After learning the track to some level of confidence, it became the place to test cars, and to run time-attacks. To me, if I wasn’t going all out on it, then I was doing something wrong.
FORZA 2
Local scoreboards - overall leaderboards - MASSIVE career - auctionhouse
ABSOLUTE BEST SOUNDTRACK IN THE FRANCHISE.
FORZA 3 (just slightly behind 2)
Intro of cockpit - still had overall leaderboards.
1 Like
I also started out on Forza 2 
some great tracks from what I remember
1 Like
For me, I base all Forza Motorsport games with the very first one. While physics weren’t 100%, the first was definitely my favorite. (I still play it quite often). It’s sad that there’s no online action anymore really though. (Save xb connect, which is fairly well dead). A few things that made FM 1 the best for me. No parties, everyone was in Lobby talking with eachother (this is how we made new friends and expanded our car clubs -AM-B and FTA for the win). Because everyone chatted in lobby, we communicated quite well, announcing our positions when coming up behind one another, and saying where we were overtaking at (inside/outside). This made for minimal contact racing. People, if they caused a huge wreck, had what we called “racer’s etiquette”, and would slow down to let the victim repass them for a fair race instead of wrecking and overtaking. Oh and, people who didn’t have etiquette were booted instantly. No voting to boot an irritating person. (Loud mouth or what have you…) And let’s not forget the series that were run. I was quite happy to have been able to host 3 seasons of FTCC (Forza Touring Car Challenge, together with my buddy Doc Rich. Was quite a large event, at it’s largest having 32 racers.
Also, I’ve always wondered why Blue Mountains never made a comeback? That track provided some of the most hardcore racing I have ever experienced in Forza. A track so tight, all passes had to be concise and calculated.
The FM that’s tied with FM1 for me would be FM 6. I feel it was the most like the original, with a huge selection of cars. FM7 I played, but feel the whole driver avatar detracted from the game.
Also, just a fact, this may, Forza Motorsport Turns 20!
1 Like
My favorite is going to have to be FM4 hands down. Auction house, store front, clubs, car selection was A-1. You could share tunes and paints. Even add cars to the club garage for friends to use. I loved the career. And while online could be chaotic most of the time it was fun. You could even host lobbies and if someone got out of hand they were voted out quickly. I made a lot of friends and a lot of memories. I remember one time we held an endurance race at 2 am and I fell asleep crossing the finish line. 
Remember also finding ramps to jump on tracks with friends. And did I mention Tag and Cat and Mouse? That’s not including the photo shoots with friends at FK. I miss those days. FM hasn’t been the same since FM4.
3 Likes
Blue Mountain, while indeed an excellent track, was only there to be the series legally-distinct not Bathurst. Now that they have the money to get the actual license for it, I doubt we will be seeing the old one back again.
1 Like
One could make the same argument for Sunset Peninsula being a Diet Daytona however.
If we’re lamenting old fictionals, I’d like to see Bernese Alps return. That would be fun in the high downforce cars we have now.
1 Like
I didn’t say never, I just have my doubts given insultingly paltry content we have compared to any of the prior titles and their last statements sounding like there three people in the office working to keep this ship from sinking.
I would not complain at all if we got every prior fictional track back.
And I personally always enjoyed the Sunset infield layout far more than the real Daytona.
Alps was never one of my favorites. But with the new Aero modeling, I bet you’re right it would be much more fun to try take those corner flat out.
1 Like
The game is excellent (driving sensation, graphics) but a little cold in the menus, and lacks variety in the competitions
2 Likes
Fm7 is the best for me at least graphics wise. That is the game that got me into Forza. I was a PC only guy, but once I bought FM7 I realized how good the series was I went all the way backwards buying the old consoles to play all the older titles as well. For gameplay FM23 is the new King for me and by gameplay I mean setting up randoms races and doing rivals races, we all know the single player is the worst part of the whole experience.
FM4 
To this day, I still remember something a buddy of mine casually said over voice/party chat back when we first started playing FM4:
“They want you to play this game.”
I’m not trying to romanticize it, but that’s exactly what playing FM4 felt like: it was like the game’s makers were trying to entice/enchant you and make the experience addictively enjoyable.
It felt curated, crafted, polished, & rewarding.
I still get goosebumps from that intro video+song.
3 Likes
for me fm, 23 the only other forza i played was forza 7 which for many reasons was uncomparable
- the kerbs would unsettle your car
- the physics wasn’t as good
- it felt very bad on a wheel
- it wasn’t emphasized on racing and had a lot of jeeps and stuff like car bowling
- the multiplayer was rubish
2 Likes
I recently got into FM3. I’m not sure yet if I like it more or less than FM4, but so far I do like that for the mandatory races there aren’t bowling or car passing minigames tied to progression.
1 Like
I know most people tend to worship FM4 and hail it as the pinnacle of the series. In some ways, I’d agree that it was. But I never got on board with all the car bowling/ car soccer shenanigans. I felt like it was the wrong direction for the series. I wanted a “serious” racing game and actually wound up not buying FM4 until a year or two after release when it was a Platinum Hits or GOTY edition or whatever it was marketed as. I did wind up enjoying it though, as the driving experience and overall presentation were very well executed.
Ironic that with FM23, they actually did try making a more serious racing game, and it wound up being my second-to-least favorite in the franchise, next to FM5.
1 Like
It emphasized racing very well. And emphasized a very well structured racing calendar career. The homogologation process balanced each racing division to a specific level. And the reason many players didn’t like it was they couldn’t superbuild a car to over dominate any division. I think it actually taught players more about car building and tuning than the failed CarPG system in FM8. If you took the time to shuffle parts and tunes around within the limits to get the best tune. You really did learn what the parts and the tunes did in the final vehicle.
The passing test was good at teaching players how to overtake without excessive collisions. There could have been better use of the overtake events as a learning tool. Maybe even in FM8 and there might not be as much ramming as there is currently.
The car bowling? That was a big mistake. It belonged in an arcade game such as wreckfest or mariokart. It never should have been added to a “Motorsport” game.
1 Like
Just had the chance to revisit and play through a good chunk of FM2, 3, and 4 via Xenia emulation.
Didn’t realize how much I loved and missed FM2. The Test Track Infield variations, like Cobra, Death Adder, Black Mamba, etc, are better than I ever remembered. Probably my favorite fictional track behind Fuji and Sunset.
Camino Viejo… major nostalgia. Not as good as I remembered, simply because of how limiting the track limits are, no pun intended, but it’s so beautiful and loaded with character.
Didn’t realize how much I’d looked back on Rally Di Positano with rose-tinted glasses. That really was just a showcase track. Makes for terrible racing.
Amazed at how easy it is to just remember and “click” with Fuji from muscle memory—really well designed.
The credit grind in FM2 is really rough.
FM3 had a really nice level of grind/reward, but the high car pricing ceiling is really discouraging.
FM4’s upgrade discount system was better than I remembered; being able to quickly snag a 100% discount for free upgrades of a given brand meant that my hard-earned credits could be spent on cars instead of mixing and matching parts.
The tuning meta feels identical. Playing through these older titles with an understanding of how to effectively build and tune made the hardest AI too easy, and while the AI wasn’t making egregious mistakes, it definitely wasn’t that great to deal with.
Found it interesting how impactful simply utilizing 40/40 ARBs and 100/X diffs could be, magically adding grip and stability to nearly all builds. Especially in FM2. You could have a car that was severely biased towards power, like a beefed up FWD Integra, and make it hilariously competent with basic suspension and diff tuning.
The music for all three titles is glorious. Major nostalgia-fueled dopamine hits just from the OSTs. FM2’s eclectic mix of grunge and 00s pop is a symbol of happier times.
Loved FM3’s menu system. Felt the most simplified and quickest to navigate.
Miss the ID’d engine swaps and body kits . Missed the branded tires from FM2 with unique stats per brand.
Did not miss the awful tire noises from FM2 and 3, even 4 had it. Made me recall an article where they specifically talked about working on this noise to be more complex and varied so now I’m curious as to which FM title that started with.
One last thing that really stood out: the race durations were perfect. Really short races to start, then medium length, followed by longer stint championships. There’s something satisfying about all three titles where you just boot up, quickly get in, and go.
I forgot how much I missed how FM2’s AI did NOT compensate their builds to match yours, so you could have hilariously mismatched races with a car multiple classes higher, simply because the event restriction is just “has 4 cylinders,” and nothing else. You could preview the roster of drivers and see them in the 300s and come in with a 500+ build just to have fun.
I’d have an extremely hard time ranking these titles again. Each of them are so good. On a technical level, FM4 really is the best of them, because it doesn’t really regress anywhere. But FM2 and 3 are so good, especially for their era. They all aged like fine wine.
Highly suggest anyone with a halfway decent CPU get Xenia going. These titles are right there for ya.
3 Likes
Oh, and it really served as a reminder as to how many times these car models have gone through the wash cycle
1 Like