| Platform: Xbox One | Publisher: Microsoft | Developer: Turn 10 |
| Reviewer: JayWood2010 | Genre: Racing | Rating: E |
When Xbox One was first revealed they showed off a number of launch games during E3 which included the mass hit Forza Motorsports 5. Forza has acted as one of the most important franchises on Xbox with over 16 million copies sold world wide. Not only that but Microsoft and Turn 10 has been able to brag about being the best rated racing franchise for the last decade. These are huge achievements and now Turn 10 and Microsoft are making another important release with a launch title in Forza Motorsports 5.
When you first get behind the wheel on Forza 5 I will be the first one to tell you that it looks and sounds amazing. The interior design is perfect, the surroundings are superb, and the lighting is fantastic. Everything in this game looks and feels stunning. It also helps that they give you a wide variety in locations so the scenery can be very different in some locations like snowy mountains, a beautiful city, or driving between trees in Australia. And even though it looks amazing there is downside. Unfortunately Forza 5 being a launch game did come with some repercussions which includes a small list in race tracks and no weather feature. And even though it is understandable that a weather feature would take more time to make considering they would have to change the physics and the way the cars control on the road it is upsetting to only have one time in the day. A night and day cycle would have been nice. While this isn’t a deal breaker it is something I definitely want to see in Forza 6.
When it comes to gameplay though, Forza 5 shines. With the way this game sounds and looks it is no understatement to say that it truly makes you feel as if you’re in a real car racing. With Forza it is nice that it allows both casual racers and the more hardcore racers have fun with a few difficulty changes. And with the new drivatar feature where you constantly are changing the way your AI driver races it can be a real addiction. There was times that I would just try and nail a perfect turn, perfect pass, perfect etc so I could improve my drivatar. See drivatars will show up in your friends games while you aren’t online and earn you money. However I didn’t want to improve my drivatar because the money, I was trying to improve my drivatar because I am highly competitive and this made it almost feel like I was playing online even while I was offline. It was a real treat. Unfortunately drivatars didn’t come without controversy. Drivatars like online players can be insanely aggressive bumping you throughout the race damaging your car physically and internally depending on what settings you have turned on. It then becomes almost as if you’re in a derby race rather than a sim race. Thankfully there is a rewind feature that is there instead of restarting the entire race. None the less it is an addictive experience and a joy to play through.
Other popular features like paint in Forza returned with changes. Paint is still there and absolutely amazing. This is the feature that I really get excited about in each game because people consistently show how talented they are. This time around they do not have the auction house though. Now people can paint cars and put them up for free for that specific model. And while it is cool that I can get these designs for free I feel as if it is taking away from the people who put hard work into these designs. The auction house gave people a motive to make these cars whereas giving them away for free gives you no reward so in other words I do hope the auction house returns in the future.
Endurance races were oddly missing as well. This is something that I hope they can add with a simple update rather than only racing for a few laps at a time. Speaking of which, they did update Forza 5 to give us drag races and expensive cars are less expensive. To this I see Turn 10 is going to actively make Forza 5 a better experience throughout its life. In the mean time I will continue to race each track and try to beat all my friends fastest lap time which is another thing that I found addicting. There is always that incentive to get better in Forza 5 whether it be Drivatars, quicker lap times for the leaderboards, to nail that perfect turn, or just to get better for actual online races.
In the end Forza 5 is one of the best racing games in many ways but falls short to Forza 4 simply because it has less content and I do prefer the auction house. Forza 5 will likely add cars and tracks through DLC but unlike Killer Instinct where it launched as a $20 game and it will end up being $60 after season 1, Forza 5 launched at a full price at $60 and will likely be over $100 when all is said and done. There is a strong possibility that next year Forza 5 could rerelease with more content at a cheaper price but it is hard to say without being a fortune teller. I still will say that this is a gorgeous game and the gameplay is stellar though, great game.
| Gameplay | 8.5 |
| Presentation/Audio | 9 |
| Content | 7.5 |
| Overall | 8.3 |
