Forza Motorsport™A Career in Racing
All of the elements that make Forza so sharp come together flawlessly in the Driving Career mode, including excruciating authenticity that makes each and every car handle just like the real thing, fierce and competitive A.I. opponents, as much micro-management as you could ever want, and of course, amazing levels of customisation that make your career truly your own.
When you begin your Driving Career, you first must choose a continent on which to begin. Your choice of continent is much more than just cosmetic, too. Depending on where you begin, you'll start with a different car, and throughout the game, you'll get better deals and more access to vehicles associated with that continent's premiere manufacturers. I chose Asia, which meant I started off with a zippy little Celica, and in the course of participants in several races on the Asian continent, I won several other models, one of which I chose for my ‘main wheels’ in the early part of the game.
In general, my gaming tendencies sway more toward roleplaying games (RPGs), shooters and arcade racers. Driving Career mode immediately won me over because, in many ways, it’s a racing roleplaying game. In roleplaying terms, the "credits" in Forza serve as both experience points and gold pieces. Every credit earned counts toward your level, which dictates which races you can take part in, what car types you might have access to and many other factors. You can then turn around and spend those credits on customisation and accessories, including hundreds of upgrades, tweaks and modifications. As you accumulate more and more cars (either through purchase or winning races), you might be tempted to sell them, but think hard before you do. Many races only allow certain classes, and as you modify and upgrade your favourite ride, you'll find that the car's class changes, so it might not be able to partake in all the races you want. Your won cars, however, almost certainly can. You’ll find that it’ll pay at times to spread your customising across your whole garage of vehicles to snag the win in a certain class!
To truly maximise the benefits in this career mode—and get the best possible experience to prepare you for online competitions—you'll want to tweak the difficulty settings to a level at which you're comfortable. Each difficulty adjustment affects not just how hard or easy the races might be, but also how many credits you can earn – and it’s all about the credits. Here's a handy chart for easy reference:
As your driving career continues, you'll likely begin to find yourself obsessing the little details—or detailing, as the case may be. I decided early on that I wanted a way to track my wins, so I went with the time-honoured practice of notching. In the case of my hotrod Celica, the notches took the form of a tiny yellow lightning bolt detail that I added to my car each time I took gold. You'll discover other ways to make your cars utterly unique. Personally, I've killed hours just dealing with decals (and trying to make them look like superhero logos). How can you possibly get in all those races when there's detailing to be done? Easy. Train up a Drivatar … Possibly the most innovative and remarkable feature in an already remarkable game, the Drivatar is an A.I.-controlled version of you—as in you, the player—that you ‘teach’ how to drive by taking a series of tests. If you need a lunch break (or don't want to take chances on a tough, long race in which one misstep could mean yet another restart), you can assign your Drivatar to drive for you. You can also go head to head with the Drivatar and watch in abject horror as you see how you actually drive from the outside. It's an amazing training tool that's infinitely better than a ghost car. It even lets you ‘sim’ races while you observe and note where your skills need improvement.
We've barely scratched the surface of the Driving Career mode here and it's only one of the many innovative components of this very immersive, addictive and even educational racing sim. The cleverly constructed career mode in Forza will help train you in its aggressively authentic racing world … and it's more than enough to severely hook even the most hardened racing gamers.
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