My final racing game of the year for the Xbox 360 arrived this week and it has certainly proved to be the best one of the year so far.

The game shocked me slightly when it first arrived, mainly because it arrived on Tuesday when the game wasn’t released until Friday. The second thing that shocked me was that it came with two discs, one being an install disc.

I’m not sure if this is common practice on Forza games, as this is the first one that I’ve bought, but it certainly came as a surprise for me. As for the content of the second disc, when you load up the first disc you are made aware that the second disc contains bonus vehicles and tracks that you wouldn’t be able to play until you installed the content. Fortunately, I just about had enough space left on my 360 hard drive to be able to install the content.

Audi R8, the face of Forza 3

The first thing of the game that impressed me was the interface. The game has a very clean look to it and doesn’t over-complicate the menu system. This is quite a change from other racing games such as Dirt 2 which have a very interactive menu screen, I would personally say a change for the better.

On the gameplay side of things, it’s absolutely brilliant. The way the cars drive is so different to other racing games I’ve played this year. The cars seems more solid to the ground and you don’t lose total control when going round corners, like you do in Need For Speed: Shift.

It’s not just the way the cars drive that make this game better than others, it’s also the added features. Just like the majority of racing games that are released these days, they allow you to having driving assists, one being automatic breaking. This feature in Need For Speed: Shift is not too impressive, it always seems to break too early which means it lets you speed up and then has to slow you back down again before the corner. In Forza 3, when the car starts to break, it really does leave it to the last possible second which means that you have no chance of speeding up. Not only does this make your lap times better, but it also doesn’t make your car bounce into the corners.

The career mode in Forza 3 is quite different. You get to choose 1 of 3 different ‘week-day events’ which take place across one week or two, each time you complete one week-day event, you get to choose a new one. After you’ve completed your first week-day event, you get to start at the weekend events which are the seasonal events.

Taking top spot in each race wins you a couple of things, credits and experience points. For winning each event you get credits and then completing a series of events wins you some bonus credits. The point of these credits is so that you can save up and buy upgrades and even new cars from the garage feature. The experience points help you to level up. There are two different levelling systems, the first one is your actual driver level, which takes longer to level up. When you level up your driver skill, you tend to get given a brand new car. The second level system is an individual car level. As this level rises you get discounts on parts for that certain car. This seems slightly pointless to me because it doesn’t take long to level up which means that you move onto a faster car.

The graphics really are that good!

The range of cars that the game comes with is quite impressive. Overall there are 400+ cars to choose from which is quite a lot more than Need For Speed: Shift. Although this 400+ isn’t as impressive as Gran Turismo’s 800+, it’s still pretty good.

The graphics of this game is one of it’s high points. Each car is in extremely high detail and looks so impressive, no wonder they need two discs really. The only downside to the graphics would be the environment outside of the track, by that I mean trees and spectators. Although this isn’t massively important as you don’t concentrate on the trees, it would have been nice to see some improvement. Nevertheless, this is still the most visually stunning racing game you’ll find on the Xbox 360.

As with other racing games, this game comes with an online multiplayer. Although there is nothing special about the mutliplayer races, that have included some nifty sharing features. The first feature is an online auction house which allows you to buy and sell cars to and from anyone in the world. The second feature allows you to buy and sell your car designs. Both make great additions to the online content of this game.

Summary

The stunning graphics, massive range of tracks, and almost endless choice of cars makes this one of the best racing games I’ve played on the Xbox 360. Forza 3 has really done a great job of bringing realistic racing to your front room.

If you’re trying to choose between Need For Speed: Shift and Forza 3, I’d definitely go with Forza any day of the week.

Good Points = Amazing graphics, huge choice of cars and tracks, very realistic driving style, great online features for sharing cars.

Bad Points = Environment graphics could be improved.

I give this game a 9/10.

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