Turn 10 Studios’ knows how to make a good racing game. Dynamic AI that takes on the driving styles of players on your Xbox friends list. Stunning, photorealistic visuals that really bring the exotic and luxury cars you’re driving to life. A plethora of customization options with a sizable roster of vehicles to boot, and tons of tracks and game modes to keep you happy for hours on end. Forza Motorsport 7 is built on these very same foundations. It takes the standard Forza Motorsport experience and adds some shiny new bells and whistles onto it to keep racing fans more than happy.
In the developer’s latest efforts to outdo the competition, Forza Motorsport 7 ups the ante on the visuals once more, and even includes dynamic weather that not only changes the appearance of the track, but the way cars handle on it, too. The back end of your Porsche will flick out daringly around wet corners, but once things start to dry up, it effortlessly glides around the apex with little more than a screech of the tires. This is something the series has been dabbling with for a couple of years now, but Forza Motorsport 7 makes raindrops sliding down the chassis of a Ferrari look more eloquent and beautiful than I’d ever thought possible. And that’s only on the original Xbox One.
On the standard system, Forza Motorsport 7 looks the part. It doesn’t show any signs of being left out in the cold while the team focused on optimizing the 4K 60fps experience on the Xbox One X. It’s this that means there’s no need to wait for the One X to jump into the racing fun in Turn 10’s latest.
Earlier this year at E3, I got to go hands-on with Forza 7 on a One X running on a 4K HDR TV and I was pretty complimentary about it. The impeccable level of detail in not only the car models but the track environments combined with the buttery smooth 60fps is a racing fan’s dream. It’s certainly one of the prettiest experiences I’ve had this year and I can’t wait to check it out in the comfort of my own home once my Xbox One X arrives, but I won’t be holding off until then to dive into the racing.
Sure, I might not be getting the optimal visual experience playing on my original Xbox One, but the fact is the difference isn’t noticeable enough to detract from the experience. The visuals and gameplay are still some of the finest the industry has to offer right now, even without the added oomph of the Xbox One X.
Having only played one race on the Xbox One X at E3, it’s difficult to tell whether or not the current main issue with Forza Motorsport 7 – its lengthy load times – will be resolved or even remedied somewhat by playing on the more powerful system. If the One X’s extra power has been used to not only sharpen up the visuals but improve the performance of the title, too, then a case could possibly be made for holding out. That may sound harsh, but Forza Motorsport 7’s load times certainly break up the flow of the experience all too often. If that’s not the kind of thing to bother you, though, then, by all means, jump right in.
Forza Motorsport 7 is another great racing game from Turn 10 Studios. What’s more, it doesn’t rely on the extra power of the Xbox One X to really show what it’s capable of both in terms of gameplay and visual fidelity, despite being the flagship title for Microsoft’s 4K system. If you’ve got an Xbox One already and enjoy the series, don’t hesitate to pick the game up now. If you’re planning to move over to the Xbox One X next month, then playing now will only make the improvements on your shiny new system all the more noticeable when you load it up for the first time.
We’ll have our full thoughts on Forza Motorsport 7 in our review soon.
