Forza Motorsport 3 - Hands On Preview

Sometimes it's tough being a games journalist. At a recent play-test of Forza 3 in London, we didn't even have somewhere to put our drink while playing the game on three linked-up HD TV's, controlled by a Microsoft steering wheel and pedals, all in the comfort of a racing-style bucket seat. Just a word to the wise, Microsoft: a couple of cup holders wouldn't have gone astray. To be fair though, the cars in the demo were hardly likely to have cup holders popping out of the interior - that would be like putting a T-shirt from Asda's George range on the Venus de Milo.

Ford Galaxys, these cars most certainly were not. Instead, we drove everything on the wish-list of European playboys who spend the summer prowling along the French Riviera, parking their luxury yachts in Monaco harbour, and bedding supermodels with ease. The build we played had the Porsche 911 GT2, Ford GT, muscle cars including a Charger and Mustang (of course), a new Mercedes SL Class of some sort, the Lotus Evora, a Lamborghini Murcielago, and of course - Forza 3's poster boy - the Audi R8.

Turning The Corner

Each car was significantly more stunning than any of the vehicles depicted in Forza 2. If you'll pardon the pun, Turn 10 has quite clearly turned the corner with Forza 3, visually speaking at least. As well as the more traditional racing circuits on its track list, Forza 3 will also put a renewed focused on circuits designed around real-world locations such as the Amalfi Coast in Italy and Montserrat in the Caribbean. These are a welcome change of pace from the bland sand traps and Armco barriers of the likes of Laguna Seca, which are instead replaced by 500-foot drops off cliff edges (albeit still partitioned by barriers) and tunnels that have been carved out of rock faces.

Of course, there will be plenty of official racing tracks as well. 100+ circuits have been promised in the game, although it'll be interesting to see exactly how many of these end up being track variations rather than standalone circuits (Forza 2 had 14 circuits, from which there were a total of 47 configurations). Similarly, 400+ cars have also been promised by Turn 10 for the final game and, while that is a big list, it's not quite as big as what we've come to expect from Polyphony Digital. Gran Turismo 4 had a total of over 700 vehicles in it, so it'll be interesting to see what GT5 can muster next year.

That's not the only way Forza is outdriven by Gran Turismo. While we've got to applaud how far Turn 10 has come with the handling in Forza 3, our hands on impressions so far are that it will not push out GT5 Prologue as the most realistic driving sim available on current-gen consoles. Whether it's the torque behind a Corvette, the ludicrous acceleration of a Lambo, or the twitchy oversteer of a Lotus, Forza 3 still appears to lack the anal attention to detail and differentiation between car models that Gran Turismo oozes. Don't get us wrong, Forza has definitely come a long way, it just hasn't reached GT's echelon quite yet.

New to the Forza series in this third instalment is a cockpit view, which will no doubt please car buffs and racing purists alike. While the racing purists may just be pleased with the more adrenaline fuelled camera angle, we're not so sure that car buffs will warm to the interior detail of the vehicles we've seen so far. Compared to the interiors that we've seen in Need For Speed: Shift so far, Forza 3's look uninspired and basic in comparison - a vague stab at realistically depicting the steering wheels, dials, and panelling of various supercars rather than pathologically exact cockpit designs.

Fenza-Bending

The damage system has seen significant improvements, and has moved beyond the canned animations of Forza 2 into something noticeably more dynamic. Bodywork will chip away with even the slightest contact from opponents, while poorly timed overtaking manoeuvres will leave you minus a wing mirror and headlight. This isn't the sort of extensive damage modelling that we've seen from Codemasters' Race Driver: GRID or Criterion's Burnout Paradise though.

Forza 3's damage modelling extends as far as knocks and scrapes and if you plough headfirst into a barrier at 180mph, then don't expect the car to resemble a crushed can of Coke (believe us, we've tried). On the contrary in fact, the car will retain pretty much all of its structural integrity, coming away from the incident as if it'd had a minor prang with a Lada. Microsoft has promised that gamers will be able to flip cars upside down though and we can confirm that, after much crash testing, our Lamborghini Murcielago finally obliged and toppled over onto its roof.  However, the roll was dignified and didn't really represent the immense force that the Lambo hit the barrier with. Clearly, Turn 10 doesn't want to rip its cars to shreds in Forza 3 and, to be fair, this is much more in keeping with the driving sim genre. Full damage modelling could perhaps be a bit too arcadey.

Forza 3 is a significant improvement over Forza 2 and will certainly be a must have for fans of the series. However, using titles such as Need For Speed: Shift and GT5 Prologue as barometers for where the driving/racing sim is going, Forza 3 is still lacking the horsepower to keep up with the frontrunners. Turn 10 has certainly turbo-charged the game to bring it into GT's mirrors, so perhaps some more tweaking in the remaining development time can put it on the arch-rival's rear bumper.