Game of the month

WHEN IS A GAME NOT A GAME? THIS MIGHT sound like the sort of riddle you’d find in a Christmas cracker with a paper crown and tiny screwdriver set, but the answer in the new Forza Motorsport’s case is when it’s a ‘platform’.

If you’re going to wring maximum enjoyment out of this rebooted version of Xbox’s storied sim series, it’s better not to think of it as a game at all. Instead Forza Motorsport is a platform for racing, a vast simulation toolkit that offers near endless combinations of cars, circuits, regulations and conditions to be applied either online or offline.

New additions to this toolkit include a proper day and night cycle and more convincing weather. While that might sound like something only there to please endurance racing anoraks prepared to risk deep vein thrombosis to race for 24 hours straight, the real benefit is that even the shorter races are more likely to be memorable. You’ll remember holding your nerve as drizzle became a downpour, that time a crucial turn became a blind corner thanks to the setting sun or absolutely any occasion when you’re asked to race through pea soup fog.

The downside of this ‘platform’ stuff is that there’s actually very little ‘game’. The Builder’s Cup career mode’s unique selling point is that you upgrade your car in between races. The problem is, the rest of the field levels up too, so there’s little sense that you’re making progress.

The thing that’ll keep you coming back for more, like a petrolhead Oliver Twist, is the strength of the driving experience itself. This is the most dynamically involving Forza Motorsport game yet, in particular doing a great job of translating the violence of driving a thoroughbred racecar to your less glamorous sweatpants on the sofa set-up.

Multiplayer now closely resembles Gran Turismo’s Sport mode. Scheduled races are designed so you can flit effortlessly between them and the new penalty systems should ensure competition remains fierce and fair.

Forza Motorsport feels almost experimental, with mixed results. The Builder’s Cup career mode wrapper leaves us cold, with the upgrades feeling largely irrelevant to what happens on track. But Forza Motorsport has got the most important thing right: the way the cars feel to race. Once you’re behind the wheel, any frustrations melt away like worn tyres. And there will be so many worn tyres... Mike Channell

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01 Red Bull RB19

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