Blixtstorm reviews, Forza Motorsport 3

This is not a full review, but more a hands on, I've been playing for about 40 hours since I got it 16% of career mode.

- Gameplay

Forza Motorsport 3 is a simulation racing game, with physics that can't be matched by any other game on the market.

You start of with a lap in the new Audi R8 5.2 FSI (V10), excellent narrator explains how to get started in the game. After you get a feel for the game and finish the race you'll get to choose your first car. Your first car is not fast by any means, but the game isn't boring for that reason. After a couple of races you'll gain your drivers level, this is based on a XP system for how difficult the track is, how many laps, and other assists. As you progress through the 50 levels in the game, you receive a car for every single one.
After some time of racing you'll see that you have some decent cars and cash to get more or to make you car better, this is where the new improved tuning/upgrading system comes in. All things from engine swaps to drive-train swaps to make your car the best possible. This can be done even by the novice due to a "Upgrade Helper", you select class and the computer selects parts for you.

The driving is near perfect in the game, you feel the weight of the car as you thunder along the Mulsanne straight at Le Mans or in the twisty Rally the Positano. The car line up is very good, with some minor flaws to it, I'm hoping for the cars to be in a future DLC pack. The car line up is big, over 400 strong with everything from the Fiat 500 Abarth to the Bugatti Veyron and even Suv and Pick-up trucks such as Dodge Ram SRT-10.
Every car have a PI, an performance index and the index is divided in to classes, stretching from F, E, D, C, B, A, S, R3, R2, R1. Most races are limited to a certain class, making some cars in-eligible this will stop you from choosing a to good or bad car compared to the AI.
The AI is almost spot on, with some minor flaws to the difficulty settings, an mediocre player will handle medium settings with some struggle some times, but easy is too easy and hard is extreme and almost impossible to win.

- Graphics

The graphics are sublime, I may be corrected but I think this is the best looking Xbox game ever, and that includes GoW2. The cars are extremely high detailed and very good modelled. Textures of the road and things next to it are probably the best in any racing game ever as well. Every thing is is highly detailed an the mix between 3D and 2D textures on the tracks is very good. In the "not doing anything mode" as you sit and watch the menu, there's an very nice feature the showcases your current car on with some stunning, almost real-life quality.

- Art

A big part of the Forza community is the vinyl editor on the cars, with this time a new improved thing is added to ease the making of decals/vinyl-groups. You can paint every car in almost every colour, even the race cars, so if you want a pink Le Mans car you can make it.

- Music

The game has a nice variety of music tracks, and the horrible options to have in-race music, probably the worst thing in any racing game with the exception of Test Drive Unlimited as its the radio playing music. Most of the tracks are either "symphonic" or has something to do with racing.

- Sound

A mayor improvement since the last installment. All the cars have a unique and very good sound now, but theres one thing that sets it apart from the previous game. The sound does NOT change as you buy a new exhaust, but as you add more engine parts to the car, it gets more and more different sound. Exhaust effect have been added, sound bangs from the exhaust pipes, rattle and many other fun and awesome effects. Improved sound from supercharger and turbo as well, the wining and "pffffing" (from the blow-of valve).

- Multiplayer/Online

As most games today, it has an "hopper" system, sort of "Match-making" if you like. This may be a nice feature for the people that just want to play some online. A private lobby is the only thing that is a lobby in this game, a downgrade from Forza 2 in my opinion. The ability to make a lobby, with your rules and the track you want to play is something I think is lacking from the game, mayby in a update later on, perhaps/hopefully. The Private Lobby is a new lobby system that only can allow people through invites or if they are friends. You'll be able to choose everything in this game, from the track to certain rules such as making some people able to just choose a very slow car.

- Replayability

This game is vast, there's not a game in this size on the Xbox (since it's on 2 disc, but second disc is optional). To finish the game you look at over 150 hours of career mode, then the multiplayer. So if you are somewhat in to driving or cars this is a perfect game for you, since the rivals on the market isn't in the same division.

- Rivals

Need for Speed: Shift (Multi-platform) A decent game, but very bad "arcadish" mixed with simulations.. About 85 cars.

Gran Turismo "decade" 5 (PS3) The "daddy" to all simulation games, may even be released 2011... Also know as: Bumper Car game, but is a very good driving game, especially if you like many cars, where it has Forza beaten, with its Roster of ~1000 cars.

You do know that Gran Turismo only has half of their claimed 1000 cars or even less.

Polyphonye Digital counts minor variations of the same car. There's always like 20 Skylines so it's laughable that they can sale 1000 cars with a straight face. Hell they're probably counting all those Nascar's as separate cars too.

You also have to figure that at least a quarter of the cars they are claiming are crappy commuter cars that you don't want to drive, but they force you to before you can buy the cars you want.

At the end of the day if you take out the car padding and the crap cars you end up with a roster of they kinds of cars we want to drive at about the same as Forza 3.

343_Guilty_Spark wrote:

You do know that Gran Turismo only has half of their claimed 1000 cars or even less.

Polyphonye Digital counts minor variations of the same car. There's always like 20 Skylines so it's laughable that they can sale 1000 cars with a straight face. Hell they're probably counting all those Nascar's as separate cars too.

You also have to figure that at least a quarter of the cars they are claiming are crappy commuter cars that you don't want to drive, but they force you to before you can buy the cars you want.

At the end of the day if you take out the car padding and the crap cars you end up with a roster of they kinds of cars we want to drive at about the same as Forza 3.

Well said 343, I agree 100%. And nice review blix.

I forgot to say good job on the review. You did a great job, I just wrote that comment above to make it clear that GT5's 1000 cars claim is a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously.

343_Guilty_Spark wrote:

I forgot to say good job on the review. You did a great job, I just wrote that comment above to make it clear that GT5's 1000 cars claim is a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously.

I know, but the thing is that GT5 has 950 cars diffrent versions as well. Forza is not diffrent, there's 15 Porsche 911 race cars...

343_Guilty_Spark wrote:

You do know that Gran Turismo only has half of their claimed 1000 cars or even less.

Polyphonye Digital counts minor variations of the same car. There's always like 20 Skylines so it's laughable that they can sale 1000 cars with a straight face. Hell they're probably counting all those Nascar's as separate cars too.

You also have to figure that at least a quarter of the cars they are claiming are crappy commuter cars that you don't want to drive, but they force you to before you can buy the cars you want.

At the end of the day if you take out the car padding and the crap cars you end up with a roster of they kinds of cars we want to drive at about the same as Forza 3.

Very true. And great review Blix.

Great Review

awsome rewiev