Forza Motorsport struggles to develop a sense of style in this reboot, exacerbated by a unremarkable soundtrack and hum-drum presentation (seriously, why is your menu motif GREY). The gameplay itself is hindered by the uneven execution of the game's main draw, the leveling system and car points. While the system does make leveling cars a satisfying process, with feeling how cars improve slowly on a race-by-race basis being a slow burn satisfaction, it feels weirdly gamified in a series usually more focused on simulation. The system itself also forces players to grind on single cars instead of simply earning credits, begetting repetition and boredom at having to do this with every car one wishes to compete in. I'm not one to offer suggestions to game devs, but in this case I truly believe the CP system (and god we have to stop abbreviating things as that acronym in video games) would be better served by being contained to the constructor's cup gamemode rather than expanded across the entire experience.

Marking this finished now I've finished all racing series currently available.

I like it! I don't know man. I watched some analysis videos about how bad it is and I just don't see it. I particularly don't think it was a fraction as broken as Cyberpunk 2077 was at launch... Sure, the penalty system is absolutely broken, but It has only affected my driving in a single online race when I was trying to keep a second ahead and went obscenely wide on a corner. All my fault in the end, but the driving is pretty solid. I don't think the levelling system gets in the way, as I always found the cash based upgrade system in Gran Turismo entirely more difficult to deal with. A lot more grinding for one car to win a single race in GT when you enter a series in FM on the same level as your competition. Most of the high end cars don't even have upgrade paths.

I'm rambling. Look. I took a Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86 with an Initial D livery all the way through the open class series, making it as fast as a hypercar at Le Mans by the end of it and I wouldn't change it for the world.

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

This game has potential; you can see it in the physics, it's not a lost cause. However, there are so many aspects that need improving.

Starting from the top, the graphics. The first thing you see when you start the game. On PC, even max settings just look nothing like you'd expect. Everything looks washed out, the ray tracing is just not great, the cars are inconsistent at best, and downright ugly at worst. Plus the plethora of graphical bugs you see on the PC version makes me question whether anyone even tested this game on the platform.

As for the actual gameplay, it is the dullest out of the franchise so far. As I alluded to, there is something here, lurking in the shadows, most of the cars drive really well and are fun to control, but the AI being ram happy, braking on straights, slowing down so goddamn much for corners you'd think they were coming to a stop. Questionable moves everywhere. God forbid you put yourself in the middle of the pack at the start of the race, you're just asking for penalties. Speaking of...

The penalty system is busted. I have rammed AI off the track, got no penalty, but no they bump into me and I get the penalty for a move I couldn't avoid? I didn't know the FIA ran these events. Plus for every track, it feels like track limits is so so inconsistent, I could get .5 seconds for cutting the track quite a bit and on another, 2 seconds for going a bit wide.

The career mode surrounding these events is super linear. You have to complete an event in a tour to move on to the next one. It offers a little choice, but nothing like the previous games in the series. Plus where are the events for actual racing cars? I get you want people to go online to race with the racing cars but your game series is built around those motorsport races at the high point of your career, this is what sets it apart from GT.

Now, lets talk about the upgrade system. You have to level up your cars to unlock upgrades by doing events, either online or single player. Which was fine, I thought, it's an interesting way to get attached to the cars you drive and adds a bit of variety to the game...first car, yeah this is neat. Second car, oh this levelling up journey looks familiar, maybe they're grouping them up by class or something, to make things easier on themselves, there are a ton of cars in the game. 3rd, 4th, 5th car...you get the picture, the upgrade paths are the same, got boring after a while. You starting to sense a theme here?

Speaking of a ton of cars though, lets talk about car and track selection. I'm not gonna talk too much on this as this is a live service game and these will get updated but car list is...fine I guess, you could say it's too heavy on the super/hypercar aspect but eh. No real standouts missing in my opinion, but nothing really too special. However, the track selection, oh boy is that weak. You see the same tracks repeated constantly in career (which adds to the monotony) and it's just not enough. Again, we are getting frequent updates (we've already had hockenheim and abu dhabi, with daytona and nordschleife on the way) so this could change, but at the moment there is not enough.

But I suppose you could say that about this whole review. This is a live service game, which will be constantly evolving and changing, but in it's current state, as a fan of the series and a fan of racing games in general, I cannot recommend more than a passing look at this. Forza Motorsport has lost its' identity, the standout feeling it has from the competition. It is boring to do anything in at best, and downright frustrating at worst. Just play GT7 if you have the means for the love of god.

What an absolute disaster of a release. At release and as of writing this the game is full of bugs. It performs terribly on my PC which runs much more impressive looking and complex games at much higher framerates. Every single car model in the game has errors, missing textures/shaders, broken geometry or all of the above. The tracks are mostly drag and drop from other games in the series with touch-up that often look worse than they originally did. The multiplayer regulations do nothing to prevent rammers as the safety rating is meaningless. The worst offender is the single player content which is entirely based around grinding and FOMO. The Car XP system makes the game tedious to play, cars are artificially held back from tuning until you grind for hours, but then you're done the event and there is no real point in tuning the car after all that.

Esperava MUITO mais de vc, Forza

Vou começar sendo direto e talvez até polemico, mas com esse jogo aqui cada vez mais Forza Motorsport e Gran Turismo continuam simplesmente iguais em competição. Pra mim inclusive o Motorsport deveria aprender mais com seu irmão Horizon, pq lá sim, no full arcade, não existe competição a altura de outro game. É engraçado e curioso pensar nessas rivalidades de jogos e franquias entre plataformas pq muitas vezes os rivais não fazem o menor sentido por serem de gêneros diferentes, mas quando se trata de corrida, não tem como ser diferente do que eu citei acima. É como o Messi x Cristiano Ronaldo no futebol, é lindo de se ver e apreciar.

Mas pera lá, eu não estou aqui necessariamente para falar de rivalidade e nem começar a incitar um console war, mas acontece que é inevitável não comparar os jogos, ainda mais no meu caso, que joguei esse Forza e o último Gran Turismo, joguei o Forza 7 e o Gran Turismo Sport, Forza 6 e 5, sendo o Forza 5 o primeiro jogo que eu comprei pro meu Xbox One lá em 2016. Cada jogo tem a sua proposta e nuances bem distintas umas das outras, mas na essência, com essa tentativa mais simulador do que arcade, ambos são tão parecidos, tão iguais e tão "cansativos" muitas das vezes.

Antes desse título, o último tinha sido o Forza Motorsport 7 lá em 2017. Cinco anos se passaram e, com isso, o desenvolvimento do atual título esteve no forno cozinhando e tudo que eu esperava era que o tempero seria de outro mundo, mas não foi... Eu costumo sempre usar uma frase para designar algumas coisas e ela cada vez mais faz mais sentido pra mim e nesse caso "Forza Motorsport (2023) é como um Big Mac. É gostoso, mas vc sabe que não tem nada de magnifico ali, muito pelo contrário, é um monte de processado que, no final, chega até a fazer mal".

Esse é o atual Forza Motorsport, tem uma jogabilidade bem gostosa, que dá vontade de repetir tal qual um Big Mac, mas esse sentimento é puramente ilusório pq no final das contas vc só está consumindo um monte de processado sem valor. Pra mim, jogo nenhum se sustenta apenas com jogabilidade bem feita, é preciso mais. Um jogo de corrida, sem ter um pano de fundo, uma competição que vc sinta vontade de dar sequência, uma história (que pode ser bem bobinha msm), um sistema onde vc consiga estabelecer rivalidades com personagens da CPU, ser envolvido pela competição e outras coisas, é somente um jogo de corrida vazio. Mesmo com toda a estética de simulação ele se parece tão arcade, pois me faz lembrar dos jogos de corrida antigos onde era só escolher um carro e sair correndo em algumas corridas, pontuar mais que os outros chegando na frente e fé. Esse é o principal modo do novo Forza que não te engaja em nada, mas vai te viciar pela jogabilidade gostosa, então não jogue ele ao msm tempo que come um Big Mac, ou jogue, no fim vc vai entender o que eu to falando.

Para vc ter uma ideia do quanto ele não faz vc se sentir engajado, mas sim cansado, o que é o sistema de corridas onde vc ESCOLHE o lugar onde vc vai largar???? Tipo, antes de ir para a corrida vc precisa fazer voltas de treino que não influenciam em nada de classificação e sim em obter pontos para evoluir o carro. Cara, honestamente quem teve essa ideia? Ela é simplesmente uma bosta. O treino só serve para vc “aprender” o traçado, mas convenhamos que com o pouco de pista que o jogo tem também, rapidamente daria para aprender o traçado. Além disso, os mesmos pontos de evolução do carro que vc obtem em um treino que não impacta na sua posição de largada poderiam ser obtidos com um “qualify”. Cara, era TÃO simples. Isso ia trazer um sentimento de conquista e desafio MUITO superior ao fato de vc escolher a posição que vai largar. Na real, até poderia ser assim, mas também ter a opção de classificação e aí deixasse os jogadores escolherem o método favorito....

Então, além do modo “carreira” que não tem nada demais, o jogo tem o clássico modo livre com alguns estilos de corrida e o modo online que pasmem, tem um modo de qualificação nas corridas..... VAI ENTENDER? Sério, pq tem em um e não no outro modo? É quase descarado a forma como é forçado o online no jogo, mas enfim. Dá pra se divertir aqui mais do que na carreira simplesmente por causa da classificação que dá muito mais realidade ao jogo. Além disso, o modo online e até msm o off-line contam com um novo sistema de penalidade por direção agressiva ou por extrapolar os limites de pista e isso é BEM legal. Se o jogo tivesse uma carreira mais estruturada e o sistema de qualificação ao invés do treino, seria TOP, mas vamos acordar do sonho. Voltando para falar do online, ele é divertido, mas é aquilo, um monte de jogadores que usam volantes e por isso conseguem jogar com a tração desligada e acabam tendo vantagem e de vez em quando os sem noção que não tem noção de espaço ou de competição honesta e tão cagando pra vc na pista. Isso faz com que o modo seja divertido, mas punitivo demais para achar partidas onde vc vai mais se divertir do que se estressar.

Conclusão: Nada espetacular e até certo ponto decepcionante se levarmos em consideração que foi lançado 5 anos após o antecessor e não trouxe nada absolutamente inovador ou contundente para a jogatina. Apesar disso, vale o investimento de tempo, ainda mais se você não for do estilo jogador fanático por simulação e só queira uma experiência menos arcade que os tradicionais Need for speed e até o irmão Horizon. Vc vai, até certo ponto, se divertir no modo off-line e vai se surpreender por um tempo em como a diversão do online é maior e vai pensar “Que legal esse jogo”, mas assim que vc se acostumar vai cansar e querer outra coisa. Só para e pensa em uma coisa, vc aguentaria comer Big Mac por mais de uma hora sem cansar? Não né... Forza Motorsport é isso, um game fast food, pra te saciar durante um tempo rápido e não para vc degustar por mais de uma hora e apreciar cada bocada.

Alguns meses após o lançamento eu pude perceber q a performance do jogo melhorou, muito, o modo visual era horrível de jogar pq eu sentia q ele era travado dms, eu conseguia sentir frame por frame passando na tela, agora eu sinto q tá muito mais fluido, os gráficos do jogo, pelo q eu consigo perceber, estão bem melhores tbm, eu n sei se o jogo realmente teve uma atualização pra corrigir esse tipo de coisa ou se é eu q tô louco msm 🤡 mas quando eu joguei no lançamento esse jogo tava nojento, o principal problema q eu vejo nesse jogo em relação aos gráficos hoje, são os reflexos q ainda tão ridículos de feio, o reflexo dos retrovisores do carro e os do capô do carro(q vc consegue ver trocando a câmera do jogo) estão num fps menor doq o jogo em si, além de estar tudo pixealizado e fudido, de resto é um jogo bem divertido, mas dps de algumas horas, passei a achar extremamente repetitivo e desisti (pelo menos por enquanto) de terminar o modo carreira.

Rebooting a franchise is an arduous task. There’s a lot of expectation to measure and there are many challenges to meet. There is also an especially important question to answer, is this worth rebooting? Forza as a series stands atop the mountain of racing simulation games, some might argue in favor of others, maybe there’s a joint top, but no matter how you cut it the Forza series is either there or its in the conversation. That matters less than how it has started to compete with itself.

Forza has done an interesting thing, the spin off series of more arcade style racing has vastly surpassed the original, more grounded, and realistic, racing simulation game. The Horizon series is super fun, the vast open worlds, and the multiple types of racetracks from sloppy and slippery off-road circuits, to tight, precision street racing in high performance super cars. The breadth of the game is wide, the customization is deep. Forza Horizon is a spectacular racing game. This is a problem for Motorsport.

The Forza quality is intact, the accessibility options and all the various menu customizations are all present. Playground Games continues to impress with their quality in tweaking not only car performance in race but difficulty and option setting. The major challenge for Motorsport is on the track, in every respect outside of racing this new offering is as good as its Horizon counterparts.

Motorsport has a sizable number of tracks, many based on real world racetracks, though a lot of the variety is based different configurations of the same tracks. This isn’t a knock against the game, it creates an interesting dynamic where you can become familiar with different track elements while having a sense of familiarity with others.

The main problem that Motorsport suffers from is that it just isn’t enough. In comparison to its own counterpart, Horizon, it lacks in variety, it lacks in number of tracks, it lacks in number of vehicles. It’s a good game, the car tuning and the tracks are good, the vehicles are more limited but still interesting to experiment with, the game just can’t hit the same peaks of Horizon. This doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game it just makes one wonder about the main question I asked earlier. Is this series worth rebooting?

That’s more complicated. Motorsport is still different enough from Horizon to be worth asking after, but the answer, if this particular game is the answer, is a resounding no. I still have fun with it because the formula is good but I, and I’m sure the majority of Forza fans these days, would be lying to you I said I would prefer more of this over Horizon. When Motorsport was first announced I was intrigued, I wondered what they would do with it to differentiate it, how it could be rejuvenated. The result, sadly, is nothing really. Horizon is growing and pushing limits, Motorsport is languishing and becoming irrelevant. There’s still fun to be had here but it would have been much preferable to get Horizon 6 than a tired old Motorsport with a new coat of paint.

It had so much potential, including how damn well it was tuned for controller play, but the insanely bad optimization on PC, lack of content and overall soul, and repetitive gameplay loop really turned me off. Especially because you HAD to do practice laps, even on tracks you've already done before. Just lemme jump into the race already, jeez!

I ended up refunding it on Steam and used the money to buy games that were actually fun and functional instead.

If I were you, I'd stick with Horizon. If you really want more sim stuff, Gran Turismo 7 is better even with some of its BS, you can also nab Assetto Corza for insanely cheap since it goes on sale practically all the time.