It starts you off with all the driver aids turned, without giving you the option to get rid of them – and they include the perfidious stability control, which brakes individual wheels mid-corner and is kryptonite for any true racer. There are a couple of annoyances, though. Graphics-wise, it's absolutely stunning, thanks to a clever new lighting model, and the cars' handling is also impossible to fault, feeling much more involving and less like you were floating above the tarmac than it did in previous iterations. It all adds up to a seriously meaty single-player experience, and feels much more seat-of-the-pants than Forza Motorsport 4's over-clinical predecessors. The game also sends you on tours of the world's finest racetracks, often letting you pick the type of race (you can go drifting, participate in autocross, which involves driving cleanly through gates, or even indulge in novelties like knocking down bowling pins on the Top Gear track). This mechanic, along with being able to pick a new car every time your XP levels up (which happens frequently) makes great sense, bringing you a vast stable of desirable cars in double-quick time.
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As you level that up, you get all manner of bonuses, most notably free parts, encouraging you to upgrade your machinery. As you complete races, you earn Experience points (XP), as expected, but also Affinity points, which bump up your relationship with the manufacturer of whatever car you're driving. Structurally, its single-player mode has undergone a clever shift in emphasis which rewards any loyalty you show to particular car manufacturers.
In that regard, it begins promisingly: the first voice you hear is that of Jeremy Clarkson, and a tie-up with Top Gear – whose Dunsfold track features prominently – is in evidence throughout the game, even though it was developed in America. Such thoughts were clearly uppermost in the mind of developer Turn 10 Studios when it set out to make Forza Motorsport 4 because, this time around, it goes to great lengths to connect with one's inner petrol-head.
It had the cars, the tracks and the graphics, but somehow lacked the indefinable spark required to generate a fanatical following. Microsoft always wanted its Forza Motorsport franchise to be its answer to Sony's revered Gran Turismo but, while its technological prowess has always been conspicuous, it always seemed a bit, well, corporate in comparison.