Forza Motorsport

It's rare for a racing game series to stay popular for over 15 years. The only ones that come to mind are Mario Kart and Gran Turismo, though Forza Motorsport has managed to maintain its status as a critic's favorite above all others. I love the first four Forza games, though I haven't been attracted to the overloaded 'do whatever you want' presentation of the Horizon games. Many long-time racing game fans (including me) will cite Forza Motorsport 4 as the series' most realized entry. Though, my favorite game in the whole series has to be the first one, as its experience is completely unmatched in the world of racing sims. That's not my way of saying it's 'the best driving sim ever made', though it's close to being my favorite one! Much of my appreciation comes from the way the game looks, the types of cars that are included, the style of tracks, the list of events, and the game's simple original soundtrack.

Gran Turismo 4 and Forza 1 share a similar quality in that their UI is mostly comprised of bright colors. A big difference between the two, however, is that Forza's menus and events were far more organized and streamlined. Gran Turismo's menus were like trying to navigate through a magazine, which has its own appeal, but Forza 1 would let you organize every car by price, power, or any of its stats. This was a relatively new feature for racing games, where every car came with its own numerical stats. When you upgraded your car, your stat numbers updated to reflect the change, meaning you could fine tune every car to fit into a specific class. In addition to this, the game would let you visually customize all the cars, including the paint, with a good amount of them having changeable wings or body kits. It wasn't quite Need for Speed, but it's impressive for a racing sim.

The variety of cars and tracks in the first Forza game proved to be promising for a game with less content than its competition. By the time this game was released, Gran Turismo 4 was already out with a massive selection of cars and tracks. Though, even with less than 20 different unique tracks and only marginally more cars than Gran Turismo 3, Forza Motorsport still feels like a big game. Forza managed to snag some big names right away, being one of the early console game racing sim games to use the Nurburgring. It also has a unique Japanese mountain track, a fake version of Bathurst, a stock car oval, a drag strip, Tsukuba, and a handful of original tracks. These original tracks include the iconic Maple Valley Raceway, a fast paced Rio de Janeiro, and a highway circuit in Tokyo. But let's not forget about the cars! Forza is a series that managed to get the rights to Porsche and Ferrari, which it could proudly wave in front of Gran Turismo's face for the next 5 years. It also includes other niche car nerd staples like the Koenigsegg, the Saleen S7, as well as some lesser known gems like the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve and Shelby Series 1.

What it doesn't cover with its track list and car list, it covers with its event list. The earlier Forza games opted for a neat presentation of events that functions as a game completion checklist. Similar to Gran Turismo, the events revolve around the car's country of origin, or its drivetrain, with each event rewarding the player with a unique prize car. This event list also makes use of the game's novel performance classes, meaning you can tune nearly any car you want to fit into a higher class. These races don't get as drawn out as the longer ones of the Gran Turismo series (the longest single race in the event list is 8 laps of the Nurburgring), though it will still take a good amount of your time to complete all them.

Some other neat time wasters are this game's 'Drivatar', which lets your train your own AI driver based on your personal skill range. This Drivatar will do races for you if you're lazy or you REALLY don't want to do a specific event, though the Drivatar will also take all of your prize money. I've also had a lot of fun testing different cars in the Autocross mode, which are small track outlines that take place on a stretch of tarmac, with only some lines and cones to guide you.

Even though it only runs at 30 fps, and it has dozens of followup games that are more technically impressive, I've always loved how straightforward the first game is. And I love the music, too! It sounds like generic buttrock at first, though there is creativity that comes out when you listen to the mellow menu tracks. I'll almost always take original music over a licensed soundtrack in a racing game like this. Likewise, the entire game has become a relaxing experience for me, something that I rarely get from video games in general.