Forza Motorsport 4 Review

In Eric Bana's 2009 documentary Love the Beast, Bana and Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson are sitting at a picnic table on an overcast day talking about cars. They're talking about Bana's first car, a 1974 Ford XB Falcon hardtop that he purchased at the age of 15 – and car he still owns, and the car around which the documentary itself is based.

Clarkson is making a point about car people and non-car people; he believes non-car people just can't see beyond the wires, glass, metal and rubber. They can't see the personality behind the engineering, the soul beneath the surface. It's a position Clarkson expands upon in the introductory sequence of Forza Motorsport 4; that car lovers are being marginalized in a world where practicality trumps adrenaline. A world where we're told to think of economy and the environment rather than excitement and enjoyment.

With Clarkson's help Forza 4 is positioning itself as an ode to the automobile of sorts. A celebration of all things four-wheeled and fun in one accessible package. Forza 4 is Turn 10's tilt to create the world's best and most comprehensive racing sim, to build an essential destination where car lovers can gather to trade, tune and take each other on.

And it's hard to argue the crew hasn't succeeded.

Booting up Forza 4 is like slipping back into your favorite jacket and finding $50 in the pocket. It fits just as comfortably as it did the last time you wore it but it comes with a pleasant bonus. The DNA of Forza 3 is strong in Forza 4, lending a certain familiarity to proceedings, but welcome tweaks and additions across the board strengthen the overall offering considerably.

With your first foray behind the wheel automatically muted by a suite of driving aids, the first thing you'll notice will be the improved visuals. Forza 3 was no slouch at the time but two years on and Forza 4 is a marked improvement. It's all thanks primarily to Forza 4's new image-based lighting model, which basically means the cars look perfectly seated within the game's tracks. Harsh sunlight burns bright against bodywork and cabin view is a great way to observe the shadows that dance smoothly back and forth across dashboards. It's excellent stuff.

The car models themselves are also hugely impressive. The finest aspects are reserved for the game's special Autovista models, a mode that allows you to absorb even the tiniest of details, but every car stands up to close inspection. They look as good in motion as they do static, too. The frame rate is buttery smooth and they look fantastic circulating around the game's bright and crisp tracks.

Still, Forza 4 doesn't just look and feel better, it sounds better too. Turn the music down and the volume up, up until you can only communicate with other people in the same room by shouting – or perhaps blinking in Morse code. That's the sweet spot. The older cars sound the best. The howl of a D-Type Jag will rattle your nipples off, and if the snarl of a 351 Cleveland V8 in Forza 4 can't bring Steve McQueen back from the dead nothing can.

The richer engine notes may weave a symphony of power and violence but Forza 4 is actually quite a fresh audio experience in other areas too. There are new sounds for collisions, wind rush and more. The inoffensive but bog standard music may not blow your skirt up, but the thick tapestry of sound effects should.


The real stars here, obviously, are the cars. Turn 10 has really nailed the roster this time around. If you can't find cars here you love then you honestly don't love cars as much as you think you do. It's really that simple. Turn 10 being forbidden from including Porsche has surely stung, but Forza 4's slate of over 500 vehicles from 80 manufacturers really does have something for everyone.

Forza 4 embraces car culture from all over the globe, and it does so without a disproportionally large focus on vehicles from just one country. You won't find 135 Nissans and only 12 Ferraris here. Hot hatches, classic British sports cars, Hollywood heroes, JDM favorites, German super sedans, timeless American muscle, exotic Italian thoroughbreds, even an immortal Australian icon – they're all here, and more.

Forza 4 captures the cult of cars better than any racing game before it. It's a game that understands what makes a 20-year-old high-performance pickup truck just as important to some people as a brand new Lexus LF-A. A game that understands that a 1977 V8 Vantage is just as desirable as a 2010 V12 Vantage. A game that understands why you can't have five Ford V8 Supercars without five Holden ones too.