Video Game Review: Forza Motorsport 7
Forza 7 is an amazing game marred by some questionable design choices.
This year has been a great one for racing fans. We have a new F1 racing game, Project CARS 2, and even Gran Turismo has a new game out. But for all the Xbox gamers out there, nothing is more exciting than a new Forza Motorsport game. Forza Motorsport 7 has arrived, and we are here to tell you if it’s worth your money or your time.
Forza 7 is the tenth game to wear the Forza name, and it is shaping up to be the biggest and most ambitious game the team at Turn 10 has ever made. The car list is more than 700 strong with the biggest collection of Porsche and Ferrari cars ever. There are 32 racing locations with multiple track layouts, providing the largest track list in Forza’s history. Oh, and a new dynamic weather system that will change the way you think about racing.
But among all the changes and improvements, there are some strange choices, and not all of them feel like they are made for the benefit of the player or the experience.
The Good:
If you already love Forza racing games, you are bound to love the base of what Forza 7 is. It’s the same speed and excitement the series has built its legacy on, just cranked up to another level. The sheer number of cars on hand makes sure that every race is filled with interesting and exciting new cars you may have never seen before, and that diversity makes it easier to find a perfect car for your driving style.
Visually the game looks as great as ever. New 4K assets and available HDR support increase the visual fidelity to a level never before seen in Forza. Depending on the scene and the car, it’s a tossup to our eyes on whether Forza 7 or Project CARS 2 looks better. Regardless, Forza 7 is a major display of visual wonder.
Forza 7 also introduces some new systems that make you want to spend your in-game money. If you are like me, you have millions of extra credits laying around in all your Forza games. After a certain point, you just don’t have a ton of stuff to spend that money on. You could buy new cars, or upgrade old ones, but once you have a fleet you like using, there is no real need.
With Forza 7, you now have loot boxes and car collection incentives that will make you want to start blowing all those hard earned credits left and right. Let’s start with the car collection. For Forza 7, every time you go up a level in your driving career, you are given the choice between three reward items. You can get some money, an extremely discounted car, or a new outfit for your driver. The value of these three rewards goes up with your car collection score.
You see, in Forza 7, every car has a point value associated with it. Once you hit a certain number of points, the level of your car collection increases. Rarer and more expensive cars, are worth more points, so you are incentivized to buy as many cars as you can early in your career to maximize the rewards.
Beyond the car collection, you can now customize your racer, and there are literally hundreds of different racing suits with matching helmets available. The best way to get those outfits is through the new loot crate system, in which you buy special boxes with in-game credits. These crates can contain new outfits, modification cards, and even new cars. There are multiple “levels” crates that promise greater rewards. As an example, more expensive creates promise at least one car, etc.
The single player campaign mode has also received an overhaul, and it will be a welcome change for less skilled players. The game is set up as a series of racing championships on your way to winning the Forza Driver’s Cup. The way it works is you choose a particular set of races inside each championship to collect points. Once you have a certain amount of points you can move on to the next championship. If you are a particularly skilled player who can rack up wins, you can move on after just three or four series of races. But if you are playing on a higher difficulty, or just have a hard time keeping with the front of the pack, you can still move on. You just have to play through more series in each championship.
It seems like a small change, but knowing that you can make it through the game regardless of your skill level is a nice thing to see.
The Bad:
But here is the rub with Forza 7. The new loot crate and car collection systems require players to spend money in a way never before seen in a Forza game. And that money now comes at a much slower pace than it has previously. Where your difficulty settings used to increase your winnings in a match, the only way to provide a permanent increase to your cash advantage is by racing more difficult opponents. Except, if you can’t beat those opponents, you don’t make the extra cash.
Instead, the best way to increase your cash flow is by using the mod cards. Which have limited uses. And are only available through the loot boxes. Which also cost you in-game cash to buy. And thus the cycle repeats.
This gets even more troublesome when it comes to the purchasing of cars. You see, you need particular cars to compete in the various racing series. What that means is that you could be stuck with no cash to buy a car, and no car to enter a new championship with. So you are forced to go back and replay older races to grind out some cash so you can move forward. It feels odd and breaks up the major gameplay loop in a way that is frustrating.
Worst of all, Forza 7 will be bringing a way to pay real cash for in-game currency in a later update. Which means that players who don’t have the time to grind out race after race can just pay real money for easy access to more cars and mod packs.
Micro-transactions are a reality of modern gaming. We accept and understand that games are exponentially more expensive to produce, and game developers need ways to keep the cash flowing. Our problem with Forza 7 is how tight the economy seems to be. We want to see a game where you can succeed without spending extra money, and without being forced to spend inordinate amounts of time grinding to progress forward. In short, the ability to buy in-game money should feel like a shortcut for those with cash to spend. In Forza 7 though, it feels like the game was crafted in a way that would make these micro-transactions feel almost like a necessity.
Thankfully there are few ways to gain extra cash, and this reduces the economy fatigue. Players who log in every day can get a cash payout for their “driveatar” when they compete in online races with other players. The Forza Hub app for Xbox and Windows 10 also does weekly payouts of cash for players who remember to log in. Of course, this still means you have to wait a lengthy amount of time to move forward in the game, but at least you aren’t forced to do the same set of races repeatedly for a few hours either.
[Note for PC Users: There has been a lot of talk about performance issues and glitches on the Windows 10 version of the game. We haven’t experienced any major problems, and Turn 10 has promised there are multiple patches incoming, but it’s worth noting. Most problems seem to revolve around stuttering and lag in the menus, but the actual racing appears to be mostly unaffected.]
The Verdict:
Forza Motorsport 7 is easily the best game the series has ever seen. The collection of cars is astounding, the track quantity and layout keeps things feeling fresh for a long time, and the advanced graphics, dynamic weather and driver customization make everything feel new and exciting. Sadly the in-game economy feels like it was crafted to milk extra money and time from players, and it feels a little predatory. Thankfully, Turn 10 is listening to player feedback and has already adjusted some of the in-game economy stuff for gamers who purchased the VIP pack. Just a simple bump of 15% percent to overall game winnings could be enough to push the system back into the player’s favor.
On the whole, Forza 7 is a blast to play, and if you are a fan of the series you will likely love it. Just be prepared to spend a bit more time grinding out race wins, stockpiling cash, and retreading old racing series than in previous iterations.
Forza Motorsport 7 was reviewed on Xbox One and PC with “retail” code provided to us by Microsoft. All of our PC testing was completed on the “Project Stingray” PC. All testing was completed with a standard Xbox One controller.
Project Stingray Specs:
Case: NZXT Noctis 450 – CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K – Mobo: Gigabyte Gaming G1 Z170X – GPU: Gigabyte GTX 980Ti G1 Gaming (x2) – RAM: G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 32GB – Storage: Crucial MX300 2TB (x4 in RAID0)
