Forza Motorsport 4: A Racing Game At Its Core #blogpost
Introduction
Hello! I hope you have had a great December day! Now, to get things straight, I don’t have a Xbox One; I own a Xbox 360.
Introduction
Hello! I hope you have had a great December day! Now, to get things straight, I don’t have a Xbox One; I own a Xbox 360. And, some of you may know that you cannot get Forza Motorsport 5, Forza Motorsport 6, or Forza Horizon 3 on a Xbox 360 console (you can get Forza Horizon 2, but it doesn’t have the same features as the Xbox One edition).
So, in early January, I got a slightly used Forza Motorsport 4 game from Gamespot. And I am glad that I did so. Although, I never really got into the game until March. But once I got into it, I have spent hours on end playing the game. It’s challenging, enjoyable, unique, and is just a brilliant game in general.
The Career
In the Forza Motorsport 4, the career mode is split into two parts; the World Tour and Events.
The World Tour is the main mode; it is essentially the racing storyline of the game. It is divided into ten seasons (or series). Which are the following:
•Amateur
•Clubman
•Sportsman
•Semi-Pro
•Expert
•Professional
•Masters
•Elite
•Championship
•Legend
The ten seasons act like a step ladder; in each season you have a progressing amount of races; in Amateur you have five races, in Clubman you have seven races, etc., etc.
Not only that, each season brings more laps to every race; a race at Silverstone might be two laps in the Amateur series, whereas it might be six in the Legend series.
Because of the progression system you get a long, challenging career. Most casual gamers take about six months until they finally complete the Legend season.
And the World Tour doesn’t stop there; once you finish the Legend series, you simply go around in a circle, starting back in the Amateur season.
The Events is basically all challenges, series, championships and showcases mashed together.
With the Events you have a number of options. You can race D-Class cars around Laguna Seca, race in a classic supercar showcase, or race S-Class cars in a championship series.
Most of the series are split into a number of races; you can race in a Chevrolet Showcase series, where you can take your 1970 Chevelle 454 SS or the 2010 Corvette Grand Sport to racetracks such as Sebring, Silverstone, and Hockenheimring.
Or you can do a Autocross event at Indianapolis in your 1994 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
The Car List
Forza Motorsport is known for their unique car selections, and Forza Motorsport 4 adds to that. The car selection ranges from small, compact hatchbacks to ridiculous, terrifying hypercars.
The game features a total of 313 cars (with 170 DLC cars) from 78 licensed manufacturers such as Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Holden, Lamborghini, and Pontiac.
And with even more DLC packs, you can find yourself with more than eighty licensed manufacturers such as Hudson and MG, with almost 600 cars!
Some cars include the 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA Stradale, 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS, and the 2010 Joss JT1.
Like any Forza game, the car list contains cars both in and out of their comfort zone. The game offers cars that give you the opportunity to build a car that you feel comfortable driving.
You can either pick a classic old sports car - for example, the 1977 Aston Martin V8 Vantage - or a sports sedan - a 2010 Audi S4 - and build them into track eating monsters.
Or you could take something like a stock racecar - like a 2008 Mercedes-AMG C-Class Touring Car - and race around Laguna Seca.
And many cars have made their last appearance in the game.
Cars such as the 1958 Austin-Healey Sprite (although it is a DLC car, coming from the September Pennzoil Pack), 2000 Fiat Coupé 2.0 20V Turbo (also a DLC car, from the January Jalopnik Pack), the 2008 Mazda Furai, and the 2010 Gumpert Apollo S.
The Track List
Another good thing about the game is the variety of the track list.
You can race in the Swiss Mountains at Bernese Alps, or in the cobblestone Italian streets at Rally di Positano.
The game offers you an option of 26 locations to choose from:
•Bernese Alps
•Camino Viejo de Montserrat
•Circuit de Catalunya
•Fujimi Kaido
•Hockenheimring
•Iberian International Circuit
•Indianapolis Motor Speedway
•Infineon (now known as Sonoma) Raceway
•Ladera Test Track
•Le Mans Circuit de la Sarthe
•Maple Valley Raceway
•Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
•Mugello Autodromo Internazionale
•Nürburgring Grand Prix Circuit
•Nürburgring Nordschleife
•Rally di Positano
•Road America
•Road Atlanta
•Sebring International Raceway
•Sedona Raceway Park
•Silverstone Racing Circuit
•Sunset Peninsula Raceway
•Suzuka Circuit
•Top Gear
•Tsukuba Circuit
•Twin Ring Motegi
And in those locations, there are a total of 116 different layouts.
The Progression And Reward System
Like I said earlier, the game has a quite unique system of progression and rewards.
For instance, you have both Driver and Affinity levels - the Driver level is basically your racing level; while the Affinity level is primarily rewards for races given by the car’s manufacturer.
For the Driver level system, each level that you unlock rewards you with money; when you get above Driver Level 50 you can get rewards over 100,000 credits.
To put this in perspective, Level 55 gives you a 115,000 credit reward, while Level 56 gives you 117,500 credits, so on and so forth.
The same thing applies to the Affinity level system. When you get to Affinity Level 20 you get a reward of 95,000 credits, Level 25 you get 105,000 credits, etc., etc.
Conclusion
Overall, Forza Motorsport 4 is a fantastic, outstanding game. It has a long and challenging career mode, a great car and track list, and a exquisite progression and reward system. If you ask me, I personally think the game is one of the best racing games out there.
Thank you for reading this, it is greatly appreciated. Tell me your ideas on this blog! What are your thoughts on Forza Motorsport 4? What is your favorite Forza Motorsport game? Tell me in the comments!
This is KPS Lucky signing out. Peace.
Comments
I have forza 4 and I do agree it is the best Forza. Probably horizon 3 is second. Followed by forza 6. Forza just had something everyone wanted and it satisfied all tastes
Honestly this game was the first FORZA game to get me hooked . It was the only and last FORZA that offered you to join public made matches for instance “RWD drag @ sebring”and” ROLL racing servers @ Lemans “. Those were the days when gearing a 240sx with a 2.28 final ratio would hit 275mph hahaah .
I miss the auction stuff Forza had. That was cool as hell.
Aaaand it was the last Forza game to have the E60 M5.
Great post man! I own every single Forza title, and I’ve played all of them for 100++ hours. FM4 is without doubt my favorite. The physics are perfect for an “almost” sim, and god I miss drifting up and down Fujimi Kaido in my 300ZX.
I love Forza 4 and I still play it frequently because, like you, I only have a 360, too. My only complaint about 4 is that all of the Forza games after the first one stopped recording your final race times for each individual race, so you can’t go back and try to beat your time in the same scenario. But it also never starts you in the front of the pack (unlike in earlier versions where you could earn a spot at the front of the starting grid with a higher driver level), so any shot at consistency is kind of out the window, anyway (plus, there would be a lot more data to track in 4 than in 1 because of the sheer number of races on the list).
I’m currently trying to get the last two achievements — the Ferrari Collector achievement ( ALL of the Ferraris from Disc 1 for a total cost of 40,160,000 credits ) and the Bucket List achievement (finish first in every race on the event list — I’m about 3/4 of the way there without using any hired drivers)
I’ve been playing FM since FM1 on the original XBOX and own all the games up through 6. I do feel FM4 IS the Ultimate Edition. Far superior to the others, and Horizon 1 with the Rally Edition, a bit corny, but still high on the list. FM1 after that, then FM6, FM5 FH2, and FM2 and 3 on the bottom
I still play F4 to this day and I wish future Forza games would have the same sort of vehicle variety that this game provided.
Nice blog
Not to mention the amount of tuning you could do on motorsport 4 was pretty unmatched by any other in the forza series.