Preview - Forza Motorsport 5
Forza 5 is beautiful. Perhaps that should go without saying, after all this is a game created by an internal studio at Microsoft to launch with the Xbox One and show the world what the next-generation is capable of. But trailers and screenshots don't tell the full story, it's not until you actually pick up a controller and test it out for yourself that you see just how impressive a spectacle this is.
Cars have been lovingly - and painstakingly - recreated to match every detail of their real-life counterparts. Thanks to the Forza 5 showroom you can take a 360 degree look at the exterior of every vehicle, and for select cars you can even take a look under the hood and bodywork to check out just what makes your ride tick. Each car also has a small biography, something to excite car lovers and educate novices.
It's not just the cars either, tracks have also been given a facelift, and even though they might have appeared in previous Forza games, they've never looked as good as they do here.
"We're innovating in the areas that I think a great racing game should and what racing gamers demand," creative director Dan Greenawalt tells us. "We're bringing an amazing new graphics engine, it shows the imperfections that make our lives real. Cars with paint that's pearlescent, scratches in the rotors, tracks that have notches taken out of the concrete or wear on the cobble stone - that graphics engine really brings things to light."
The guys at Turn 10 Studios know they've got a juggernaut on their hands, and they just want players to come on over and check out the best features without having to spend hours working your way up to decent cars. Of course there are still the amazing cars that you'll have to unlock over time using credits, but at the start of the game there's a pretty decent list to choose from as you pick your first ride.
"We've totally changed the career in Forza 5," he adds. "You start in a really good car, and you can choose to go in a hot hatch if you want, you can choose to use race cars, but there's not gravity or impetus pushing you into these other cars. And this to me is again the heart of good design, that I respect our players and say there's car culture all over the world. Some want to retune, some want to repaint, and we give them all of that and a play set, a world where they can interact, break down social barriers, get American muscle guys talking to European sports car guys, and really build a global community out of it."
One of the features Microsoft has been marketing heavily for the Xbox One has been the "power of the cloud", and that technology is no more evident than in Forza 5. The cloud is being used to create Drivatars, an online representation of the way you race. You can use your Drivatar to compete in that career race that you just don't have time for, or even create a head-to-head against a friend's Drivatar and a host of AI controlled vehicles.
"Drivatar means you never race alone, because with Drivatar you're getting AI that doesn't act like AI at all," explains Greenawalt. "It looks like people. It's learning things that no AI... You've never seen a racing game that will have cars that double fake, or they'll block, they'll do double blocking. Very, very human behaviour, and it makes the race feel that much more alive."
All it takes is three races for the cloud to gather enough detailed information on your driving behaviour before your Drivatar can be built. New data on your style of driving will always be uploaded to the servers after races so it's constantly being updated. It's an impressive addition, and one that we'll be keeping a close eye on as the next-generation progresses.
Eight different leagues will be opened up to players after they complete the first batch of races. These are for the different styles of car, so there's a league for sports cars, a league for supercars, etc. Within these leagues are a whole host of different tournaments and championships to take part in, and with all the cars on offer and the push for perfecting those lap times, there's literally hundreds of hours of content here.
In terms of realism, amazing car physics, lifelike tracks and an overall polish and shine you won't be able to do much better than Forza 5. It's a technological leap that leaves current-generation competitors at the starting grid. Forza 5 looks set to be the flag bearer for what the Xbox One is capable of.