Forza Motorsport 5 - Limited Edition (Xbox One)

Shock and awe..!! Cool must playNICE SIMULATION GAME

I'm a Forza 4 addict and this game is the reason I bought Xbox One. So hopefully that helps you know where I'm coming from.The Cars:Amazing. Simply amazing. By far the most detail I've seen from a console game. Every car can also now be ogled in ForzaVista which had me playing with my Mazda MX-5 for quite some time opening doors, retracting the roof, revving the engine, an flipping the headlights on and off. The selection is indeed a giant step down from FM4 in terms of quantity, but I can forgive that given the insane level of detail and the fact that despite a limited selection, they made pretty good choices on what to put in. It is not a glut of supercars, but is instead the typical Forza mix of everyday cars, supercars, hypercars, racing cars, and classics. There are a few omissions that I found rather glaring right off the bat, for example no Lancia Stratos and no MK6 or 7 VW GTI. These can be forgiven though given such tasteful additions as an Ariel Atom V8 and (finally) a North American 2013 MX-5, and other cool cars like the insane Renault Clio V6.Driving: Forza veterans will feel at home here, sort of. All the assists except rewind can be turned off as I prefer, and the manual w/clutch option is still there. However the difficulty of driving without assists (or as the Topgear crew might say "the electronic nannies") has been dramatically increased. Between the tighter feeling tracks and the larger number of opponents and the fact that my MX-5 was very hard to control with the assists turned off, there was a good and satisfying amount of tension in the races, despite the presence of the rewind safety net. Fortunately, with the increased difficulty, the money prizes were reworked and now as long as you net a podium finish (3rd or above) you will get the maximum money prize. Damage does not detract from your winnings now, but using the rewind feature does. The rumble triggers also really enhance the experience, I can feel when I am about to break traction, the thrum of the engine as I shift, and the pulsating as I lock up my brakes. It all adds up to make a thrilling, and challenging but fair driving experience, especially from the vastly improved cockpit view.Upgrades: Nothing has really changed here except they are no longer free if you get affinity level 4 on a particular make of car. You still have your basic options of Quick Upgrade, Engine, Platform & Handling, Drivetrain, Tires & Rims, Aero & Appearance, and of course my favorite Conversion.Paint: Here is where some long desired changes have finally been implemented. You can finally paint stock wheels. And finally matte is an option (yay for matte white wheels!). There is the usual huge selection of vinyls, and now you can fit 3000 shapes on each side except front and rear bumper which are limited to 1000. Additionally, there is just a huge number of paint options. Gloss, matte, metal flake, two tone polish, two tone semigloss, two tone matte, carbon fiber, camos, wood, chrome, polished aluminum, gold, the number of options is simply fantastic, and I can't wait to see what people create.Money and Misc Stuff: A few changes here. First the vehicle performance index has been changed slightly. Not a huge deal, but the ratings don't seem to translate to previous Forzas. Money is earned by racing, and if you put something up on storefront from what I understand, but now it is also earned by your Drivatar, a representation of you that is based off your driving habits and earns money when you are not in game. Money is also earned when you increase your driver level as before. The affinity system has been reworked though, and now for example when I race a Mazda and level up Mazda's affinity, I will get a percentage based affinity bonus of cash with every race I finish in a Mazda.Menu and interface: It took a few minutes to get sorted on this, but the new cleaner and quicker menu system is a VAST improvement over previous efforts.Conclusion: As a long time Forza fan I found a lot to love about Forza 5 just from my few hours playing. I will be back with updates if my opinion changes on anything, but I can honestly say this is the most impressive Forza game yet. Above all else it is the driving experience and the cars beauty both audio and visual that truly floors me here. If you are obsessed with cars as I am I can't recommend this game enough!Update: I found a few things that bug me. Number one as others have mentioned is microtransactions. I have never liked the token system, and sadly now they're available to use on everything that you use in game CR for. It's easy enough to ignore, but if you are impatient and want the million dollar cars immediately you won't be happy, and you'll probably be tempted to buy tokens, please I ask that you don't as that will only lead to more microtransactions down the road.The second thing that bugs me is that aside from the nice steel book and a small number of exclusive cars (that will undoubtedly become available to everyone later) there is zero reason to get the Limited Edition. VIP membership is nice I guess, but it doesn't seem to have a huge benifit yet other than being gifted a few cars.Thirdly, ForzaVista is not quite as fleshed out as I would have liked. On a lot of the low end cars you can't even pop the hood or the trunk, or even the rear passenger doors, and yet on some you can. There isn't the nice full body of narration either like there was in Forza 4, and Clarkson no longer talks about each car. Instead you get one blurb for each car by a random woman. Still great that every car can be looked at, just wish they'd added more narration.Fourth, the cockpit view when racing is only visible in the forward quarter again. I was really hoping that since they had to model every interior of every car for ForzaVista that they would make the cockpit view so that when you look behind you would see the rear windscreen, rear seats/interior, but instead you look behind and it's a bumper camera which really damges the immersiveness of driving with the cockpit view.Fifth, there is no storefront or auction. When I think back I remember hearing about this, but I guess I forgot about it and didn't realize how much I'd miss it. I used to make some awesome custom camo vinyl groups in FM4 and now I no longer have a storefront to show them off. These were two features that really should have been kept (regardless of the money glitching), and it's baffling to me that they ditched these staples of the online Forza community.Sixth, and final point, despite clearly having the ability to render headlights switched on, and seeing some cars race with running lights on, there is no option to turn them on/off while racing. L3 and R3 are even unbound and free to do this. This is a pretty minor point, but there are some tracks, like Bathurst which is set at dusk, where racing with headlights on would look really cool.A couple of other good things to report however. First is money is real easy to come by. Race payouts aren't any higher, but I seem to level up quicker, and after roughly 15-20 hours I have 1.5 million CR in the bank and roughly 1 million CR worth of car in the garage (not counting gifted cars). Secondly, they brought back and improved the rivals system slightly. Even in regular racing you are always kept aprised of who's time you beat, and who's time is up next. Thirdly, the Grand Prix and F1 cars are great and, based on what I know about them, accurate. You have to keep your speed high to maintain grip (just like the real thing, speed is needed to keep the tires hot and sticky and the downforce high) and while they don't disintegrate if you crash they are extrememly fragile and even a moderate impact can seriously impact the vehicle's performance. Fourth, I am just really enjoying savoring each car I buy. Despite this game's flaws (some of which are quite serious), I cannot help but enjoy it. This is why I plan to keep my rating at five stars. Yes there are six things which I listed that would make this experience near perfect, but I am someone genuinely obsessed with cars, and this game itches that scratch better than any other game in recent memory.

I’ve been playing Forza Motorsport for about 10 hours now and have to say my overall impression is that I feel the game was judged a little harshly by those who are paid to do this review thing. The first thing is all the bad that comes with this game. It has fewer cars, less tracks, day one DLC and the almighty sin micro transactions!!!!I’ve read the developers (Turn 10) explanation as to the fewer cars and tracks. Apparently they redid the models of all the cars and tracks and what we get is what they feel is all they could have ready to ship for day one. I’m not going to complain about it and would obviously love to have more cars and tracks just like everybody else. I personally only use the cars I want to use and don’t really buy every single little car. I’ve actually liked the Forza series more last generation due to the fact that they didn’t have as many variations of vehicles and focused more on the exotics and hyper cars that I want to drive. It is what it is though so I’ll take it with a Mckayla Maroney smirk on my face (Look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about).The micro transaction thing was in Forza 4 and rears its ugly head again. Overall it’s being blown out of proportion due to this being a release day game. The transactions in this game are by no means pay to win. Forza 5 has changed the level up system now to where you no longer receive a free car every time your level up your driver level. So you have to race all the races and earn credits and then buy cars. If you are part of the people who enjoy the grind that the racing game genre has traditionally offered then you love the new harder system. If you are part of the new generation of I can’t wait a single second for anything and I need a McClaren P1 as soon as I start the game. You can go right ahead and spend your hard earned coin to get that car right off the bat. This is a huge complaint that I see on the Forza Motorsport forums a lot, about how you have to actually play the game to get the good cars. What an interesting concept I know, play the game you just spend 60 bucks on. Well Turn 10 has obliged. Feel free to buy your way to the cars you want without playing the game at all. I will not be using this system as I typically play through these games and enjoy doing so. Came up with the Gran Turismo series grinding my way to the top and I’ll continue to do so.One of the major changes that I love the most with Forza 5 is the addition of the drivatars. When you are racing you are also in the process of training a drivatar that races how you race. Almost like Spec B in Gran Turismo but not really at all. After about three races your drivatar is ready to enter the world and race in other people’s races. No more Mr. Rossi leading the pack anymore now it’s a real gamertag that has been trained by a real person. During the races I have participated in I have never seen so many cars in so many different lines and wow talk about aggression! There is nothing better than seeing someone you know in your game and then sending them a text that they drive like a lunatic. Even better if you log into the game ever day you will be rewarded with a drivatar reward. Your drivatar participates in races while you’re gone and earns credits that you receive when you start up your game again. Good work drivatar keep driving hard.The next thing is this is the showpiece game for the Xbox One. It runs at a full 60 frames per second flawless and 1080P. It really looks great. There is no better way to say it but Turn 10 tries in every way to make this a celebration of automobiles and the way the cars look is a large part of it. If you are a huge fan of the UK version of Top Gear you will see that they have been fully integrated into the game this time around. Every series opens with a speech from them about their opinion of the cars you will be racing and you will race against the Stigs digital cousin as well. You get an achievement if you beat him. If you find the Top Gear hosts to be annoying then please steer clear of this one (pun intended).Down to the nitty gritty the games starts you out with some lower level cars as usual and as I said earlier the progression is much slower this time around. You can see that Turn 10 will be rewarding that who play this game religiously with all the better cars and that’s not a bad thing. You don’t get the best armor and weapons in an RPG right from the get go either. Each series is nice to as you can get through with one car and I can see they have designed the game and series where you will be able to use a car for multiple series. This will allow you to save those hard to come by credits for the precious supercars we all want. The one thing I hate about the racing series is when you are doing the championship portion of the races. Once you finish a race it auto loads the next race and then you can exit out, not before loading the next race can you exit. If there is a way to not do this then I’ll be honest I have flat out missed it. The load times for this game have always been of the longer sort and continue to be so. When I don’t want to do the next race I don’t want to load it and then wait to exit. I hope if this is how it’s going to be they fix it soon.Other than that if you have played a racing game before this is a great game. If you like this genre of games you will like Forza 5. I’m a Gran Turismo player as well and I still allow myself to enjoy this game. I know that fans of the two series think people like me can’t exist, but this game series has its merits, as well that I truly enjoy just like Gran Turismo has its own. For a launch title I am very happy with the polish and controls of this game. I strictly use the controller and found that you can get a fairly competitive lap with the controller this time around. A nice addition is that they also let you know each lap of each race who your next rival is and allow you to challenge them at the end of the race if you so wish.You will also find that finishing in third place is now the same money as a first or second place finish and the game will consider it gold. Turn 10 did this to encourage players to go out and not be afraid to race against a challenge. It’s a nice touch making it more about learning the tracks and finding your lines more than about turning down the difficulty and riding out the win half a lap ahead of everyone else. This is also a great way to get the most credits for your time. You know so you can go ahead and buy the better cars you want. Overall as I said earlier this is the show piece for the Xbox One and I find myself very happy with the effort for a launch game.

I have never owned or played a Forza game before. I have owned and played all of the Gran Turismo games. So that is the perspective I approach this game from. So if I list something as a pro that has been in for numerous games, that is the reason why.Pros:Force Feedback Throttle and Brake -- This is totally amazing and transformative. Now you can feel when the wheels start to spin on acceleration and when the brakes start to lock on braking. Unfortunately it doesn't look as if the $400 !? steering wheel pedals support this feature.Perfect and Good Turn Feedback -- This is invaluable feedback for around the course. You can think you are going fast through a turn when in fact you are turtle slow. If you get a good or perfect turn, you know you did it right.The graphics are drop dead gorgeous. The cockpits of the cars are so beautifully rendered you are going to want to stay with the inside view. In fact I have not left it and I don't know how to. The sound of the cars is beautiful. Music to my ears.That would not matter if the physics was off. Initially, with a slower car I thought the physics might not have been quite right. However, after driving numerous cars and especially the Ariel Atom, the physics on this game are amazing.Rewind button -- I really love this feature. With GT you can have a perfect race or lap going and then a computer car can do something stupid to you and it is all for naught. Start over. If that sort of masochism is something you enjoy then you will not like this feature. However, at any point in the race you press the y button and it rewinds you a few seconds. You can do that a few times. Then you start agin from that point. This is so intuitive that I found this feature by accident. There is a deduction in prize money and experience for using1970s Formula 1 Gran Prix cars -- I own the 1976 Ferrari -- This car is amazing to drive. Unfortunately, it is not the 1000hp monster I was hoping for. It is an amazingly agile car with decent horsepower. The Ariel Atom is actually a wilder ride than the 1970 GP car. But so far this is my favorite carI really like how the money system is tied to drivers aids and opponent difficulty. Want to earn money faster. Simple, turn off driving aides and make the opponents more difficult.Tracks -- Wow there are some fun tracks in here. There are many familiar tracks and they race the same as in GT. The new tracks are really fun. The Prague is my absolute favorite. Unfortunately, there is no Nurburgring in this game. That circuit is a pain to learn but once you have it is and incredibly fun circuit.Drivatars -- So far I haven't really noticed any pluses or minuses to the drivatar system. I do like that my drivatar can earn money for me while I am not playing. The Ariel Atom I drive is usually much lighter than the other cars I am racing. Because of this I have noticed I have been punted off the track a number of times. Whether this is because of aggressive drivatars or because of too many cars in too small of a space I can tell.Remarkably free of bugs.Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear -- Enough SaidConsIn App purchases -- Well you knew it was coming but you still wish you would get the whole game when you pay $80 for it. However, it will be very easy to spend $180 for the game when all is said and done. $80 for limited edition. $50 for 6 car pack season pass. $50 for enough tokens to level up very quickly. Now don't get me wrong, the amount of work that goes into making just one of these cars is staggering. So $180 really isn't that bad for the full experience. Just be aware that is the real price tags.Car Packs don't put the car in your garage. You either have to earn enough in the game to buy them or use real money to buy some tokens to repurchase the cars you already purchased. There is no way that I have found to earn money in a quick fashion. With all aids of an tough opponents, the most you can expect to get is around $20,000. The Lotus F1 car costs $6,000,000.This means in a best case scenario it will take 150 races to earn that car. In GT, as you progress in the game, the races give you more money. And the best online challenge race gives $1,000,000 per event. As it stands right now, to get all of the best cars is going to take around 1,000 races. The Lotus costs 10,000 tokens which is $15-30 depending on how many tokens you buy. Nonetheless, if I pay real money for a car pack, I don't expect to have to earn it in the game or pay more money for the chance to drive it. This is a big foul in my book.Once you do have your nice car there is not much to really do with it. There is a F1 series, 70 F1 series, Prototype series, etc. One of each series. After that there is not much point for the car you took 150 races to earn.Interface -- The interface is confusing to me. I am sure it is because I am used to GT and I am starting to get used to it.No 1960s Formula 1 Gran Prix cars yetLeveling up doesn't mean anything. All it does is give you $31,000 bonus money. There is no real point of it.No point to winning -- You get the gold medal for coming in third. With the current pay out system, there should be an increase in the challenge to switch the gold to coming in either second or first.Amazon lists the following about the Limited Edition -- 1,250 car tokens (a $9.99 value) that will allow Limited Edition owners instant access to any car in the game -- This is not true as any of the really nice cars cost 2,000+ tokens with the most expensive being the Lotus clocking in at a whopping 10,000 tokensOverallThis game is the reason I purchased the XBOX One. The visuals, realism, and driving experience have totally made it worth it.For those of you who love GT, this simulator is a must own. For those who are intimidated by driving simulators but would love to drive million dollar cars, Forza 5 welcomes you and gives you any aide you might need to minimize frustration.For me, it was well worth the purchase and, if you will excuse me I have to get back to my racing now.

After two weeks with Forza 5, unlike so many people who rated it one and two stars after less than two days at launch (and after what appears to be some initial bugs with the in-game finances sorted out), I felt I was adequately prepared to write a concise and fair review. I'd have rated it 4.5 if I could, but since I can't truthfully give it a 5, I have to dial back to a 4.The pros are easily obvious. Beautiful graphics, the car modeling is spectacular, and the handling is better and more realistic than any previous Forza title. Small changes in the setup yield big results, so it rewards someone who knows how to adjust a setup. Upgrade parts seem to be cheaper and even a couple point improvement to the performance index makes a noticeable change. For example, upgrading the brakes from stock to a race package is only a couple points toward the PI, but the difference in control and power is immediately noticeable.Cons, you can't argue with the previous assessments that the track list is limited. But what is there is gorgeous, detailed, and varied. Car choice, yes, it's smaller than in the past as well. But I'd honestly rather have quality over quantity just for the sake of car count, unlike other racing games that might have say, 20 different Mitsubishi Evos just to make their claim of 2000 cars. Other minor things... as you increase make affinity, it doesn't give any discount to parts as in previous editions, and no cars are awarded for leveling up or completing championships. All you get when leveling up is 70k credits, and it doesn't seem to go up as you reach higher levels. I'm currently at level 50, and it's been 70k every time. That's 3.5 million so far just from leveling up, but it would be nice to see a few cars come my way for the effort, at least every few levels as in previous versions.The biggest con in my opinion is this "Drivatar" business. While the idea is excellent, the execution is highly flawed. Previous editions of Forza rewarded you slightly when you maxed out your performance and putting you to the front of the grid... not now. I show up for a class C race in a 500 PI, yet I'm behind 12-14 other cars that are in the 490s. Then when the race starts, you get to work your way around those 12-14 rolling chicanes to have a chance of getting up to earn a gold medal. If I wanted to get knocked around by a bunch of clowns who think turning on the straight, using you as a tool to slow down going into a turn, or just outright t-boning you mid-turn is a racing strategy, I'd go into multiplayer. It's even worse if you have friends who have only played a dozen or so races and have horrible Drivatar images. You're stuck with your friends, so if you have a couple who just aren't that good, it's frustrating to race against them every single race (that isn't an autocross or passing challenge). Braking in the middle of straights with nobody in front of them, turning right into you on a left turn, and piling into the first turn like it's the last and completely clogging the track (especially at Spa... and who jams on the brakes at the bottom of Eau Rouge?) regardless of the skill level you choose, welcome to Drivatar. You would think bumping up the difficulty, they would be better drivers, but that is not the case. Whether beginner or expert, it feels like bumper cars until you can get clear of the pack.Unfortunately, it seems like we're stuck with this... perhaps (if someone at Turn 10 is listening) the ability could be added to kick out Drivatars, to get rid of the ones who drive like fools could be added and create a field of opponents who won't seemingly go out of their way to wreck me when going in a straight line. That would be a very welcome addition.That said, I thoroughly enjoy the game... it's rewarding when you do make it through the minefield of Drivatars without any serious damage (or a half dozen rewinds), and the new feedback triggers make it even more immersive as you can feel the what the tires are doing under acceleration and braking. The achievements available are varied (yet still weigh too heavily on multiplayer and community for my taste) and not particularly difficult to attain. Some will take a bit of a grind, but that's the way it's always been in the numbered versions of Forza. Multiplayer can be fun as well, as long as you either race with friends who are on the same page as you as far as etiquette, or luck into finding a group who know how to race fairly, instead of a group who play like it's a demolition derby, or cheat by cutting corners.One final note, everyone who was complaining about "microtransactions" and how this game "reaches into your pocket" in previous reviews... the only time it requires you to spend money is if you want to download the OPTIONAL car packs or buy OPTIONAL tokens to get cars without having to earn in-game credits, something that has existed for years in the Forza universe. I'm at level 50, yet haven't spent a single token of the 1250 that came with the LE. And as for screaming about how you have to buy the bonus cars with credits, I can't remember offhand from F3, but I know the LE of F4, it gave you the exclusive cars that you had to buy, but they weren't gifts. Same as in the LE for F5. I just don't get the outrage, since it's the exact same as it has been in previous editions. Does the season pass cost extra? Yes, but it always has, but it's also always been a discount over paying for six car packs individually... yet people are acting like this is all something new. But it's not like they require you to spend real money to advance in the game like so many other reviewers are making it out to be here. You can accomplish every goal in the game with the cars that are included on-disc, no additional purchase required.The only people complaining are the ones who want to level up faster than usual (which in my opinion, is paced just fine- you gain two or three levels every championship), or get cars without putting in the work. Maybe if people did their homework and signed up for Forza Rewards, they'd find out how to get millions of in-game credits for FREE, along with gift cars including a Ferrari F12 and McLaren P1. It's not like Skylanders or Infinity where you MUST to buy a $10 figure every time you want to do something new in the game.

While currently Forza 5 is not the best overall Forza game, it does have the best over driving experience. Turn 10 has been taking steps to improve the game over time, addressing criticisms of Forza 5 and of the franchise itself.When the game first came out I had plenty of disappointments. The game felt like it was designed like a "free to play" game. There was no progression in career mode, where races requiring more expensive and more powerful cars, that need more skill to race them did not net you more money. Increasing in Driver Level did not increase your reward. And you never won a car. While saving up for your dream car took just as long as past Forza titles, the lack of reward cars meant while you saved up your garage stayed smaller than past Forza titles for longer. But the game had the ability to use real money to buy cars, and upgrade them. "Yay?"Career mode feels more like "quick play". Races are short, and don't pay very much compared to other things you can do in the game. New tracks added to the game did add race events to career mode, but they're just additions to a check list of bonus races. You don't need to beat races to unlock more races. You need only to have a car that can compete. While to some this may make the career feel open, you just don't feel like you're progressing. Career in Forza 5 feels more like trying for the "Bucket List" achievements in past Forza titles where you just had a grid of race events, and are trying to check them off.The difficulty is all over the place, because AI is hit and miss. Their biggest draw is the claim that they aren't really AI, but copies of real people's driving styles, including those on your very own friends list. There may be some quirks that get added to the AI attributes, but that seems to be the extent of it. I have a friend I can never beat when race online, yet I have no problems beating his Drivatar on any difficulty. The one thing that makes the AI challenging in this game is race length and starting position. Unbeatable AI difficulty is anything but. These aren't Drivatars of real world race car drivers setting their real world lap times. Always starting in an arbitrary 14/16 you can take first place in the 3-5 laps allotted. Racing in customer or Free Play and the AI won't even upgrade their cars, making them even less of a challenge.Turn 10 made changes to economy in the game. Making cars cheaper, increasing Driver Level payouts, and increasing the amount of credits given by ForzaRewards. In the month of December you could get a many as 6 million credits from Forza Rewards. In addition Turn 10 kept giving away free cars, one of which the most expensive car in the game, the Lotus E21 F1 Race Car. This gave players several high-end cars in their garage, and plenty of money to buy more. Forza 5 became the easiest Forza title to gain credits in, and buy a large stable of cars. In the "you win some, you lose some" department, this means that credits start meaning very little very fast.Where the game really shines is how the cars look and feel. They look amazing, and they feel fantastic to drive. Grab some friends, create a customer lobby, and this game feels like one of the best Forza titles Turn 10 has made. You can feel the shift in weight, and the grip of the tires more than ever before. Much of that has to do with the rumble feedback in the XBO controller. The most rewarding feeling in the game is a turn well taken.While there are nowhere near as many cars in Froza 5 as there were in past Forza tites, what there is in the game looks amazing, and each car feels unique. There have been multiple car packs released adding more to list of cars to drive. In the past people who purchased a car pack were treated to a free car in their garage from that car pack. In Forza 5 that off the same way. Now Turn 10 has made a change where if you buy a car pack you can get one of every car from that car pack for free in your garage. This is true for free car packs, like promotional downloads, or Limited Edition, Day One car packs.New tracks to the series help the game keep from feeling like the "Same old, same old", even if some franchise favorites are missing. Since the release 2 tracks with multiple variants have been added to the game. Road America, which merely came back, but it does have a new variant. And Long Beach, a historic track which for me is now one of my favorite Street Circuits, up there with Tokyo in Gran Turismo. Long Beach being a free addition to the game. New to the series and part of the core game are Spa, Yas Marina, Bathurst, and Prague. Bernese Alps makes a return with noticeable improvements to the track variants.Forza 5 is a good first effort for the now current generation on the Xbox One, where every car and track had to be built for the Xbox One. Not as much initial content as some may have wanted, career mode still feels nothing like a career, and there was very rocky first month start for the game. But the game is improving, the driving is great, the game is beautiful, and is still very fun to play with friends, or just burning laps away solo on the track.