I am not a huge fan of racing games but I enjoyed the previous title in this series.  The thing I remember most about Forza 2 is spending hours thinking up and creating designs, adding them to various cars, and selling them for a ridiculous profit in the auction. I didn’t spend anywhere near as much time with the paint tool on this occasion but I did notice the biggest flaw in Forza 2, having to create your initial design on an actual car, has been fixed with a nice black canvas to work on before applying the masterpiece to a vehicle. I did spend just enough time to create the Team Teabag mascot, the angry teabag man, and applied it to every vehicle in the hope it would bring me good luck.

This game looks incredible. I hesitate to use “photo-realism” when describing the graphics because for so many years the term has been quickly thrown around only for a title to come along with superior visuals and awarded the same label. Perhaps terms such as “even more realistic than photo-realism” or “photo-realism +1” should be introduced to save us from looking foolish in retrospect. I will go ahead and stick my neck out on this one. The graphics in Forza 3 look photo-realistic. I reserve the right to excuse such a bold statement in future by claiming what I actually meant is that Forza 3 looks photo-realistic after someone has downed six pints or had tear-gas sprayed in their eyes. Water, trees, and mountains simply have no right to look this good in a racing game.

There is an announcer who speaks to you quite often. He almost reminds me of the voice in Crackdown. The difference being the Crackdown man was cool and this one sounds like those annoying automated messages you must put up with whenever you phone the bank with yet another justified complaint because they decided to hit you with more ridiculous and unfair charges. Deep breaths.

At the time of writing Need for Speed Shift is the closest rival to Forza 3 on the market. The most impressive aspect of that game is the ability to gain experience from races through both aggression and precision. That system no doubt falls into the arcade category since aggressive tactics such as colliding with opponents would be frowned upon in the racing world but keeping a closer eye on your driving patterns would be good for a simulation game. A clear indication of how aggressive and precise you are in each race would be beneficial to Forza 3 as the series, despite its many positives, has an unfortunate habit of feeling quite dry.

Forza 3 falls just short of what it tries to achieve. Everything appears more polished than Forza 2 and this includes the addition of a little more style to the undoubted substance the series is known for. The cars and scenery look beautiful. The sound delivers everything you’d expect from a racing game. The career mode offers decent variety which is the result of having a huge selection of cars on offer and different races associated with them. The main issue for me is that I had more fun with Need for Speed Shift. Hardcore simulation fans out there may consider such a statement to be blasphemy. I can assure you that just last year I would have shared such a view but how things have changed. I highly recommend this to fans of more realistic racing games but, as with the previous titles in the series, it’ll be less appealing to those who value instant entertainment over realism.

8/10

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