GamesRelay

Name: Forza Motorsport 3

Forza Motorsport is a rare breed, it's rare that you'll come across another game with such a deep level of customisation and a huge selection of cars. The only real comparison to the game is probably going to be Gran Turismo 5, but god only knows when that will be released. Turn 10 Studios' latest game in its Forza series offers players more than 400 cars from 50 manufacturers to get to grips with, on top of that you have 100 race track variations to race them on and a paint and tuning system which you don't need to use to fully benefit from the game.

The Forza Motorsport 3 season mode is no doubt pretty much where all drivers will start their racing career on Forza and you'll start at the bottom of the calendar (literally) as you make your first steps into the season. Season mode has over 200 events for you to participate in which include; circuit, oval, drag, drift and hot lap events as you progress through, each event is split over a set amount of weeks which take you through the years or seasons as they are known in your career. The events are then split into months and weeks and after a few events you'll take part in the championship race which concludes that series of events. After such time, you are given the option to select which type of event you wish to race in and what type of cars, such as the Volkswagen Cup, or alternatively a 4WD series. While having so many events and races can sound daunting, Forza 3 lets you hire drivers to race for you instead of doing it yourself, the hired driver takes a cut from your winnings, however, you lose any experience as a driver and for your car that you would of gained for racing yourself. While this option certainly does come in handy, it doesn't guarantee you a first place, plus you have to watch the race like a saved replay, you can't just skip it which is disappointing, but then this is a racing simulator, not an arcade game. Alternatively if you don't like the progression method of the calendar during season play you can skip it entirely and pick and choose the events you want to do. But since you start with a showroom car, it's best to get some experience under your belt and a faster car to go with.

While allowing you this freedom during season play it does however cause one issue which while great for a player, simply boggles the mind as to why. Money comes in fairly fast, while it isn't enough to go and buy the most expensive Ferrari or the Bugatti Veyron, it's certainly enough to get your car upgraded early on. To take such an example was my first car, as soon as I saved up the credits to buy the Volkswagen Golf R32 I simply pumped all the funds I got into upgrading it, by driver level 7 and still racing through the C class, I had the fastest car in the game, quite literally too. The GamesRelay Golf as we like to call it... Has a top speed of 209mph and 0-100 in 4.10 seconds, what struck me was during the weeks before a final event I could happily participate in any of the races with the upgraded golf which was an R3 class and nothing stood a chance against it, I was winning every race, usually by lapping them and thus taking away the challenge and competitive racing element of the game. It's unfortunate that the same system which restricts your car during a final event to a C class for instance, doesn't get used during the events in between, it would certainly make the game more challenging.

One of the great features about Forza 3 is its level of difficulty and assists, the game lets you freely choose the level of assistance you require while racing, from the racing line to keep you on track, to help in braking on corners and traction control to stability control, these all can be turned on or off, while turning them on makes the racing much easier since you can slam the brakes on and not worry, the game rewards more experience towards your driver and car for playing with assists off. These take the form of a percentage depending on which you have enabled and/or disabled, the more you have disabled the more experience you gain per race. It's a welcome feature to have because not everyone has the abilities of a professional racing driver or wants to handle all the different options. Climbing into the Bugatti Veyron or the Pagani Zonda with the assists off make the cars nearly impossible to take corners with, but a simple change of the assists and they stick to the road like glue. A great feature for the newer players to the Forza racing series.

Thankfully, Forza 3's AI is very adaptable, the opposition can of course serve as a braking wall to ram into instead of going off the course if you think your playing Destruction Derby, however the computer is more focused on winning the race than exacting revenge on you which is a blessing. You will find the odd time where the AI gets bunched up in a corner at the start of a race and all hell breaks loose, it's a very rare occurrence mind you. Sometimes if you have one of the computers hot on your tail and you brake suddenly, the computer will smash into the rear of you if it can't brake soon enough resulting in you usually spinning off the track. While this can get annoying when it happens, you have to think in terms of realism since it is what can and does happen in real life racing. You can see just how well the AI does if you hire a driver to race for you during the season mode, the computer doesn't go pedal to the metal through the corners or acts as a battering ram while jostling for first place, it sees opportunities to overtake the other racers and goes for them which is great. You will be hard pressed to win a race with a hired driver however since the computer follows the correct racing lines, where as when you're in control you can pull out every trick in the book to get in first, and you usually will.

New to the Forza series is the rewind ability, which while racing in season mode or free play gives you the ability to rewind your live game, taking you back to an earlier point. As you race, the game keeps track of certain points in real time and if you hit a corner and slide off onto the gravel, hitting select will simply rewind you to the nearest point. You can do this as often as you wish giving you a huge advantage while racing, letting you get that perfect lap every time. While it does take away the challenge aspect, since every wrong move you make can easily be rectified with the rewind ability, it is a great feature for novice drivers and easily makes the game more inviting to parties not familiar with the Forza games or Motorsport in general. Some may look at this feature as a negative, since Forza is a racing simulator and not an arcade game, thankfully Turn 10 have left this ability out of multiplayer, and rightly so. Since Forza 3 also includes leaderboards, this option shows who has and has not used the feature while setting their lap time, making things much fairer when it comes to competitive time trials. Since the game includes certain assists which can increase or decrease the difficulty, it's unfortunate that the rewind ability wasn't include as one of these, allowing pure racers to play with the ultimate difficulty, but then it is up to you whether you choose to use the rewind feature or not, as tempting as it may be when you go hurtling off the track and into a wall.