn 10 keeps it interesting by making the rival challenges fun and, well, challenging! Plus, I don't view it as competitive because I'm not actually racing a person, I'm racing a recording of a person. Of course one can still race in lobbies and such much like Forza 3, but I personally believe that "Rivals" mode is the definitive experience ***CARS!!! CARS CARS CARS!!! THIS is what most people buy racing games for, and with competitors out there offering huge amounts of cars (I'm looking at you GT5), can Forza really stand up and dethrone them with its smaller assortment of cars? In a word, yes. The people at Turn 10 have always been THE BEST at modeling their cars, when you look at other games, and compare the same car in one of them with Forza 4's it's obvious which one is superior. That, however, is only in terms of graphics. What about spread? If a game had 900 cars, but eight hundred of them were nissans, hondas, toyotas, and fords, would people be happy? Probably not, especially if there were only six Ferraris. This, thankfully is where FM4 soars above the competition. As I am typing this review, there are 28 Nissans, 17 Hondas, 17 Toyotas, 31 Fords, and *drumroll please* 32 Ferraris. What's that he said, MORE FERRARIS than FORDS?! Yes, what a strange concept? Furthermore, all the cars in the game are cars that people would WANT to drive. Sure there are the mandatory hatchbacks, and SUV's (like 25 in total) for people who are just starting on a budget. But, more importantly, there's the Ferrari 458, Shelby GT500, corvette stingray, Aston DBS, Lamborghini Gallardo, the list of GREAT cars goes on and on. There's so few "filler" cars that it's remarkable. That being said, don't worry you Nissan '71 Skyline fans and fans of similar classic ultra-tunable cars and the such. If it's your dream car, it's probably in FM 4. Who knows, maybe you'll even find a new one? Plus, there's the constant stream of DLC that comes out the first of the month every month until FM 5. The only gripe (for many it's a major issue but for me it's just a gripe) that I have, is that there are no Porsches in the game due to Porsche's exclusive contract with EA (that terminates soon). However, knowing how much the people at T 10 love the community, there's likely to be a free Porsche DLC that will come out when that contract expires. Conclusion Forza Motorsport 4 is a great racing sim that pushes the limits of gaming hardware. It IS the cutting edge racing game, and if you're in the market for one, you should definitely give Forza's wheel a spin. I don't really play Xbox that much anymore as Battlefield 3 is sucking my life into the PC, but every day I spend at least an hour driving my dream in Forza. Forza is pretty much the only reason my Xbox gets turned on, and I'm completely proud of it, and wouldn't have it any other way. For someone upgrading from 3, don't hesitate in pricking this one up, especially if you enjoyed 3 as much as I did! Plus, there's sooooo many features and pluses that I didn't talk about, like how GREAT that groovy menu music is! Then there's auto vista (overrated but still cool for sure), drag racing updates, and the pure VOLUME of content! Weeks in of an hour or three a day on average and I'm only 3.7% complete!!!!!! 3.7%! That's AMAZING, especially because I'm not making it up, that's what the statistic tracker says! Omg, I love this game. See you on the track, heck join my racing club! The PicoPro Club

I needed to replace my original disc which was damaged by my console over time. I tried resurfacing the disc to no avail so ordered this. As an added bonus I now have the second disc for the game, as I got the system and game as a hand-me-down...Ok, my kids got it, but I'm the one who uses it most!

That's how the product came. The stars are for the product state not the game itself. The game is cool. Mainly got it for two player split screen mode. Two player mode has only the two cars of players racing against each other. Would have been better of there were car bots too.

It arrived. It works. What more can you say?

So the big question that has followed this game is, is it better than GT5? The answer? Well honestly, it all depends on what the player wants. Both games are quite literally equal. Where one falls short the other one picks up and vice versa. I've always been a Playstation junkie and a fan of the Gran Tourismo series. So there may be some bias there, but I went into this game with an open mind. First off I do have to say I've never liked the X-Box controller. It's stupid and awkward and whoever designed it should be shot. Although this is no fault to the game, in the game itself though I couldn't really find a good controller configuration. I'm sorry but the proper controls for a sim racing game should be accel and decel=right joystick, steering=left joystick, up shift=R trigger, downshift=L trigger, and anything else on the d- pad or colored buttons. I've played GT5 for years like this and it just works so so well and it's comfortable not awkward. So basically for this game I kind of feel like I'm playing a Need For Speed game. And it's not just the controller config. either. This game looks great! It really does. But where GT5 tracks looked a little bland, they actually looked a little more realistic. I'm sorry but the real world is not just bursting with color and reflections. I also feel like some of the cars just looked a little more structured and detailed in GT5. Almost like some of the cars in Forza are off a little in dimensions. And I noticed the Pagani Zonda R in GT5 shows the carbon fiber skin where as the one in Forza is just black. This stuff is most likely not important to most people, but to those of you who are gear heads and auto junkies, you know what I'm talking about. One thing that threw me off in the beginning was the first race in the Ferrari 458 Italia. The brake assist is on and it's in arcade mode, which I was not aware of until you actually beat that race and go into the settings. I'm glad you could put it to sim mode which makes it more like GT5, but I was seriously concerned that this was how the game was going to play. It felt like the game was driving the car for you. But I suppose for those of you that don't want a sim this game would be perfect for you. So +1 to Forza for providing both modes for different people. As far as the music...both games may have a track or two that are good, but for the most part it's all annoying and distracting techno. So I turned it off in both games. Besides, I want to hear the engines anyway. I do have to say that the cars do sound way more realistic in Forza than GT5. So again +1 to Forza. However I feel that the cars handle a little more realistically in GT5 and the full view of the interiors in GT5 is better than Forza. SO +1 to GT5. Also GT5 has smarter AI. So...another +1 to GT5. Some opinions may vary on this, but I also feel the menus are clearer and easier to use in GT5. Forza just has too many ins and outs with menus where as GT5 has everthing you need on the main home screen in career mode, and I feel it's easier to tweak you car too. BUT, Forza does have more customization than GT5, and I know how much everyone loves customization. So I have to say +1 to GT5 and Forza. As far as car selection GT5 has an enormous collection. However only a portion of them are fully rendered premium cars. I don't know about you, but I'd rather drive all the premium cars that have rendered interiors as opposed to the style of the previous GT games. So when you narrow down the the cars like that I'd have to say that both games have about the same amount of worthwhile cars. Now with GT5 there were some DLC packs and they were reasonably priced and you got some decent stuff. Not a lot but some. But with Forza there's a whole slew of cars that you actually have to spend real money on X-Box for. I mean what the hell? I just spent $60.00 on this game and now I have to keep spending more and more money on stupid X-Box credits? Booo to that. That's f-ing shady. I suppose I will eventually break down and buy the cars I desperately want to drive in Forza, but I'm not happy at all with the way they handled it. Oh and it takes FOREVER to download one car. I'm talking about the free 2012 BMW M5. So to both games and their car collections...um, no points awarded. So honestly both games are well done and by far the best on the market as far as racing sims go. Both have pros and cons, both look and sound good, and both will keep you busy for months on end. So which game is better? That's for you to decide.