Forza Motorsports 3

Rating: E

Score: 8.5/10

Forza is one of the Xbox's biggest series. It's professional racing simulation taken to second gear: looking great, having smooth, fluent controls and accessible to everybody in terms of difficulty. Thanks to this, each new instalment has been a hit with both fans and non-fans. Is the third time the charm? This is still, as it always was, an Xbox 360 exclusive.

Let's take a quick look at the difference between a professional racing game and an arcade racing game first, just so we're clear. A professional racing game is a realistic racing game where you must brake, accelerate, and steer gingerly across what is usually a normal road circuit. Arcade racing games are a bit different, usually having little to no braking to make way for more speed. They're usually not too realistic, and can be on just about any road surface. The premise is still the same either way: Drive fast, finish first. Forza, being a professional racing game, means it has a slower pace compared to arcade style, but is (arguably) more strategic.

One big new feature is the new graphics engine. With the new graphics engine, the game can be much more visually detailed. This shines -- the tracks, environment, and cars look fantastic. From the mountains you zoom by to the reflections of the sun coming off your new Corvette Z06, the game will make your jaw drop visually, perfectly illustrating what "current generation graphics" should look like.

The core gameplay rests in the career mode, where you go from wannabe racer to superstar speedster. You'll schedule racing events of your choice, choose a car, upgrade it (I'll tell you more about THAT later), and get driving. Depending on your difficulty, you might have auto-brake or automatic ABS (Anti-lock Braking System), among other stuff. If you're feeling confident, you can set these off for higher winnings, but you'll need to work harder to win.

As for upgrading, I would recommend just choosing "quick upgrade" before a race unless you know a lot about cars. You can customize crankshafts you want to buy, clutches, brakes, fuel s ystems, ignitions, etc.... I wouldn't recommend wasting a bunch of time here to perfectly craft your car down to a millisecond on the track both because you'll find better cars all the time throughout the career (so that car will just collect dust in your garage, and for what? Benchmarking bragging rights.), and it overall takes way too long, and considering the load times, you could sit there for a full five hours and not even tackle one race.

The load times are pretty bad, it only makes it worse that there's so many times you'll need to load something. After you select the event, you'll need to see a loading screen. After that, a movie, and a loading screen. After that, the race, the race results, and a load screen. It's not the worst load screen time I've ever seen, but then again, the worst I've seen is half an hour long. I'm dead serious, but that's a story for another day.

The music is the typical repetitive beat, not that it matters so much because, by default, the sounds of your car will mostly or completely hide the music. Sure, you could turn down the car sounds to hear the music better, but if you're going to go to that much trouble, you might as well plug in your iPod.

While it is overall a quite exciting game, there are times you'll sense otherwise. If you have a car that's too good, or you're too skilled, you might find yourself driving dully down a straightaway miles ahead of everyone, which isn't very spectacular. Plus, if you screw up, you can fix it with the "rewind" feature, which usually ends up screwing you up again, in the same way, because you didn't rewind enough, or you end up rewinding over and over again to perfect a turn and beat all the opponents, which is a little cheap.

It's a good game, but not quite perfect. It looks, sounds, and plays top-notch, but the load screens and the fact it's gets dull if you're too skilled or have a car that’s too good brings it down a bit. It's by no means a bad game, but it has a few rotten qualities.

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