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 Forza Motorsport 3 does what quite possibly no racing game has done before. It combines the graphics and technical excellence of the best racing simulators with terrific accessibility.
Publisher Microsoft designer Turn 10 has been granted the licenses from 50 manufacturers to include more than 400 fully drivable cars. There isn't a single high-performance vehicle that we would think of that isn't in this game. From tuners to muscle cars, economy priced hatchbacks to the most legendary European exotics of the last 40 years, they are all here. For good measure the game throws in guilty pleasures such as Camaro IROC-Z and the Dodge Ram SRT-10 - the dream truck of hillbilly's everywhere. Yee-Haw!
The awesome selection of vehicles is enough to warrant a play. Usually this comes with a certain trade-off in game play that's a turn-off for casual race game players. Similar games like the Gran Turismo series offer the cars and intense racing, but tend to take themselves too seriously for the for those who enjoy Mario Kart.
 Forza breaks this mould. We tested the game with a number of players of different experience and no one had a learning curve of more than 20 minutes. We expected the cars and terrific graphics which were strong points of the first two Forza games, what we didn't expect is that you customize the game to any level of play. You can be a reckless auto-transmission loser or manual stick shifting impresario – the game has a customized solution to allow you to win with some challenge.
It's a winning combination that actually expands the value of game play, as you progress, you can make a few tweaks to the difficulty and game assists to keep pace with your own improvement. At the hardest competition level on simulation settings – we'll let's just say the Top Gear watching, Road and Track reading crowd will get its authenticity, most likely in the form of concrete wall at the end of a hairpin turn.
In-game racing is intense albeit repetitive. Microsoft had boasted the AI for computer opponents but best we could tell is they still tend follow the computer generated path. At higher levels there may be some deviation in how the computer plays, AI responses could still stand to be a little more varied, which would go a long way in creating more immersive game play.
For those who crave human opponents and their unpredictability, X-Box Live will work quite nicely. Players can also use the credits they earn in game from in-game races to buy user created content, such as custom vinyl groups and tune set-ups.
 More fun is the Auction House, where users can sell cars they've obtained to other Live users. Sometimes these include crazy designs and tune-setups. The auction ends up working more or less the same as E-Bay, bidding gets intense in the last two minutes, as users try to buy their dream car, for far less than it costs to purchase in game. Well designed cars fetch a premium. Patience will allow you to buy some great cars at sometimes half the price they cost in your career game. It's also tempting to report an auction to the Turn 10 moderators, when you see a Ferrari or Lamborghini with an amateur vinyl design.
Forza biggest deficiency is its season play mode. It's expansive with hundreds of races for different classes of cars. For example, there are racing series for a number of specific model cars, as well as series for sub-categories, such as rear wheel drive or midline design engines. Pick the wrong season series, and you may be shopping for a car to fit a specific niche. As far as we could tell, there was no redo to fix botched career decisions.
It will take weeks to play through all the races, but with no story or characters, you're essentially playing for bragging rights and you're ever expanding collection or ridiculous cars. For some players that's enough, but something else is needed to keep casual games engaged.
The game also has a sort of a European techno café-lounge soundtrack that will begin to wear thin pretty fast unless you like drinking overpriced coffee while driving at excessively high speeds. There's definitely kind of Euro-snob vibe to the whole game, from the in-game narrator to the sterile menu graphics.
 Pros:
Incredible selection of vehicles
Pretty much the best looking X-box game at 1080p
Intense racing that requires focus from start to finish
Auction house is a great way to cheaply pad your collection with some customized rides
You can mod a Ferrari
Cons:
Season play is tedious
Soundtrack and in game menus feel like they are ripped from an IKEA showroom.
Why in the world are you allowed to mod a Ferrari?
Forza 3
Format: Xbox 360
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Turn 10
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Official Site: http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/game/default.htm
Rating: 9 / 10
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