Hi all,
I recently hit 1000/1000 Gamerscore and wanted to post some thoughts following my completion. This is something I did for Forza Motorsport 6 and Forza Horizon 3 as well and people seemed to like those threads so I figured I’d do another.
Forza Motorsport 7 is a divisive title in my opinion. It does so many things right yet feels incomplete and nowhere near hitting its true potential. There are many things that we have taken for granted from previous titles that are either absent, oddly-implemented or straight-up broken which is why I think the community vibe have been particularly negative this time round. Despite all of that however the core is solid and enjoyable enough that this is still my main Xbox One title, there’s clearly some good in this game.
For reference I have spent the majority of my time on this game on Xbox One, but have been playing on Xbox One X for just under a week. I play on an Elite Controller with no assists enabled.
Things I Like/Appreciate
Pre-Race Structure.
I like the change to how races are loaded up, where tracks load in the background while you’re still navigating the pre-race settings. In Single Player Campaign this means that I can progress to the next event and change cars/Tunes/Mods while I wait. Less time spent looking at loading screens and more time racing, I like that.
Overall Visual Aesthetic.
Forza Motorsport 6 was a good looking game and ran well on Xbox One. It is hard to see how it could have been improved much further and still run on such hardware but somehow the team at Turn 10 pulled it off. The various pre-baked lighting and weather scenarios (and how they transition from one another) add a sense of life to the environment that was previously missing in Forza Motorsport titles and the car models are as well-detailed as ever. Naturally, everything looks that much better on Xbox One X but even before the console upgrade I would have put this game in the “best looking titles on Xbox One” category. The unsung heroes of the development team deserve all the praise they have been getting on the visual front.
Achievement Design and Implementation.
The Achievements for Forza Motorsport 7 are not an inspiring bunch; it is merely a large checklist that rewards basic participation/progression instead of promoting skill and improvement. That being said, I am pleased with how the Achievements are far less frustrating this time round. “Underdog”, while still a weakly-designed Achievement, is a lot more bearable now that it can be unlocked in a Private Lobby. The other Multiplayer Achievements came to me naturally, except for World Traveller, whose only real flaw is that it requires a printed checklists or spreadsheet due to the game not having adequate stat-tracking options. Like I said before, this isn’t a special list, but I appreciate the fact that it’s not “an impossible challenge” or a true grind like what we had in Forza Motorsport 6.
On-Track Physics
I don’t have a lot to say about this one, but I do appreciate how the cars seem to have a little more longitudinal grip than they had in Forza Motorsport 6. I feel more confident on the brakes and can put down the power more easily in a wider range of cars now, which means that more of them are fun to drive. It’s taken a few efforts but I think they’ve finally nailed that “sweet spot” with this game.
The Forza Driver’s Cup
Let me make one thing clear from the offset: I don’t like racing against AI-controlled opponents in any racing game. They are either too slow, too easy to predict or have weaknesses that can easily be exploited for success. I prefer to race against real people, as the psychological elements of tactical racing are what I enjoy most about motorsport. That being said, the Forza Driver’s Cup is not only the most “complete” Single Player experience I have seen in a Forza title, it is also a distinctly “Forza-like” experience. It is sensibly laid-out, provides good rewards for progression and encourages players to not only try out different car types but do it in any order they please. Well done Turn 10, don’t change a thing about this in future titles please.
Things I Don’t Like
The entire Philosophy behind Multiplayer and Driver Education
This has been a problem with Forza Motorsport titles for over a decade and I was hoping Forza Motorsport 7 would make some inroads on addressing this but sadly things are not looking good. As anyone who tells you will know, Public Multiplayer in Forza Motorsport titles has a very bad reputation; people either do not possess the skill to drive safely, are too inexperienced to know that others enjoy “clean racing” or simply don’t care and deliberately try to ruin the enjoyment of others. It is easy to blame the players for this but the games themselves must accept some responsibility. Forza Motorsport 7 does nothing to teach people how to race, how to properly attack or defend a position, how to conduct oneselves online, nothing. It also does nothing to tangibly discourage those who race in an unsportsmanlike manner. Driver Feedback and Reporting is good in theory but unless a “problem player” can be dealt with within 2 minutes most people aren’t going to have much faith in the system; in fact, many of the people I have played with don’t even know the feature exists. Vote to Kick is inefficient, there are no penalties for cutting corners in races and no in-game tools to help players find “clean” non-League Lobbies. Heck, the launch trailer practically promotes dirty driving and the fact that the offender can get away scott-free. I have tried giving feedback and making suggestions on the forums for years but at this point I’ve given up and started recommending Gran Turismo Sport to people that want a good Multiplayer experience. In the hundred+ races I have had on that title I have had precisely one “dirty race”; people tend to behave themselves when the overall experience is built around teaching and rewarding players for being sportsmanlike.
The lack of a Storefront
My favourite feature from Forza Horizon 3 is gone and I am disappointed, can’t really say more than that.
Bugs and Glitches
On the technical front I can symphatise with Turn 10.'s development team. They’re putting in a lot of work but releasing a vast game like this on multiple platforms with varying player configurations to consider is not an easy task. That being said this has been a rocky experience for me as I have come to expect a Turn 10 product to be rock-solid and up to almost any task I put to it. I don’t expect a game to crash while I navigate menus, join/leave Multiplayer, buy a car etc. Every time the game crashed I was worried that I would lose my paint files which I have put significant amounts of time into. Things have improved with each successive update but I have also noticed that every new feature that gets added is also “broken” in some way as well. This is not the Turn 10 I am used to seeing, and it’s made it hard for me to recommend the game to curious potential players.
Qualify-of-Life Regressions
There are many minor things that have changed or been removed that make me feel like the day-to-day player experience isn’t a key priority anymore. I can’t spectate Multiplayer races, I can’t remove gift cars from my garage, I can’t buy or sell any car I please on the Auction House, I can’t start a Private Lobby and set things up without inviting somebody to join, I can’t take part in Open-Class Rivals or Multiplayer Hoppers anymore, the list goes on. It feels more like “I have to play the way that Turn 10 wants me to play”, and any attempt to “play the way that I want to play” is forbidden. That sense of freedom is part of why I got into Forza in the first place, and why I enjoyed Forza Horizon 3 so much.
Overall, this is a good game. It is a Forza worth playing, especially if you skipped Forza Motorsport 6 or haven’t played a Motorsport title at all. As I said at the top however it is a divisive one. There are things that will frustrate people, things that may be “deal breakers” for some even, but there are also many things to enjoy and things that are the best they’ve ever been. I’m not going to say that the negative sides of this game/series are “an easy fix”, they clearly aren’t, but I do hope the team can turn a few things around.
Over the past decade Forza has set the bar really high for itself and deservedly so, I just hope it can get back to jumping over that bar with ease.
If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading, and many thanks to Turn 10 and Microsoft as always for all of their hard work.
-PJ
