Forza Motorsport 5 review

[Neon Ignition]

Hmm, I just know I'm going to be on my own with this.

So, done the first cup and all has been fine but at the same time deflating. There are moments when the lighting etc comes together and looks lush but all too often it looks distinctly Forza 4. It's crisp as hell but still feels like half a project. I don't like that even small things are still niggles, like making all the cars so reflective without including proper real time reflections. It's often said but Forza seriously needs to get a night/day/weather cycle in also.

I do love that there's finally music in races though, the devs seem to have been inspired by Speeds soundtrack and it works well. The game plays smooth also. Personally, the rumble triggers add little. Sometimes you notice it but just as often the pads standard rumble motors can be felt over the top of the triggers, it adds some sensation, moreso when braking but nothing game changing.

So yeah, see how it goes. It's certainly a good game. My Drivatar is now out there in the ether so we'll see how they all affect the experience but so far it's more a nice expansion encore to Forza 4 than a true next-gen installment in the series.

If you have played others in the series go here for rewards: https://rewards.forzamotorsport.net/en-us/

[GluedOnBeard]

To get the graphical side of things out of the way. Yes it isn't anything special but it's still solid and the cars look great especially considering they are customizable.

The gameplay itself is great though I am finding the drivatars to really inject some life into the single player and it also gives you new rivals with each lap so you are constantly trying to beat someone's time no matter which car you're in.

Only downside at the moment for me is having to play so much to unlock the cars. Would have been nice to have one car for each class to play with online for instance unless I am missing something.

One nice touch graphically is the windscreen reflection but yeah the environments besides Prague so far are last gen but as a launch title that can be excused and the main thing is its enjoyable but if you have played a lot of car sims of late then maybe give it a miss.

[BIG EDD]

I'm enjoying this the framerate is silky smooth and the cars look amazing in the garage spent ages viewing them
It does look slightly current gen in places but Prague looks beautiful but as a launch title with deadlines to hit and improving dev kits I'm not disappointed

[charlesr]

The drivatars are making me think my friends are rubbish at driving games There goes [whoever], veering across in front of me and hitting the brakes in the middle of a straight again.

Handling: I jumped from a BRZ into a 22B and the impreza felt EXACTLY like mine. Uncanny.

[BIG EDD]

The drivatars are making me think my friends are rubbish at driving games There goes [whoever], veering across in front of me and hitting the brakes in the middle of a straight again.

Thats usually the dumb ****e I encounter when I have taken a turn perfect and bang straight up his arse

[BIG EDD]

The drivatars are making me think my friends are rubbish at driving games There goes [whoever], veering across in front of me and hitting the brakes in the middle of a straight again.

Handling: I jumped from a BRZ into a 22B and the impreza felt EXACTLY like mine. Uncanny.

i take it you've sorted out your xbox one then Charles

[DeathAdder]

Only downside at the moment for me is having to play so much to unlock the cars.

This has been done so they can implement the much-discussed microtransactions, hasn't it?

[nonny]

Implement? The micro-transactions / tokens have been there since Forza 3 so I don't get why the media is complaining about F2P in a retail game. Its a bit bollocks to me.

The only difference here is you don't get free cars as rewards, only money so some reviewers didn't like the grind necessary to race with the more expensive cars.

You can however rent cars to race with online, its free but you don't earn XP whilst using them. So last night I was racing F1 lotus around Spa for a while with some mates. Worked perfectly, had a blast. Didn't cost me anything. In single player I think that car was $3.5m?

Other than that I got the limited edition which netted me some tokens. I bought the Aerial Atom V8 which was dirt cheap, did an engine swap (goes to R1 class from memory) and raced that. Instant, cheap pocket rocket and its almost open wheel.

As such I think the grind isn't any better or worse than previous outings it's just say the lack of car club garages being replaced by rentals makes some people feel they've lost something when really it's just a slightly different approach to the same issue.

[dataDave]

For 2,334 Tokens you can buy either a McLaren P1 or Ferrari Enzo. A Token pack costing ?15.99 will cover either of those cars (you can buy packs of Tokens at the following prices: 100 is ?0.79, 575 is ?3.99, 1250 is ?7.99, 2700 is ?15.99, 8000 is ?39.99 and 20,000 is ?64.99), so with the 2700 Token pack that's one vehicle for ?13.82. But there's much more expensive cars in Forza Motorsport 5, but the more Tokens you buy, the cheaper they are. If you bought the 20,000 pack (costing ?64.99) the McLaren would cost just ?7.58.

From the same pricing, a Veyron Super Sport will set you back ?13.00, and the most expensive car in the game, the Lotus E21 will cost an incredible ?32.50. The smaller the pack of Tokens, the more expensive they are, so the worst possible way of picking up the game's most expensive car would be to buy 100 of the 100 Token packs, bagging you the exclusive 10,000 Token Lotus E21 for a cool ?79.

[DeathAdder]

I haven't played the Forza series for ages, so excuse my ignorance, but what is the season pass needed for?

[charlesr]

The tokens and credits are a bit confusing. I would have preferred just one currency and to buy that currency - as far as I can tell you can only use one or the other to buy cars, not both which means you can't buy a bit and top up with grinding - please can someone let me know if that's wrong though and I'm missing something. Not that I'm going to actually buy anything.

And yeah, sorted the machine by pulling the plug to bypass fast-start. It reminds me of the unreliability of hibernating a winXP machine - no one in their right mind would do it.

[charlesr]

Grass = glue - stops you almost instantly.
Barriers are made of rubber, you can bounce off them with no damage at 130mph if it's a glancing blow. However, braking slightly late and tapping a car in front with a closing speed of around 5mph will break pretty much everything at the front of the car.

Race the Stig mode: Clarkson waffling on about how you can beat him if you are really really good. I overtake him and leave him for dust on the second corner I don't think they thought that one through very well...... Wasted opportunity to make for a really tense competition. I have drivatar difficulty on experienced (or whatever "use if you played forza a lot before" is) and assists on Veteran.

The menu system is totally baffling.

Minor details though. The actual driving is great.

[PeteJ]

It's like they want to incorporate an evil version of Riot's F2P model on top of an existing $70 price tag.

hahahahah!!

Yeah that's exactly right, they've adopted a F2P model and charging ?50 on top. It's unacceptable because the game appears to have been designed around people spending real money from the ground up.

I haven't worked out how much grinding it would take to unlock the Lotus E21 or high end cars in the game, but I imagine most will never get it. Their excuse is to say they want these cars to seem rare and exclusive like they are in the real world, but that's just a bull**** coverup for their greed.

Each of the Microsoft exclusive games have got microtransactions in them (MicotransactionSoft?) but this is by far the worst.

[nakamura]

How is the actual racing? Is it much more fun though? The driving in Forza 4 was excellent, along with the amazing engine sounds.

[EvilBoris]

Please do not post shipping updates, or whether you have ordered the game or not, or how long your downloads on XBox Live are taking, or opinions of games you haven't played. Posts of this nature will be removed from the thread without warning.

ahem...