Forza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone

Posted by on October 13, 2011 in Reviews

I’ve got a half million Forza 4 credits and nothing to do with them. I rarely have to pay for upgrades to my cars, since I’ve easily raced my affinites to a 100% discount on upgrades to the cars I drive (by the way, Forza, there’s a better and shorter word for “100% discount”). And since Forza 4 never pressures me to drive a particular car, and since I therefore have so many cars that I’ll never drive, and since I keep getting new cars just for leveling up, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with these half million credits. Bid on a car in the auction house? Why? I already have more cars than I know what to do with. Buy paint jobs? Considering how little I want the most expensive paint jobs, that’s not much of a money sink.

For all its improvements, Forza 4 is like the Forzas before it in that it has no meaningful economy and almost no meaningful caRPG progression. It doesn’t even care whether I win or lose a race. After any given event, it flashes a congratulatory “race completed” message. Not “race won“. “Race completed“. 1st place, 3rd place, 12th place. It doesn’t matter. The race was completed.

Is Forza worried that I might get discouraged if I had to reach the podium to progress? If so, it needen’t worry. I constantly win, despite doing everything I can to make the game challenging. All the races feel rigged for me to win. I’ve been playing with all the assists and players advantages off (except for the color-coded braking line, something for which I’ll always be grateful to Forza). I haven’t been doing any tuning, and the only upgrades I’ve gotten for my cars are the automatic upgrades the game recommends before a race. Yet nearly every race feels like the old Wipeout games, where I start in the back and the only challenge is passing each of the other cars before the designated number of laps are over. I usually nose past them with almost no effort within a lap or two. And consider that I’m not using the rewind function, which is turned on by default, that allows any mistake to be erased with impunity. When is Forza 4 supposed to get challenging? Why isn’t there a separate difficulty setting for the other cars’ racing prowess? Or is the whole point that Forza 4 isn’t supposed to get challenging? Because right now, nearly half way to the level cap and well into the middle part of the career mode, the other cars are never a challenge. The only challenge is the course itself.

Forza 4 is a safe, visually bland, and thoroughly competent racing game. When I listen to the news on the radio while playing Forza, I can actually remember what I heard. The prime minister of Ukraine is in jail. The Republicans shot down Obama’s jobs bill. The underwear bomber is throwing in the towel. Kim Kardashian takes a whole week to get married. But when I listen to the news on the radio while playing Need for Speed: Shift 2, I have no idea what’s going on in the world. The world consists of nothing more than what I see out the windshield. I am invested, challenged, absorbed, 110% present, and sometimes wrestling with my own car as much as the other drivers’ cars. But Forza 4, a serviceable game in which I won the first time I took a Dodge Viper out onto a track I’d never driven, is about as engaging as a morning commute.

2 stars
Xbox 360

  • http://twitter.com/andrewi31 andrew i

    Thank Tom, that’s everything I need to know to not be interested further in this game. More games like this and maybe Yanukovych will start feeling some heat!  

  • Paul

    I have not played Forza, only GT, but I don’t get the love for that either.
    SHIFT 2 is just so much more…involving. Cannot wait for CARS game SMS are working on.

  • BDGE

    Your review may have been written for Forza 3 as well, as you pretty much covered all the reasons I stopped that campaign around the same point in progression in that ‘prequel’(minus the load time discussion which were horrendous previously).  Was really hoping Forza 4 would rethink the solo career a bit.  

    A bit sad that more tracks, cars, and a trophy room primarily became the priority update over the past two years of development.  I adore the franchise for those exciting initial few hours, but this release appears entirely inconsequential for those of us hoping for more creative design. 

  • Zeewolf

    This makes me glad I bought F1 2011 instead.

  • Inverarity

    With a summation like that one, I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad that you’ve got a picture of my (real life) car at the top of this post.

  • Bonedwarf

    Visually BLAND? Are you insane man! It’s glorious. My GT playing friends have looked on in envy. My non-console owning friend said “WOW!” when he saw the game.

    And given what a tedious ‘effing grind FM3 was I’m loving FM4.

    Comparing NFS Shift to Forza is like comparing a Michael Bay movie to a film noir classic. Shift is all sizzle, no steak.

    I am honestly baffled by how one can claim Shift is better, with it’s condescending B grade racers blathering on at you every five minutes and talking bollocks, the fact you can barely drive anything at the start, the HIDEOUS menu structure, the frankly bizarre (at times) handling model, the horrible cameras. (That helmet cam that turns… Why did the game not come with Dramamine?)

    Shift is ruined on so many levels by asinine EA drivel.

    Forza is a PROPER CAR game. (Note my use of the word CAR. Not RACING.) Shift is a toy, developed by guys who used to develop decent sims and then sold out. (Lot of the guys were actually responsible for the epic GTR2.)

    As for Forza not being a challenge… I’m finding it quite lovely on Hard. I win some. I lose some. The game makes me want to have just one more race in career mode. Autovista is fantastic. The Rivals mode beats EA’s stupid Autolog (and for the record, despite all the bashing, I have been an NFS fan since the very first one on the 3DO!)…

    Just… I’ve slipped into a David Lynch movie here where nobody makes any sense.

  • AOR

    All I see is an apples to oranges comparison between Shift and FM, a complaint about the text used for winning races, an outright wrong statement about the game’s graphical prowess and a lack of understanding that if you want major competition you race online.

  • Garog

    The driving itself is rewarding.
    +Multiplayer
    +Car Porn

    Forza and GT – no other games come close to them.

  • Anonymous

    Only a complete assclown like Tom would think Shit 2 was anywhere close to Forza 4. Shit 2 is a buggy, glitchy, damn near broken game. Tom Chick should never be allowed near games, because his taste in games sucks ass. He also should be kicked in the face until he stops moving.

  • Quanloco

    You have no idea of what ur talking about. This reviewer is on drugs and probably is a fanboy.

  • Deadhead262

    Glad you dont review on a big boy site mr fanboy.