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Forza Motorsport 6 leads the pack

@MissAngelEve

“Why do we race?” Forza Motorsport 6 asks you as it starts. Kids running, cars throwing gravel, athletes performing – all of these are shown with a soundtrack fit for a movie. The sense that this is a game that will be full of emotional triumph surrounds you. Forza Motorsport 6 is an exciting addition to the racing genre, and it hands you the tools to answer that question – this is why you race.

Driving


Forza Motorsport 6 has nailed down how to make it exciting for you to drive a virtual car. The gas and braking are controlled with the triggers and the steering with the analog sticks so expertly precise motions and decisions can be made. The controller itself gives a lot of information while driving. The haptic feedback has different vibrations across the controller. Players can feel braking in their fingertip on the trigger, the gears shifting in the middle of the controller, and the complete lack of tactile feedback when you lose control.

How difficult playing the game can be is up to the player in two ways. Drivatar mechanics have returned to this game. Drivatars are NPC versions of other human players. The way that you play, from braking, to turning, to smashing, is all recorded and sent to other players to race with them. Players can up the Drivatar AI difficultly from “easy” to “unbeatable.” Raising the AI difficulty makes the races more challenging to beat the goal.

The other way to add difficulty is to change the actual difficulty of the controls. Settings range from “easy” to “veteran” with a custom setting as well. The default setting is “easy” and has assisted steering, braking, cosmetic only damage, and other options. The assisted controls try to help the player stay on the “best route” line which usually is very helpful but occasionally puts the player in a bad place. You could be about to pass someone, accidentally go off-road, and have steering assist try to jerk you back on track but it slams you into a wall. It was helpful most of the time, but when it failed, it failed catastrophically. If you need another reason to up the difficulty besides a more challenging experience, you do get a percentage increase in all of your earnings.

Cars [are so good]


The highlight of any racing game should be the cars, and Forza Motorsport 6 does not disappoint. The high-definition graphics make each car look beautiful both when just sitting to be pretty in the Forzavista mode and while racing around the tracks. There are hundreds of cars to choose from including classics like the 1979 Camaro, to the game’s cover car, the 2017 Ford GT.

After purchasing a car, the game immediately prompts the player to pick a custom design by another player. It's not required of course, but a nice flashy design does make you stand out. The current car you are driving is the background for the main menu, so it is a good idea to have something that looks nice.

As far as making your own design, the editing software really stands out. You can paint your car in solid colors and then cover it with decals. The decals are anything from letters, to paint splats, to basic shapes, to flames. Over 10,000 decals can be put on the car, and with editing tools including size, skew, and opacity, any creation is possible. Also available are custom decals. You can create your own, or download another player’s creation. Even design making is incentivized, as every time that your design is downloaded, liked, or used in something, you get credits rewarded to you.

Your cars can be individually customized in more than just appearance however. Every single part of what makes a car move can be adjusted to make Tunes. Tire inflation, traction controls, engine parts – everything can be tweaked to give the perfect balance to your car. Need more grip at the beginning of the race? Change your tire pressures. Want more precise acceleration? Change when you shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. Want more power from your engine? Buy a different one! All of these parts can be changed to fit everyone’s unique play style. As a bonus, like all creation features in Forza Motorsport 6, you can upload your tune to the servers and get rewards when people use it.

The other way to change your car is through the three categories of mods. There are consumable boost mods that up your payouts, crew mods that give bonuses to your stats, and dare mods that give you an extra challenge and reward. You are given your first mod pack for free in the tutorial races. Mod packs are all reasonably priced; the more you spend the more likely you are to get good ones. Some of the dares are fun and there are achievements tied to others so it is worth testing many out. Mods are only available to use during singleplayer so it is best not to rely on them if you play a lot of multiplayer.

The singleplayer experience


Singleplayer gameplay consists of three things – career mode, showcase events, and Stories of Motorsport.

After the introductory races, players start career mode at the street-racing tier. There are five tiers that encompass the five classes of cars; street-racing cars like the 2015 Volkswagen Golf are in the first tier, and the last tier includes the cars in Formula One races. In career mode, players can only use cars that they own, but it is not difficult to earn currency to buy more.

With showcase events Forza Motorsport 6 gives players something else to do besides just race the AI with their own cars. There are training exercises like weaving through cones in a time limit or drift practice. The events include special races in history, a taste of what professional racing is really like, or races against people like the Stig from Top Gear BBC.

The singleplayer experience gives players a place to really hone their skills. Events and races give the players plenty of time to practice and refine their playstyles. There are well over 200 things to do, so do not expect to run out of tasks. One of the drawbacks of singleplayer is that the overall experience is aimed at a medium difficulty. Some races are way too long on easier settings. Two minutes into one race, I was in first place with no one around me, but I had to keep driving for the remaining 13 minutes while the competition fell further and further behind. It would have been more enjoyable if races could adapt to difficulty settings.

However, Forza Motorsport 6 has madeeverything very user friendly and intuitive. James May and Richard Hammond, the hosts of Top Gear BBC, reprise their roles as announcers for the game. Unfortunately, there are many references that could be missed if you are not a fan of the show.

If you are in to achievements and Gamerscore, Forza Motorsport 6 will not ruin you. While not an easy perfection, it is possible. There are only two unfairly difficult achievements but they can be done. Later, when server populations are small, they will be impossible.

Race 'em all


Multiplayer is one main draws of Forza, so it’s unfortunate that most of the problems lie here. The races themselves ran smoothly. I never had lag, dropped frame rate, or anything that took me out of the action. The problems lie on either side of the races. The multiplayer lobbies take too long to get into, they last too long, and the wait time from lobby to race is painfully long. It should not take more than five minutes with all assets loaded in lobby to move everything over to the race. Unfortunately, it did every time.

Local multiplayer fared no better. The wait time between lobby to race was still a bit long. When trying to exit split-screen and go back to the main menu, the loading screen took more than an hour, never succeeding to return to the menu, and ultimately timed my Xbox out. This could be a problem exclusive to my system, but as a brand new Forza Motorsport 6 special edition Xbox One, one would expect the game to run on it without flaw.

The other down note on split-screen is that it is played in free mode. When playing free mode solo, you race 23 other Drivatar cars. However, when playing split-screen free mode, only the local human players participate. It feels like a lazy decision by the developers to not include NPC racers.

The things that shine through the multiplayer difficulties are the races themselves. With many kinds of races, there is something for players of all skill levels to enjoy. The online races have matchmaking for each individual class of car. This includes a beginner’s class where the cars are in “ghost” mode and cannot touch each other. If you want to race in a higher car class than the cars you own, you can by renting a car. Renting makes every car available to you at the cost of no credits or experience points. League racing puts players into races online with other players of their skill level or playstyles. The races were always fun, even when victory was out of reach. Players going head-to-head and testing their skills is one of the main draws of the series, and Forza Motorsport 6 really got that right.

TL;DR


Forza Motorsport 6 is a beautiful racing simulator that proves why people come back to the exclusive series again and again. Both experienced and novice players can have fun with the extensive controls and design elements. Despite some multiplayer issues, if you like any kind of racing game, Forza Motorsport 6 is worth trying out.

+ Beautiful graphics

+ Tight controls

+ Well-refined gameplay

+ A bevy of content

+ Incredibly in-depth customization

- Long wait times in multiplayer

- No NPCs in local multiplayer

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