Mount Panorama is a treacherous circuit, but on the crest of its dizzying 174-meter climb is a view of the Australian countryside so gorgeous that for a couple of fleeting moments all that exists is you and the howl of a roaring engine. Moments like this are what make Forza Motorsport 5 so special. It is a game that expertly captures the bond between car and driver, improving on a worldwide-class racing simulation with just as much human touch as technical wizardry.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in Forza 5’s redesigned career mode, where the hosts of Top Gear function entertaining guides through all manner of automotive styles and eras. It is a format made from dozens of mini-campaigns, each involved in a selected class of auto, starting from vintage touring legends to hot hatches to fashionable hypercars. It is a even more a la carte approach than previous Forza games: each series is unlocked from the beginning, lasting between one and two hours each. You’re given the liberty to progress through these themed categories in any order you want, the single limit to what you drive next being the collection of credits on your virtual checking account.
With this approach comes the liberty to navigate your individual pathway during the history of motorsport, but with an overarching progression of credits and RPG-style leveling that encourages you to repeatedly poke through Forza 5’s eclectic number of vehicles. It is a career mode made even better by an expanded Top Gear partnership that takes the shape of narrated voice-overs preceding each series. Whether they’re playfully mocking the third generation of Ford Mustangs or recounting the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda throughout the 1976 Formula One season, Clarkson, Hammond, and should shine as automotive historians. Their entertaining yet informative prologues lend both context and humor to each category of auto you select to spend time with.
The 1971 Elan Sprint has its charms, however the 2013 E21 is the standout Lotus in Forza 5.
That same flair for personality may be seen within the new drivatar AI system. The theory is that every car you compete against throughout your career is modeled after a true player’s driving habits, a kind of cloud-based doppelganger meant to mirror how aggressive someone is within the pack or how well they are able to negotiate the trickiest of chicanes. Exactly how accurate these portraits are is up for debate, however the system does achieve filling each 16-car grid with distinct personalities, drivers whose tendencies you could never take as a right. Their mistakes are far less predictable than the vanilla AI of previous games–especially while you reduce their penchant for aggression by climbing the ladder of eight difficulty settings–making those moments you capitalize on their errors that rather more rewarding. There are odd AI hiccups here and there, like after they side-swipe you within the straights for no apparent reason, but such goofs are rare and nothing that a handy guide a rough tap of the rewind button can’t solve.
This is a game that expertly captures the bond between car and driver, improving on a global-class racing simulation with just as much human touch as technical wizardry
All of this amounts to a career mode that feels more lively and personable than anything Forza has done up to now. There are faults, though. a feeling of repetition can creep in attributable to a track list roughly half the scale of that present in Forza 4, already a game that carried a profound sense of environmental deja vu. But those tracks that did make the cut have received the whole next-gen treatment. Classics like Laguna Seca and Silverstone are significant improvements over their prior iterations on the subject of both feel and appear, bristling with race day atmosphere and up-to-date tweaks to trace layouts. After which there are the recent circuits: the sloping forest hills of Spa-Francorchamps, the classical European streets of Prague, and the demanding ascent of Mount Panorama. These excellent additions don’t remove the edge from the modest track count, but they do function wonderful complements to the stable of well-updated classics.
Easier to forgive is Forza 5’s reduced car count. While smaller overall, this is often the broadest assortment of vehicles the series has ever seen, highlighted by the introduction of open-wheel Formula One and IndyCars. Piloting a 750-horsepower Lotus E21 mere inches above the asphalt is an experience each piece as exhilarating because it is terrifying, making you’re feeling as if any turn on that cockpit could send you rocketing into outer space. But whether you’re cruising around in a Ford Focus or a McLaren P1, every car within the game’s catalog looks absolutely remarkable–both of their pristine showroom forms in addition to those post-race close-ups where flecks of grime litter the outside and scratches adorn the disc brakes.
Indeed, Forza 5 has hardly forgotten its roots as a racing sim known for its staggering dedication to realism. Improved tire physics provide you with a much better sense of your car’s shifting weight as you barrel through sloped corners, while a clever implementation of the Xbox One trigger rumble delivers valuable haptic feedback about your current traction and stability levels. But as with previous games, Forza 5 is just as demanding as you would like it to be. A generous selection of driving assists means that you can settle into your personal personal comfort zone at the track, with rewards for ratcheting up the trouble and penalties for overusing the rewind function.
But a steadfast dedication to racing physics is just a part of the tale. Forza 5 is a game brimming with audiovisual flourishes, little touches that elevate the driving experience just up to the underlying science. The way in which sunlight comes flooding through your windshield as you race around the Prague circuit’s cobblestone bridge, or the superb orchestral soundtrack that makes each race feel just like the climax of a James Bond movie–Forza 5 is a completely beautiful game stuffed with immersive detail. And nowhere is that more visible than within the remarkable cockpit views, where intricate stitch work and high-resolution textures function rich palettes for the game’s drastically improved lighting effects. Even the Dolby cassette deck on a ’92 Golf GTi is a specific thing of beauty.
Forza 5 goes out of its option to be sure that every feature carried over from previous games has seen meaningful improvements. The Autovista mode that debuted in Forza 4 (renamed Forzavista here) has expanded from a handful of cars to the game’s entire roster, making it easy to lose time ogling your latest purchase from every conceivable angle. Rivals mode remains a thrilling process of challenging your friends’ best lap times, but now it’s been fully integrated into the career mode in order that you’re automatically presented with a brand new lap time to overcome at the same time as you’re racing your way toward your next extravagant supercar. Even the livery editor have been expanded with new vinyls and surface materials, supplying you with the chance to defy all that’s holy by designing a wood-grain Ferrari 458 Italia, or a Lexus LFA made entirely of brushed copper.
Unfortunately, I had limited access to Forza 5’s multiplayer within the game’s prerelease review state, with only the choice to choose from a couple of hoppers for A- and S-class cars respectively. But my time competing against other players revealed a stable networking environment (thanks in some part to the game’s dedicated servers, unquestionably) and a satisfying matchmaking system that permits you to tinker around in any mode you please while it searches for a suitable match.
All of this combined makes Forza Motorsport 5 a fantastic improvement to an already excellent racing franchise. It’s miles greater than only a great racing sim, or a ravishing showcase for the kinds of feats the Xbox One hardware is able to. It is a game built at the romantic thrill of motorsport in all its forms, and that love for its theme is all but irresistible.