| | Operation Sports:Race the World in Forza Motorsport
By Shawn Drotar, Managing Editor, OperationSports.com
Forza Motorsport™ was made for Xbox Live®.
No matter what type of car you want to drive or what kind of race you want to run, you can find ready and willing opponents from all around the world on Xbox Live, 24/365.
There are two major ways to take Forza Motorsport online, using Arcade Mode or Career Mode. Both offer different experiences. Arcade Mode lets you sample all the Forza online modes at any time, while Career Mode augments the single-player game and allows you to earn credits online and use them later to buy new vehicles or improve existing ones in your Career.
Today, we take a look at everything Forza Motorsport has to offer using Xbox Live!
Head to the Forza raceway on Xbox Live.
If you've played any game on Xbox Live before, then you'll immediately recognize the Friends List, along with the Quick Match and Optimatch options. The Friends List lets you invite other friends to your game, view their Forza Motorsport stats, or just check up on what other game they're playing at the moment.
Quick Match drops you right into a race with other random Xbox Live players. If you choose Optimatch, you can filter through the game's setup criteria to ensure that you find the exact type of race you're interested in playing. Those options include: - Game Type: Any, Circuit Race, Point-to-Point, and Buy and Sell Cars (where you can use your credits to purchase another gamer's car or sell one of your own online!).
- Group Race: No, Team Challenge (where the combined time of your team determines the winners).
- Prefer ELO: Yes/No. ELO is a ranking system that takes many factors into account to rate a player's overall skill. By using the ELO, you have a better chance of playing against gamers of comparable skill.
- Car Class: Any, Class D, Class C, Class B, Class A, Class S, Class R. These are all the car classes in the game, so you can race anything from low-powered stock vehicles to million-dollar supercars.
- Track: Select "Any" if you don't care what track you race, or select any of the games' 35 courses.
- Laps: If applicable to the Game Type, you can choose between Any, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50, or 75 laps to race. The longer the race, the more credits the winner earns.
- Language: Any, English, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese. Xbox Live is everywhere, and since Forza Motorsport racers can come from anywhere in the world, the game is ready for them!
In addition to the options found in Optimatch, you can choose to create your own match, which puts even more options at your disposal: - Max Players: From 2 to 8.
- Friend Slots: From 1 to 7. The Friend Slots are reserved for people in your Friends List. No other players can log into your game and take these spots, so it's a great way to set up a private game with your buddies!
- Damage Type: Cosmetic, Limited, or Simulation. The harder you set this, the more challenging the race is, and the more credits are available to win.
- Tires and Fuel: Off or Simulation. Setting this to Simulation means that you have to pit in longer races and be cognizant of your tire wear for maximum realism. Doing so also increases the race's purse.
- Collision: Default (on Racing Line), On (Always Collide), Off, or Ghosts. Depending on the type of race you want to run, changing this setting discourages "griefers," unsportsmanlike people who play just to wreck other players and ruin everyone else's fun, by preventing them from joining your game. It's also helpful for beginners who just want to learn without accidentally bumping into everyone on the track.
Choose a track and invite your friends!
As you can see, the Optimatch and Create Match menus give you full control over your Forza Motorsport experience on Xbox Live.
Career Mode's options work in much the same way, except you are limited to driving only the cars you have purchased or won in Career Mode. However, instead of having to race against the Xbox® A.I., you can bring your souped-up rides online with your buddies and go toe-to-toe for the checkered flag, earning credits and bragging rights in the process!
Have you met a group of friends online, or do you already know other Forza enthusiasts? Then start a Car Club and have all your Club's statistics tracked as a group. Then check the leaderboards and see how your Club stacks up against others around the world.
This is only a taste of what Forza Motorsport brings to Xbox Live. The game is one of the deepest and most realistic driving simulators ever, and the game's online functionality sets the bar just as high.
There's a whole world of drivers out there, so what are you waiting for? Get your copy of Forza Motorsport, log on to Xbox Live, and show 'em what you're made of!
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