{"id":9871,"date":"2011-10-13T10:57:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T17:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=9871"},"modified":"2011-12-31T18:50:35","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T02:50:35","slug":"forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/13\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Forza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>“. “Race completed<\/em>“. 1st place, 3rd place, 12th place. It doesn’t matter. The race was completed.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, is about as engaging as a morning commute.<\/p>\n

2 stars<\/strong>
\nXbox 360<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\nForza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/13\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone - Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2011\/10\/13\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-13T17:57:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-01T02:50:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Forza_4_mundane.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Chick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Chick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Chick\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6a609bd1629ebbc177fb1d4839f5db3f\"},\"headline\":\"Forza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-13T17:57:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-01T02:50:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":622,\"commentCount\":14,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/Forza_4_mundane.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Game reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.quartertothree.com\\\/fp\\\/2011\\\/10\\\/13\\\/forza-4-puts-you-on-the-highway-to-the-easy-zone\\\/\",\"name\":\"Forza 4 puts you on the highway to the easy zone - 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