The question of whether or not one likes ‘driving games’ is one that fans will scoff at. Not, as you may think, because the answer should be obvious, but more that lumping all of them into a single mass is faintly ludicrous. It’s a mistake made by not only those outside of this really rather specific corner of the videogaming community, but also by publishers. Need For Speed is a perfect example of this, with nary a gamer knowing exactly what kind of game – beyond driving a car of some sort – they’re likely to get next.

Most importantly, the genre’s appeal to its target market is largely dependent on its place on a scale which starts at lapping a radically inclined sandpit on an ATV, and ends taking half a psi from your front tires to counter understeer. In other words, from arcade silliness to pure simulation. That’s not to say that enjoyment of one necessarily precludes enjoyment of the other, but folks are fickle.

 Forza Motorsport 3 – and we’re sure that the bods at Turn 10 will probably disagree with us based on the number of noob aids in the game – is pure sim. That’s not to take anything away from those little nuggets of accessibility the developer has added this time around – which are numerous. Thanks to GRiD it seems everyone is on the rewind bandwagon. Cock things up and trash your car and a quick slap of the rewind button will see you back on track as if nothing ever happened. Recent games such as DiRT 2 have moderated it by rationing its uses per race depending on your chosen level of difficulty. Forza 3 imposes no such limits, but its penalty is far more devious. Your wonderful, never to be repeated, one of a kind lap time? It won’t count. Which doesn’t stop you from winning races, but makes victory pretty inevitable. Not using it, however, reaps great rewards once you realise you’re one of only a small percentage who have posted clean lap times.

 In actual fact any transgression, however slight – a wheel slipping off the track, brushing or hitting a sidewall or trading paint with another car for example – will be punished with a rude exclamation mark beside your lap time indicating its floppy leaderboard impotence. Then there’s the variously adjustable driver aids which will allow you practically any level of involvement from manual shift (with or without clutch), no ABS or traction control and no race lines – essentially like real life – through to having everything done for you besides steering, allowing your four year old to get to grips with your Lambo Reventon.

The genius of Forza 3, though, is what lies beneath the surface. The more you scratch away, the more satisfaction is uncovered. Your first few hours with the game may be spent learning to drive and incrementally upgrade your family saloon or hatchback, but its true depth is only revealed gradually as the need to nibble away at those lap times one millisecond at a time forces you deeper into your car’s tuning setup.

Turn 10 has gone to extraordinary lengths to create a realistic physics model for each of the zillion tuning and upgrade combinations for each of the game’s 400+ cars. Even the tiniest of adjustments will make a difference to your lap times, which makes tinkering an increasingly addictive pastime.

… continued