Forza Motorsport 6 Review

Forza is back with its latest instalment Forza Motorsport 6, and boy are you in for a ride. If there is one thing that I have been hanging on for the current gen console it is an awesome racing sim and Forza 6 has delivered it. 

Now in no way would I consider myself to be a car guy. I enjoy watching car racing, but as far as knowing the ins and outs of an engine or anything to do with tuning, I really have no idea. 

What's great about the Forza series is that it is accessible to all gamers. A fully customisable difficulty level and driving assists let you tailor your experience to make it as simple or difficult as you please. This is an awesome feature and as I became more comfortable in a car I found myself going back and changing the driving assists to give me more control whilst racing.

The Drivatar's are back and the first thing I noticed was that some of my mates drive like real assholes! This however can be changed with a new setting which allows you to turn off the aggression of the Drivatar's. This was turned straight off and considerably lowered the difficulty and chances of being run off the road.

The gameplay and menus have been improved allowing for a more user friendly interface. 

A career mode is back again which will really put your racing skills to the test. In true Forza style it is quite linear, with you needing to finish in the top 3 to be able to advance. This may seem like a simple enough task but with a few new additions to the game you will be challenged more than ever. 

So let's get into these new additions in the game. Firstly a very noticeable change is in the graphics. They are amazing and the closest thing to real life that I have seen in a racing game. Everything seems to be a little bit crisper and fine tuned. The lighting and shadowing effects on the cars and environment whilst racing add greatly to the realism. The sun will hit you in the eyes on certain parts of tracks and a neat little thing I noticed was the reflection of the dashboard on the windscreen whilst using the in car view. The draw distance has also had a noticeable upgrade. The mountains in the distance whilst hammering across skyline on Mt Panorama looked breath taking, along with fireworks in the sky during night races. 


Then there is the weather. Wet weather racing is taken to a whole new level here. Water droplets and spray will impair your vision and the draw distance is greatly reduced due to the rain. Apart from trying to stay on a clear racing line and picking the correct time to brake, you will also need to avoid the large amount of puddles and water running along the track. Hitting these puddles whilst accelerating and at high speed will cause you to aquaplane and almost certainly lose control. 


The basic driver levelling system also has a new addition. Each time you level up your driver, you will be rewarded with a prize spin. This consists of a wheel of prizes including new cars, credits and a major prize in the middle. This is a cool way of rewarding your play and I have found myself playing for much longer than usual trying to level up my driver and chase the big rewards.


Mods have also been added to the race menu in which you can get "burn cards" that entitle you to in game perks. The way this works is really cool in that you can purchase cards using in game credits. (no micro-transactions here) The cards can give you permanent perks that you can apply to your car. These include things like tyre grip bonuses and extra credits for using specific camera views. There are also one time use burn cards that can give you XP boosts or starting position advantages. There are 3 perk slots available for you to use and you are able to change these at the start of each race. This is handy as you can customize your perk set up to reflect racing conditions.

It seems that numerous enhancements have also been made to the haptic feedback in the controller. For those of you who are unsure what this is, the Xbox One controller triggers used for accelerating and braking can help indicate to you if you are pushing your car too hard. The vibrations through the triggers will also help in controlling your car and can indicate wheel traction and slip that will help you out a fair bit in the way you race. Forza is not the type of game that you play by holding the triggers in permanently to brake and accelerate. You will use them more like a real car. You don't just get in and put your foot straight to the floor to accelerate and brake and this is the same for Forza 6.

Now for what I see as one of the best additions.


Mt. Panorama made its first Forza appearance in the Xbox One launch title Forza 5 and I was completely blown away by it. As someone who can think of nothing better than sitting on the lounge in their underpants drinking beer and watching the Bathurst 1000 from start to finish every year, I was truly excited by the inclusion of it once again in Forza 6.

It now looks even better than the previous track and also has a couple of new inclusions, like the tyre walls into the cutting that can make for a bad time if you don't hit the chase right. 



There is also a heap of V8 Supercar teams that have been added to the games roster this year and they include: