Forza Motorsport 5

“Forza Motorsport 5 combines superior visuals, futureworld technology, and the series-standard love for cars and car culture into a flagship launch title for the Xbox One.”

But, at the end of the day, the racing is what matters. And with this game, the racing is fantastic, and Turn 10 is really onto something with this Drivatar stuff. It alone gives Forza Motorsport 5 something over every other racer out there, pushing the genre forward. They’ve remedied the racing genre’s biggest problem: scripted AI cars.

The bodywork is built for showing off your new machine, but there's something more substantial under the hood.

While it may seem like a step backward with its lower track count than previous Forza versions, in reality it is quite the opposite. The tracks are an example of quality over quantity, and one could assume that a future DLC solution will address this anyway. The new Drivatar system is basically a crowd-sourced AI training system and results in a more realistic (and, at times, frustrating) racing experience. Multiple configuration options allow the challenge to be finely calibrated to any skill level. If nothing else, the visuals alone are worth the upgrade.

Forza 5 is gorgeous and smooth as butter, and its utterly enchanting handling makes it a joy to drive hard, but this game is more than just a rock solid technical titan for the Xbox One. It’s an essential destination for the automobile obsessed. It may be lighter on girth than where we left off last generation, and still lacking much-requested features like night racing and rain, but wrestling a car through some of the world’s most legendary corners at the very limits of adhesion has never looked or felt this good on console. As a result Forza 5 is a very hard game for a revhead like myself no...

Forza Motorsport is Microsoft’s racing jewel as it has provided Xbox gamers with a great simulation experience that is accessible to all levels of racing fans.  The series was first released on the original Xbox and this fifth release, sixth if you add Forza Horizon, is a launch title for the Xbox One.  Many people have been awaiting the arrival of what has been expected to be the first next-gen racer.  Personally I have played every Forza to hit an Xbox branded console, from the first one on the original Xbox all the way to the last one, Forza Horizon, which was a departure from the usual cir...

As an Xbox One launch title, Forza Motorsport 5 has a lot resting on its immaculately-polished shoulders.

Bearing the weight of Xbox One's launch day racing hopes entirely on its own, Forza Motorsport 5 is a more than worthy addition to the storied racing franchise's history, and a strong first crack at next-gen. However, it's a game that's so in love with its own style that it forgot to bring the substance. Drivatar is a brilliant innovation, but where's the weather, night racing and improved damage model? Turn 10 has a lot of room to improve with the next Forza Motorsport game. For now, Forza M...

Ignore the nonsense, though, and it can still be electrifying. Take an Audi R18 e-tron away from the messy drone of the career and set about beating a Rivals hot lap time around Spa and it's sublime: the diesel engine roars stealthily, the sun streaming through the Ardennes' thick forest. With Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10's created a driving experience both accessible and beautiful - but it's been stripped back to make Xbox One's launch, and augmented with a host of ugly extras that only serve Microsoft's bid to make a few dollars more.

Forza Motorsport 5 is a great game, but it comes with some quite significant problems. It has fewer tracks and cars than its predecessor, prices have been hitched up several notches on its in-game cars and the excellent, ever-building, system of rewards has disappeared. Multiplayer is a little anaemic and Free Play mode has been pared back too.