Upon first play you’re immediately going to be disappointed by the Forza 4 experience because it’s so similar to the Forza 3 experience. 4 includes only a handful of new tracks and most of the cars that you see in 4 appeared also in 3.
So it sucks then?
God no! It’s bloody brilliant and I still have a session every day after work…every day!
How hard?
One aspect of the new Forza that I like is that it really is accessible to all levels of driver. While it’s no fun racing a noob if you’ve been playing for 6 months, it is immense fun pitting your dad and your girlfriend against each other, or like I did, your sister and your 4-year-old cousin. (my sister lost before you ask).
They’ve gone with quite a creative way to set difficulty with a custom setting. This means that even if you put it on expert, you can still tweak some features like turning your stability control off when you’re driving the VW Fox and it isn’t necessary.
More than that you get nicely rewarded with percentage gains in points for doing so.
What this does (at least it feels like it does) is tones down the importance of the level of AI of the computer. You’re always racing against the same opponents, you are the factor the changes.
New cars?
In Forza 3 the goal was to win races, hoard credits and buy the cars that weren’t given to you by the game. In 4 the game rewards you with a selection of 2-5 cars each time you reach a milestone in the game. Of course you can only have one each time, but this feature means that you’ll very seldom be in the cars virtual showroom shopping for new wheels. When you do visit it’ll most likely be to buy something that you had to turn down in the name of something else.
The options of the cars come thick and fast offering you everything from Zonda R’s to the Veyron beast. The only downsides are having to actually choose one and leave the rest behind.
There’s great news awaiting old school Forza 3 players too. Forza 4 is going to reward you for all the family functions, exams and lectures you’ve missed because you couldn’t get off the couch in time.
Don’t get too excited, they’re not letting you keep ALL your credits, cars and money, but they will award you a good selection of cars and a bit of extra cash based on your Forza 3 driver level, VIP status, and what sort of cars you owned in 3.
This means you get to kick things off for example in a Ferrari 430 instead of a Renault Clio.
Career mode
Obviously career mode is where you’ll kick things off, and before you fall into despair of driving the same car for the next few weeks of play before you can earn something better, Forza 4 almost lets you choose which event you participate in and in which car.
You can’t choose which track, but let’s say you’re nearing the end of career mode and an R2 race comes along. You’re tired of spinning out with torque steer and Ayrton Senna-ring into solid walls so you’d rather drive a VW GTi in this race. Choose your car and a race will come up that fits your car spec. Not always but enough of the time to please.
I haven’t given the game much of a go online yet, but will update the review as soon as I do.
The verdict
Turn 10 have created a winner in Forza 4. What you want out of a racing game is hours and hours of repetitive fun especially after the career mode is conquered, and Forza 4 delivers. Bring it out at your next braai and challenge a mate.
