Forza Motorsport - ~ 2 weeks in

While plenty of people bitch about the quirks, I just enjoy the driving.

My love of racing games is well documented, and I was really excited for the release of the new Forza Motorsport.

I woke up early on launch day, October 10, 2023, and indulged my fantasy. And I was not disappointed. The graphics, the physics, the gameplay, all were just amazing.

It runs great on my PC, clearly, I chose my component mix well, and I get crisp 60FPS performance at ultra graphics settings.

Visually, the game is stunning. I have raced in the fog, in clear skies, at night, in light rain, and in a torrential downpour. The effects on braking, acceleration, and turning are all good based on the weather conditions.

The physics is also good. A good balance between being manageable with a controller and being somewhat realistic. I have focused on the chase cam view, and while in the past, I have not been a fan, this does seem to work quite well with a controller, and now I am a convert.

I did say I wouldn’t sport the extra money for the VIP package. I lied. I did spend the $35 for it (as a Game Pass member, I got a 10% discount) to get a slew of cars, a huge bolus of cash, and for like 30 weeks, I will get a new car a week in my garage.

Some more thoughts below…

Gameplay - the grind

If you read other reviews, it is impossible to not be aware of the grumbles. The main complaint is that to progress, you have to spend time in the car. The more time spent in the drivers seat, the more of the categories of upgrades are unlocked. Additionally, you have credits that you win for getting better results, that are like money. But you can’t just spend your credits on things like tires, or suspension parts. No, you have to earn car experience points (CXPs) to then exchange them for parts. And you earn points for various actions. Passing a car - 10 CXP accrues. Going up a car level (yes, you level up cars as well as your driver rating) grants you like 250 CXP. To upgrade a car, you have to a) drive it (a lot) and b) commit to it.

The prior versions, if you had the credits, you could spend the coin to upgrade to a target Performance Index (PI), and go race without spending time working on it.

And if you were a serious player, you often had accrued a couple million credits, so you could afford a new car, and to tune it up to whatever PI you want, and go race.

Now, you have to spend time with a car, and as you unlock the tiers of upgrades, you can upgrade. And you also have to play with it enough to earn enough CXPs to fund the upgrades (the CXP’s are not fungible, that is the CXPs you earn on a car, say the VW Golf R, can’t be used to upgrade your Miata, you have to earn CXP’s for the Miata to spend on the Miata.

That is somewhat annoying, but to me, it just encourages me to build a cadre of cars in my fleet that are my go-tos. Thus, while I have a ton of cars in my fleet, I will likely not use many of them very frequently. It is good to have them to do some free play with, but to execute my career mode, I am going to have my favorites, and they are gonna get a lotta love. The rest? Not so much

The Racing

I have only been working my way haphazardly through the career mode, and I am enjoying it. I have learned to not be a divebombing douche-nozzle, and that makes me race better.

Here is an early race of a Performance Sedan series. As this is the first race, the car is stone stock, and one thing I can tell you about the un-upgraded street cars is that the brakes are shit. That makes getting ready for the corners dicey, and if I shared the replay, you would see plenty of locked wheels trying to rein in this bad boy.

9-ish minutes:

So far, I am totally loving this game, and I have a lot to go.