Getting Off-Track - Some Thoughts On Forza Motorsport 4

There's no denying this is a great driving game, but it's got some issues...

I've been playing quite a bit of Forza Motorsport 4 over the last month or so. It's proven a great accompaniment to getting caught up on my backlog of Bombcasts - a game I can turn to and mindlessly grind out races for a couple of hours while listening to the dulcet tones of the Bomb Crew. That's not to say it isn't a great game, though. Forza 4 boasts an excellent driving model and an astounding array of difficulty level sliders, and those two things combine to create a racing game that can be played and enjoyed by just about everyone. Its model of persistent player progression is expertly implemented as well, its RPG-esque 'driver level' mechanic drip-feeding the player with new, faster cars at regular intervals. It's a design philosophy that certainly worked on me for the most part, instilling a 'one-more-race' mentality in me just so I could go up another level and pick another car to add to my virtual garage. There's no denying that it's a great racing game. But, having reached the end of its ten-season World Tour mode and accumulated a completion percentage of only 6%, I'm done with it. This blog is my attempt to try and explain why.

My relationship with racing sims is a long and colourful one, punctuated by several highs and lows that I'm pretty sure I've documented in previous blogs on this site, so I won't go into too much detail about it here. Before this most recent foray into the genre, my last lengthy stint with a game of this kind was with Forza 3 back in 2011. Much the same thing happened with that - I played through its seasonal career mode, hit the level cap, and then put it back on the shelf with next to no desire to return to it. I just felt incredibly weary of it, despite there being still so much content left to explore and experience. Fast forward to 2014 and my time with Forza 4 has been almost a carbon copy - an enjoyable ride through the career mode that stalled almost as soon as that isolated mode was over.

Hey guys... I don't mean to be rude, but... haven't we raced here already today?

Reaching the level cap probably played a small part in that. From what I can remember, once you hit driver level 50 in Forza 3, there's nowhere else to go, and any XP you could be earning from races just ceases to exist. Forza 4 continues to let you gain XP and driver levels beyond 50, but stops rewarding you with cars and instead starts dumping heaps of Credits into your hands with every level-up. There's something about the sudden withdrawal of those steadily drip-fed car-choice rewards that made the whole thing feel less like it was worth continuing to play. Sure, I'm now earning more Credits to spend on cars, but I was earning those from every race anyway. A new car is comparatively a much bigger deal, which is why having that reward taken away probably left me feeling less compelled to keep pushing through the game's event list.

That is a metric shit-ton of events, confined to a handful of locations

But that's just one aspect of it, and certainly not the biggest reason for my willingness to put these games back on the shelf and ignore them. What I've come to realise holds Forza 4 back for me (and what also held back its predecessor when I played it three years ago) is the relative dearth of track options in the game. I say 'relative' because when you look at things in terms of pure numbers, there's a huge disparity. Forza 4 is a game that features almost 500 cars from over 80 manufacturers. Its huge Event List is comprised of almost 1,200 individual races across 290 different events. This veritable smorgasbord of content is spread across just 26 locations. Yes, you read that right - TWENTY SIX, and that's counting the Nurburgring GP circuit and the Nordschleife as two separate locations. In actuality the game features 114 different circuits to race on, but many of these are merely different track configurations of the same locations. Ten different track configurations for Fujimi Kaido might sound impressive, but it's still just ten different ways to drive on the same damn mountain. This astounding lack of variety is pretty well masked by the globe-trotting nature of the World Tour mode, but when it's laid out in the grid-like format of the Event List, the homogeneity becomes too much for me personally to bear.

Dirt and snow rally tracks are just one example of how Gran Turismo 4's track roster trumps Forza 4's for variety

Going back a little further along the timeline of my history with racing games, I spent a significant amount of 2005 and 2006 with another racing sim - namely Gran Turismo 4. I'm mentioning Gran Turismo 4 here because in many respects it's comparable to Forza 4 - its roster of cars exceeds 700, and while I'm not sure of the exact number of races hidden away in its eponymous career mode, my memory of the experience tells me that there were a LOT of them. Comparatively, I spent a lot more time with GT4 than I have with Forza 4 - possibly even more than with Forzas 3 and 4 combined. The reason for this? Well I can't say this with categorical certainty, but I think the track roster may have had something to do with it. GT4 features fifty tracks - technically less than half the number of tracks in Forza 4, but with nearly double the number of unique locations. The result was that it took a lot longer for that sense of 'been there, done that' to settle in with GT4, because there was enough variety in the track roster that I never really felt like I was racing on the same circuits over and over again. So although the Forza series has my preferred driving model, I'd still be much more inclined to pick up a Gran Turismo game the next time I find myself hankering after a bit of automotive action.

At this junction I think I'm once again done with racing sims for a while. Not owning an Xbox One means that Forza 5 is out of the question by default, but even if it were an option, I don't think I'll be returning to Turn 10's series until it proves itself capable of supporting its lengthy career modes with more diverse track rosters. As for Gran Turismo, I know the sixth instalment in the series launched on PS3 recently with largely positive reception, but I feel like I've more than had my fill of driving for the time being and don't much care for the idea of launching myself into yet another car collect-a-thon right now. For the moment I'm content to shift my attention back to Final Fantasy VIII and Rayman Origins, both of which I'm hoping to beat before the end of the month. Thanks very much for reading guys, take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

---

Currently playing - Final Fantasy VIII (PS3)