Gamescom 2013: Forza Motorsport 5 Preview - Careering All Over The World

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Dan Webb

"Forza 5 is the most ambitious game we've ever undertaken as a group," says Turn 10's Creative Director, Dan Greenawalt, showing off Forza Motorsport 5 behind closed doors to the press at this year's Gamescom. According to Greenawalt Forza 5 is about four things: great graphics, like being able to see the imperfections in the paint or the reflections in a car's rims, all while running at 1080p at 60fps; great multiplayer with dedicated servers and Microsoft's new SmartMatch - "You're no longer paired with cheaters and jerks… unless you are one," joked Greenawalt; great physics, those of which weren't possible on next-gen because not only of its lack of power, but because of Turn 10s new approach; and great opponents, thanks to learning AI through the power of the cloud, who race off the line, block, duke, and so on - which might just be how Skynet gets started.

A major focus for Turn 10 at Gamescom this year was to show off the game's newly revamped career. Greenawalt spoke passionately of the faux pas that racing games usually perform, and that's starting you off at the bottom of the tree in terms of cars and making you work your way up. That is not the case in Forza 5. You play how you want to play.

"I want the game to fit you like a glove," Greenawalt tells us. You can "use the cars you like" and Turn 10 won't "push you into things you don't want to do." The structure of it is simple: there are eight leagues, broken down into different genres like sport compact and sport vintage, and so on; and each league has 42 series, lasting about 75-90 minutes - so yes, that's over 50 hours. The goal is not to do all of them, according to Greenawalt, it's to just choose the one that speaks to you… he's obviously not met our community then! The best part of the career has to be that each series has a small vignette from the Top Gear (UK) trio, introducing you to the series, giving you fun facts and interesting tidbits about the cars you're about to race in.

Say for example you want to do a series in the Subaru, there is one tailor-made for it, and after you've finished it there are some after races to complete. Want to do it again but have a different experience? Then try using the Lancer. You're not starting with crappy cars either, you'll start with cars like the BMW 1 Series M Coupe or the Super BRZ. You can go from there to hot-hatch or super mini; the choice is yours. And if you like the crappy cars, then you can do them as normal, and this time, you'll get paid just as much as the super car races. It's all about that sense of freedom. You'll also level up no matter where you are in the game too, and get the same XP for it as well, whether that's in Rivals mode, in the multiplayer, in split-screen or in single-player.

Greenawalt also touched upon the traditional RPG levelling system, where the difference between levelling up from ranks 1 to 2 and from 51 to 52 is very different. That's not the case in Forza 5, as Greenawalt and Turn 10 are keen to stop people becoming disillusioned with the long wait between levels as you progress in the game. The levelling system is constant and your reward for your hard work is just around the corner.

Outside of the career, players have their usual array of options, however, rather than Autovista being limited to a handful of cars this time around, Forzavista - the newly branded Autovista - now allows you to get up close and personal with every car. Whether it's a Pagani Huarya, a 1954 BMW 300 GL or Ford Fiesta (we're not sure the latter is in the game, it was just the first naff car that came to mind), you can effectively lick the bonnet. Each car can be exploded (not literally, we're talking figuratively in terms of working parts), explored extensively and they even have their own tour. The Pagani Huarya one, for instance, talks about the car's creator and his fascination with Leonardo Da Vinci. There's a ton of content in this mode on its own.

And yes, there's also racing. Lots of racing, and Greenawalt went into an incredible amount of detail on the physics aspect of Forza 5. Half (read, most) of it went over my head, as Greenawalt talked about the impact of the road on the tyres and how it differs when the car is racing on a camber. In layman's terms, there's a lot of physics going on in Forza 5, more so than Forza 4. It's very physicsy, half of which the laymen's out there - me included - will never understand. Forza Motorsport 5 handles superbly though, and that's what's important. As well as looking utterly sublime, of course.

Forza Motorsport 5 is scheduled to launch alongside the Xbox One this holiday season.

Comments
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  • Have to finish up 3 still and 4 lol, so many games so little time.
  • This is the game that made me decide on a Xbox rather than a PS4, that and the controller ofc
  • Has anyone played this yet at one of the games show? Just wondering if the AI is as advertised.
  • @2 Yup! You have to be a 10 year old kid just getting into gaming to think playstation has a better controller. Xbox controller is the best thing ever invented
  • Looks incredible.
  • are the races going to be worthwhile this time, or is it a case of 300 events full of 4 - 5 lap races like forza 4 I loved 3, and 4 had it's moments, but when you were almost getting into your groove, the race was over, no endurance events on 4 made it more a trivial act of drive all these crap cars lots (or like I did, decide you cant be bothered and make the AI do it) and a few good races, that were unfortunately far too short that is the main reason i'm done with xbox, everything about it became too casual, all games about short stints, FM4 had no races that were over 30 mins to my recollection, and far too many events for cars that really didn't need to be in the game both controllers suck I.M.O. I don't want a facebook button, nor the poorly sprung sticks of the PS4 pad, and the xbox pad well, just nah, i'm not a fan of pads (playing mostly FPS / racing / Shmups, there is only trials that I need a pad for, everything else requires bespoke controllers, be they wheel, mouse & keyboard or arcade stick) the positioning of the hand is wrong for shmups, pad is fine for forza, as for some reason it is better with a pad than a wheel, but I prefer gran turismo having played both with a wheel now (GT is a whole different game with a good setup, if only using a pad, I would always suggest forza, GT no work well with pad) i'm staying away from both next gen consoles until GT7, neither have anything to offer my PC can't do (excluding touchscreen & prance recognition which I hate) what I want is for a review of the game, by someone who isn't a fanboy, isn't an employee, and preferably isn't connected to the internet, so we can see what our games will look like when our internet is down for a bit...that is the only way I will even contemplate the xboxone, if it proves it is still a worthy machine when not online, currently, everything MS do makes me lose even more faith in a platform I never trusted in the first place
  • "a 1954 BMW 300 GL" That should be Mercedes 300 GL
  • Does it matter if I didn't play any of the other Forza games?
  • #6 I think Forza is perfect and the best racing games of them all Forza 5 will be so good its amazing Forza just like the xbox one controller is better than gran turismo and the ps4 controller
  • Be nice to get some more DIFFFERENT real world tracks this time around.Adding 1 real world track & taking one away sucks.Be nice to get 10-20 new tracks that aren't fantasy tracks!
  • i still need to do forza 3. it's the only one i haven't gotten all the way through
  • Why does this have to be xbox one only I have been looking forward to this for ages. Wish there was a 360 version then I would be on it like a car bonnet
  • This is going to be awesome
  • add day/night cycles and rain and it will be perfect. Hopefully in Forza 6
  • @#4 I think it really depends on size of hands. I have big hands and prefer 360 controller, but my wifes smaller hands are perfect fit for PS controller. No need to be hating each has advantage and disadvantage. Sounds fun, I am still trying to get through F4. I LOL'd when he said point is to play what you want. 10 bucks says there will be ever enduring achievements for beating everything as it normally goes with racing games=P
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