Disclosure: Microsoft provided a copy of the game for this review.

When the first Gran Turismo launched in the ‘90s for the original PlayStation, it drew in not only car fans but also casual gamers like myself who just wanted to see what was then the most realistic-looking cars in a video game. 

That was the draw. Even if you were a casual gamer who mostly played platformers, fighting games, or shoot-em-ups at the time, Gran Turismo drew universal appeal. 

In 2005, Forza came into the horizon (pun intended) to challenge Gran Turismo for the racing simulator crown. Since then, the two have been rivals, in spite of, but also because of the fact that they were exclusives on two separate consoles. 

For the most hardcore racing gamer, choosing a console for one generation likely came down to which series they favored. However, the ever-growing focus on realism with each release made the games intimidating to potentially new fans. 

Now, we’ve seen both franchises come up with features to strike a broader appeal. The latest Gran Turismo, released in 2022, for instance, features a “Music Rally” mode that has players matching their maneuvers to the game’s excellent soundtrack while trying to hit checkpoints to extend time like a classic arcade racer. 

Forza Motorsport – the 8th game under the Motorsport banner, and joining 5 other games in the more arcadey Horizon – eases you right into the driving. After a brief but cool intro about car and racing culture, you’re thrown right into your first tournament – no branching menus to browse through or lengthy options to check. But don’t worry, the game is helpful without being overbearing. 

You’re given quick explanations on CXP or Car XP, which is just currency for earning upgrades for cars. Upgrades are easy because you can either choose to do it manually, or with just one button let the game do it for you to give you a balanced build, towards attributes such as braking, acceleration, top speed. It’s almost like fleshing out an RPG character’s attack, defense, mobility and whatnot. 

The better you drive, let’s say, you hit a lap time target in the pre-race practice run, you get bonus CXP. 

Of course, while the car is your weapon on the track, you still have to actually get skillful handling it in order to be competitive. There are two features that have particularly been helpful. One is you can adjust the difficulty before you start every race, as you see in the photo below. The higher you set your difficulty, the more CXP you get. What I’ve found rewarding to do is to set it at the highest difficulty, and then tone it down on a retry if it’s too difficult for my current skills.

The higher the difficulty, the better the opponents are at maintaining optimum driving lines. 

There’s also a rewind function. Made a mess at the last turn? Just rewind back a bit, and retry just that turn, instead of retrying the entire race. It’s a more efficient way to practice tricky turns on a track. And if that’s not your cup of tea, you can just choose to turn it off, which also nets you more CXP.

For the less hardcore armchair racers, the feature’s great to have in a simulator, and makes it more accessible.

Modes, and performance

In the Builder’s Cup intro tournament, the game drops you into three races to give you a quick glimpse of what to expect from the game. As expected, the sense of speed is there, punctuated by the motion blur, punchy sounds and, if you’re playing on an Xbox controller, dynamic controller feedback. 

You’ll get a taste of the realistic handling in those first three races, and after which, there’s a sense of “I want to get back into the racing, and figure out how to nail those driving lines better.” 

Afterwards, the whole game opens up – well, at least a view of all the career tournaments you can progressively unlock ranging from all-sedan races, muscle car races, or German-only tourneys. The menu is clean and streamlined, and prioritizes racing – it’s the first option in the home menu. 

The online multiplayer mode is something we haven’t tried yet, but from what we’ve seen in the menus, there are various tournaments too categorized by race tracks, and car builds.

Free Play mode is fun to drive around in. You can set the number of opponents, race length, and weather among various parameters, to practice a particular track, skill, or mess around with car settings. Rivals mode will have you going up against the best times of the best gamers in the world. There’s a leaderboard for every track so you can see how you stack up against the best times. A Private Multiplayer mode allows you to set up races with your friends. 

There are 500 cars all in all, which is higher than the 425 that Gran Turismo 7 had during launch. 

You’ll need a pretty modern system to really enjoy Forza Motorsport though. I’m on an Intel Core i7 and GeForce 1650 Ti setup, and you’ll have to settle for last-gen graphics to get it to a playable, above 30 frames-per-second. (And at its launch, be warned that there are performance issues even for powerful PCs.)

What’s great is that the game is on PC Game Pass (P119 monthly) as a day-one title, so if you have a capable PC, and you’re itching for a great race sim, Forza Motorsport is exactly that game. – Rappler.com