Around the Hawk: Forza 3 Review

The much anticipated third installment of the Forza Motorsport series hit store shelves October 27th of this year. Since Blazen likes to give a little history lesson in his reviews, I shall give one too.

The word “Forza” is translated as “Power” in Italian. The first Forza was released May 3rd, 2005 for the original Xbox. The game sold over one million copies and received great reviews. The second Forza was released May 29th, 2007. It was the first on the New-Gen Xbox 360, and was a great leap forward in the series.

However, Forza Motorsport 3 is by far the greatest improvement thus far. The creators of Forza (Turn 10 and Microsoft Game Studios) did a remarkable job with the third installment in this franchise. If you even remotely like the sport of racing, Forza 3 is a game you need to pick up.

Here are my Pros:

• As with the first two Forza games, this one offers the user the greatest amount of car customization and vinyl editing of any other racing game on the 360.
  
• The library of cars to choose from is extensive with over 400 cars.

• Simulation damage in this Forza is greatly improved as you can now roll your car.


• The online Storefront feature is genius. You can share custom vinyl artwork, photos, in-game movies, even custom tuning set-ups. The user can choose if they want their stuff on the storefront for free so others will download it, or they can set a price on it.


• The Auction House from Forza 2 is back, which is a plus. It’s fun to get in biding wars with other people online. It’s like E-bay on Xbox Live.
  
• Career mode is extensive. I’ve been playing the career mode fairly heavily since it came out, and I’m only about 10% through. The career mode looks like it’ll take a long time to complete, which is great. The new season mode is fun, where you start out using F class cars (which are the worst performance cars), and slowly work your way through the first year. There are six years total and they become increasingly longer and more difficult as you progress.
  




• Graphics are much improved in this game. Not that Forza 2 had bad graphics, but Forza 3 blows it out of the water.
  


• The new in-car camera view is awesome. It almost feels like you’re driving sometimes. The game probably seems much more realistic with the steering wheel as well.



• Online play is pretty good. New this year is the ability to veto a track, as well as bringing up a vote to the other players in the session to kick a player. This is good to eliminate those dirty players.
  

Here are my Cons:

• The soundtrack is mediocre at best. At least you can hear the songs playing during the race, but if you’re like me, you’d rather just listen to the iPod or Zune.
  


• The load times can take forever as you wait for the race to start.

• It takes a long time to join a session when playing Online.


• There’s only three skill levels to put the computer on. Easy, Medium and Hard. This is somewhat lame if you think about how in-depth the rest of the game is. It would be nice to have a My Skill setting like in Madden, but the computer does race alright on Medium as you progress in the Career mode.
  
• The Collector's Edition of Forza 3 is a waste of money in my opinion. For $20 more you only get a few extra cars and tracks. The normal $60 game is the one to get.

I highly recommend this game to even the most casual gamer. If you’ve ever played a racing game before, it probably won’t compare with “Power” Forza 3.

My rating:

9.3/10