Forza Motorsport 3

Racing games have changed since the early 80's. They've gotten more realistic. Not just in graphics, but gameplay. Unfortunately, most gamers are turned off by simulation. But what happens when a game allows you to play it like it's an arcade, and still be a good simulation? That's Forza Motorsport 3, Currently one of the hottest racing games on the market.

There's no storyline, but there is the Season mode, and there's many, many courses to run, and Cups to win. Not only that, There are over 400 different race cars available to race. That might seem inferior to Gran turismo's many, many cars, but who really wants to race an 1886 Mercedes Benz Against anything? (Enter Gran turismo fanboy) yeah, but can you buy used cars in Forza Motorsport 3? (Response) Absolutely...It's called the Auction house! And the auction house might be the most fun feature of the game. You can put your cars on the auction block for others to bid on, and buy.

But unfortunately, there's a problem. Every time a player achieves another racer level, they are given a gift car. and since most of those cars are useless, they end up in the auction house, and no one bids on or buys them (Even if they're priced at $1,000) So they clog up the auction house. From a gamer to other gamers, if you get a Gift car, do us other gamers a favor, and just sell it for 100 credits, or modify it to run faster and put some cool paint on it before putting it on the block for a ridiculous price no one will buy it for.

And that's another thing, the custom paintjobs. It's AMAZING what some gamers are capable of doing. Obviously, everyone and their mother has done the General Lee paintjob for the '69 Charger, as well as Tofu delivery driver Takumi's '83 Toyota Sprinter Trueno, But other people have paid homage to Famous TV shows, Animes, Companies and Video game consoles, Using all 1,000 Layers of paint to make designs. My fastest car, A Porsche Racecar has a Custom Chobits Anime Theme all over it.

Bottom line, if you have an Xbox 360, this game is worth your while to get. It comes packaged with the 250 GB console, so pick one up and enjoy.

Forza 3 is a game that I will always remember, this game gave me many memories during my childhood, the graphics have a ton of detail and are amazing, the extensive amount of tracks and cars are jaw-dropping, 400 cars 400 CARS!!!!!!!!, and the gameplay is fun and addictive, the just one more mentality is the case with this game, the leveling up system adds a significant hook to the game as it gives you an increasing amount of money per level and you get a free car, FREE CAR!!!!!!!, the customization is very addictive, while I was playing the game I wanted to customize every car, and there is a crap load of events, this game can go to 200 hours! if you do everything, that is totally getting your money's worth out of this game, and there is a wide variety of cars and tracks, I can go for hours talking about this game, but to sum it up, buy this game, you will not regret it! And to Microsoft, make this game Backwards compatible, please do!

Not as responsive a racer as Rally Sport Challenge 1 for the XBOX, but still a worthy game. Graphics are quite good, but not as good as what the XBOX 360 is capable of. It suffers from the unfortunate use of heightened contrast levels which seem to plague most modern games. The irony is that, by cranking up the contrast, the advantages of a 24-bit color palette are diminished. Areas that should fall into gradual shadow are reduced to black. This is what the post-production film/television business calls "crushed black levels" and is not a good thing.

The gameplay is quite good. However, the handling on the cars is generally quite sluggish. Not until a sizable amount of virtual coin is spent on upgrades do the cars begin to respond the way they should. There are a few cars that tend to fish-tail and spin out much more easily than they would in reality. Furthermore, some vehicles move like electric cars on a toy track.

Gameplay appears to have been a bit of an after-thought, in favor of supplying more cars. It isn't more types of cars that players want, it's more tracks and a very refined level of responsiveness to the actual driving experience. The cars should handle in such a way that they are fun to drive. Even the original Pole Position handles better that the cars in Forza 3. Again, look at Rally Sport Challenge (XBOX) or Flag to Flag (Dreamcast) for reference for how cars should handle in modern racing games. Having said this, I should state that the handling for the cars in Forza 3 is much better than games like Project Gotham, Total Immersion Racing, or SRS.

As for the interface and menu system, it's somewhat tedious. Part of it stems from the also modern trend of forcing the player to adhere to a calendar and schedule or set events. While not as annoying as the weak attempts to create a story like in the over-rated Dirt series of games, the navigation from course to course is initially a patience-tester. In the 1980s, this type of laborious method of track selection would have docked the game marks in the review stage. Surprisingly, this is now becoming the norm for all types of genres of video games (Virtua-Fighter 5, Dirt, Virtua-Tennis 2009, ...). Ideally, developers should be less concerned with forcing players to progress though games the way they want them to. The best approach is to let the player choose any track, any car, and any upgrade whenever they feel like it. Some may recall the old arcade and ColecoVision skill level selection system. There's a reason why that system was successful. In fact almost every 70s and 80s arcade machine includes skill level settings. Even the 1982 TRON arcade machine has 9 selectable skill levels and a level skip feature).

The real show-stealer in Forza 3 is the soundtrack. The music is remarkable and represents one of the few times since the C64 that composers actually put their heart and soul into the music. The tracks are professionally composed, mixed, and pre-mastered. The hooks are excellent, and the instrumentation choices are brilliant. It's obvious that a conscious effort was made to ensure that the music was pleasing while still suggesting a sense of speed, right down to the choice of kicks that have been placed low in the mix, rather than at the front. Arpeggiators and sequences have been given center stage with the synth pad hooks and chord progressions. All of this works to enhance gameplay and makes the lengthy load times tolerable.

If you've surmised that I'm no stranger to video games, you're correct. I've played thousands of video games in my time and have done development work for companies like Nintendo. There are lessons that all developers can learn from the past. Go back and read the issues of ZZap!64 and Electonic Games magazines that are posted for free on the U.S. Archive.org site and read what the reviewers have to say. Apply it to modern games and you'll reap the rewards. So too will the players.