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Hype Review: Forza Motorsport 4

We realize this is late we have finally put together our review of Forza Motorsport 4!  We put together a video review so feel free to scroll down below and watch.  If for some reason you’d rather read then below the video is the entire transcript of the review.  If you want the quick answer: BUY THIS GAME!

By now you should have noticed one very important thing about this review.  It is very, very late.  This is mostly because the day after we got our review copy of the game our Xbox red-ring’d.  No matter though, we still wanted to give this game its due time.  So, you know why this review is late and we know why you are even watching this review in the first place.  By now you already know about the overhauled graphics engine, the integration of tire data from Pirelli to improve the physics, the collaboration with Top Gear, world tour mode, and the enhanced community features like rivals mode and car clubs .  The fact that you know about all of this and yet you are still watching a review can only mean one thing: despite all of that you still haven’t bought the game yet.  Perhaps you need just one more opinion to put you on one side of the fence or the other?  Well we are prepared to offer that to you now.

Even though it says “Forza Motorsport 4” on the cover of the game we think it should really say “Forza Motorsport 4.0.”  Why? Forza Motorsport 4 is not a sequel.  It does not “continue” where something else left off.  It does not need a primer or a recap of the events before for you to understand what it is.  What Forza 4 is, is an evolution of a concept.  When the first Forza Motorsport game was released many gave it the rather mundane label of Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s Gran Turismo and that Forza would try its best to be the ultimate driving simulator.  However if you are lucky enough spend more than 5 minutes talking to Turn 10 Studios creative director Dan Greenawalt you will soon learn that the real intentions for Forza Motorsport go far beyond the goal of “ultimate driving simulator”.  What Turn 10 wanted when they began developing Forza was to create a virtual utopia for serious gear-heads and a gateway drug for gear-heads-to-be.  They probably did not know how they were going to get Forza Motorsport to that point but their determination to get there made the “how” irrelevant.

I say this because Forza Motorsport 4 is “it”.  It is where Dan and Turn 10 have been trying to get to all along.  Forza Motorsport 4 has everything that was great about the iterations that came before it plus more.  There is more depth, more innovation, more substance, and more incentive for lovers of all things automotive to turn on their Xboxes and be magically whisked away to a land where they can answer questions like “How fast can I go on the Top Gear test track in the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport?” or “What is it like to sit in a Lamborghini Reventon?”  Answers to those types of questions are invaluable to people like us, and yet they all await us on a pair of plastic discs.  Beyond the answers to epic questions Forza Motorsport 4 has tons of small nuances that keep the player coming back for more but our favorite thing about the game has to be Autovista mode.  Turn 10 has literally created a new way for the casual observer to not just learn more about cars but to learn about “special cars”, the type of cars that hard-core enthusiasts discuss and argue about.  A whole new generation of young people will learn the story of the DeLorean and why the Ferrari 599 GTO is terrifying.  And they get to learn all this, from Jeremy Clarkson.  That fact can be either magnificent or sobering depending on who you are but there it is.

We could end this review by telling you how much better Forza 4 looks compared to the previous versions, how the physics are greatly improved, how the new community features give the game more depth than before, or how Autovista mode is a revelation in automotive education.  Instead we will just answer the question that was in your mind when you first clicked play to watch this review.  Yes, Forza Motorsport 4 is everything that everyone says it is.  Yes, this game should be on your Christmas list.  Yes, you should buy an Xbox just for this game.  Yes, Forza Motorsport 4 is worth the Hype.

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