Right, so after a good few hours of playing it last night I am in love with this game.
The Forza franchise, for me, was getting really stale. 2 and 3 were good fun before I got a gaming PC, but as I moved on to games like Project CARS etc, the Forzas and Gran Turismos of the world didn't cut it for me. I didn't bother with Forza 4 because it just looked like more of the same and I had no incentive to invest yet again.
This game, for me, is a breath of fresh air. It's like the best aspects of Project Gotham Racing and Need For Speed mashed together with the result being one sexy as fuck baby.
First of all, the presentation is amazing. For a console game this looks shockingly good. Great IQ, very stable performance, and overall it doesn't feel like I'm playing a console game. Of course, it's not hanging with the big boys on PC, but it's above what I'd expect from this generation. Graphics aside, it just feels really slick. The UI is really well designed and JESUS CHRIST that soundtrack. I'm sure the other two stations are decent but I'm not moving off that dubstep station, ever, lads. At the risk of sounding like a dickhead, it's a very "cool" game. Yeah, that did sound dickheadish.
The driving is as good as you'd expect from the Forza series but with a bit of an arcadey twist. Again, reminds me a lot of PGR. I'm basically a drifting machine at the moment, feels so good to be weaving through traffic then hitting the hairpin of a country road with a huge drift. The design of the world is definitely a large part of why I like the game so much - everywhere feels like that perfect "driving road" and there's enough events scattered all over that you're never driving too much before you reach an event. Paying to quick travel is a bit lame to anywhere but the main hub, but eh, I understand why.
The friend integration is also very impressive. My mate was playing last night and every time he beat one of my speed camera signs I had to U-turn and go beat his speed immediately.
With all of that said, FUCK all of the DLC bollocks. Trying to sell me tokens in the load screens etc for cars and even maps (?!) is fucking terrible. I don't care that it exists too much because if idiots want to buy that stuff then good for them, but it's too in my face for my liking. Reminds me of what EA did with the NFS games. Terrible.
So yeah, DLC stuff aside, this game is truly great. I hope MS focus on this side of the franchise more than the mainline games to be honest, it's more interesting than what the "proper" Forza games were doing.
