by:	May 03, 2005

Forza Motorsport is the pinnacle of Xbox racing games, no…strike that comment from the record and let me start again. Forza Motorsport is the pinnacle of racing games period. This review is going to be full of GT4 comparisons and rightly so. The Gran Turismo series has been the benchmark of racing games for years. I’ve been a huge fan of Gran Turismo since its inception, but I’ve also been waiting for another developer to raise the bar.

Graphics
The graphics in Forza are truly top notch. The tracks are incredibly dense with almost every detail from the real location, it truly is a wonder. Even when moving at 150+ MPH you can see everything and you’re never left with the feeling that the game world is empty, it’s really something you need to see for yourself. You might even find yourself staring off into the distance at some object in the game world and just crash it looks that good.

The car models are richly detailed with just the right amount of shine, they didn’t overuse this technique like they do in a lot of racing games these days. The lines on the cars are identical to their real life counterparts, more so then in any other racing game I’ve played. The first car that struck me with this fact was the Mazda RX-8, I see this car every day of my life as someone I work with owns one and if I didn’t know I was looking at a wireframe covered with polygons I would think I was looking at the real deal. Realtime reflections are handled well too but not quite as good as Project Gotham 2, every detail is reflected but it’s just not as smooth as it could be, it looks to be running about 5 or so frames per second slower then the rest of the game. The damage modeling is also well done, the cars get pretty banged up if you smash them into walls or other cars, pieces hang off, you leave paint on walls and scratches look nice as well. The only thing I would change is I would make pieces aside from mirrors fall off like In Rallisport Challenge 2. To be honest this is a small grip, but a valid one.

The game moves along as a brisk pace and really gives you a sense of speed, I’ve yet to notice any slowdown and I doubt I will, this is a polished engine and a lot of time and care went into it.

The GT4 factor:
When compared to the graphics of GT4 you really can’t just look at the surface. Tracks look a lot better in Forza, the GT4 tracks are more colorful but in Forza they are more like their real world counterparts which is what I want, colors are great and fun but I'm looking for real and Forza brings that to the table.

Now for the cars, it’s a tough call. The cars in Gran Turismo are incredibly shiny, so much so they don’t always fit into their environment, sure they look good but they don’t look real when your racing with them. The cars in Forza are slightly more detailed but it’s the lighting/reflection engine that gives them the overall edge here. GT4 looks damn good, honestly it looks amazing but Forza edges it out because of its overall more realistic look and superior lighting engine.