Games
Forza has always delivered on the track, but this year’s iteration brings a lot of features that fans have wanted for years, and they all combine together perfectly.
When you think of games that push consoles to their limits, you instantly think of the big budget racing simulation titles, and it’s fair to say that over the last few years Forza has been the undoubted king in that field. This year that is no different, and with the Xbox One X launching in November, there’s a special focus from the development team to make sure that Forza Motorsport 7 looks and plays as good as it possibly can.
As we speed around Suzuka, appearing in a Forza game for the first time this generation, the rain pounds off the windshield, the wipers are working overtime and sprays of water shear off the cars in front of us. It looks incredibly close to the real thing, and while we’re not in true photorealism territory quite yet, this is as close as we've ever been on a console.
The first half of the track is covered in water and the rain continues to beat down as we try to take it as safe as possible around the twists and turns. But as we continue around the track the rain eases off, the sun appears briefly and the track dries out as the clouds visibly part. All of this is seamless – and if it wasn’t pointed out then there's a good chance we wouldn’t have noticed until much further into the race.
It was a neat little touch that added a little bit of extra realism to things, but more importantly it can impact a variety of factors such as track temperature and grip levels in the longer races. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with this for the driver, one of which stood out in particular.
“Crucially for the first time in Forza you can turn on or off assists in the middle of a race,” says Brian Ekberg, the community manager for Forza who is guiding us through our demo. “So if you're racing in Suzuka and it’s raining like this then you can hit the pause button and go turn on some assists and get control of the car.”
But it isn’t just on the track where these small improvements have been made. Every little corner of the Forza experience has been improved with small, and sometimes large, changes. One of the biggest in Forza 7 is that the driver can now come out of the car when in the garage and menu screens. This means more customisation is on the way, as you can change their helmet and race suit with a load of unlockables. Some are fancy replicas of real life kit, while others are more a joke, like a fancy tuxedo that wouldn’t look out of place in Austin Powers.
Elsewhere, other tweaks such as allowing you to play music from your OneDrive account, add extra layers of immersion away from the track. But it isn’t as simple as just grabbing music from your online library; the song is selected and then played in a way the makes it sound like it is coming out of some speakers in the area you are in.
“The sound feels like it is being projected in the environments that you are in,” says Ekberg. “So in this garage you can hear the reverb and the echo like it’s coming out of the speakers overhead. If you’re driving past the pits at Laguna Seca you can hear the music being projected trackside as well. So it’s a matter of giving people choice, but also bringing them into the world so you feel more a part of the experience.”
It’s the small details like that that really seem to set Forza 7 apart from the competition. Sure, the on track action is as good as ever, although it was a little difficult to tell exactly what was new in terms of actually controlling a car during a short demo. But when it comes to everything else Forza is a cut above. This is even shown in the PC version, and the amount of options that players will have.
“This is the third version of Forza we’ve made for the PC, but it is the first full Forza Motorsport one we have made, and we’ve learnt so much about what players want from a PC game,” says Ekberg. “In fact we have a new view here, where you don't see the wheel, which is perfect for players who love to play with a real life wheel. We heard loud and clear that players want a huge list of peripherals, so all fan-requested wheels are supported and we have multi-USB support as well, so you can plug in anything, so the guys have played with Guitar Hero controllers and dance pads, but that just means you can use anything.”
That sums up Forza 7 pretty well. A lot of the things they've added certainly didn’t need to be in the game, but even if just a small set of players wanted it, then it was worth adding in for the team at Turn 10. Further eSports support is coming; the Autovista has been moved to trackside, giving you better environments to check out your cars, the PC specs have been lowered and there’s an unlocked frame rate. Additions like this are all over Forza 7, and while they aren’t groundbreaking, they are almost all things that the community has asked for.
Of course the really exciting stuff is still on the track, and that remains as good as ever. As far as racing sims go there aren't many titles that can stand up to this, and while the refinements in that department may seem a little underwhelming there’s little doubt that they’ll add up to become the best Forza Motorsport title yet.
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